Asia

Mourners from Afghanistan’s minority Shia community buried their dead on Saturday after a suicide attack claimed by ISIS killed more than 60 people. A gravedigger in the Shia cemetery overlooking the northern city of Kunduz told AFP they had handled 62 bodies, and reports suggested a final toll of up …

UN officials signed a deal with Bangladesh on Saturday to help provide basic services to thousands of Rohingya Muslim refugees who have been moved to camps on a remote island in the Bay of Bengal. The Bangladeshi government has moved nearly 19,000 Rohingya refugees to Bhasan Char island from border …

ISIS claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing in Afghanistan which targeted Shia Muslims in a mosque on Friday. The attack killed at least 46 people and injured more than 140 in Afghanistan’s northeastern Kunduz province. The extremist group said that an ISIS suicide bomber “detonated an explosive vest amid a …

A suicide bomber attacked a mosque in Afghanistan’s northeastern Kunduz province on Friday, killing 46 people and wounding more than 140, the state-run Bakhtar news agency said. Video footage showed bodies surrounded by debris inside the mosque that is used by people from the minority Shi’ite Muslim community. No group …

On Thursday, the CIA announced the creation of a new center focused specifically on China. US Marines and special-operations forces have been training Taiwan’s military for at least one year, according to a report published Thursday. Citing US officials, the Wall Street Journal said that there were around 24 US …

COVID-19 aid supplies have arrived in North Korea but are being held in quarantine in its seaport of Nampho, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday, as the isolated nation shows few signs of easing strict border lockdowns. North Korea sealed its borders when the coronavirus pandemic began last …

India will reopen for tourists from October 15 after being closed for more than a year due to the coronavirus pandemic, the government said Thursday. “After considering various inputs, the MHA (home ministry) has decided to begin granting fresh Tourist Visas for foreigners coming to India through chartered flights with …

Suspected militants shot and killed two teachers in a government school in Indian Kashmir’s main city of Srinagar on Thursday, the latest in a spate of targeted killings in the heavily militarized Himalayan region. Gunmen stormed into the Government Boys Higher Secondary School in Srinagar’s Eidgah area and shot two …

Moscow plans to host international talks on Afghanistan on Oct. 20, President Vladimir Putin’s special representative on Afghanistan said on Thursday. Zamir Kabulov, the representative, did not provide further details on the planned talks in comments carried by Russian news agencies. Moscow hosted an international conference on Afghanistan in March …

The head of a French delegation of senators on Thursday called Taiwan a “country” during a visit to Taipei, risking fury from China which has strongly protested against the trip. Alain Richard, a former defense minister, arrived on Wednesday for a five-day visit despite repeated warnings from the Chinese embassy …

An earthquake of magnitude 5.7 hit southern Pakistan in the early hours of Thursday, killing 20 people, most of them women and children, and injuring about 300, at a time when many victims were asleep, authorities said. The earthquake struck at a shallow depth of about 20 km (12 miles), …

Indonesia’s parliament approved a law on Thursday for one of the country’s most ambitious tax overhauls, including raising VAT next year, a new carbon levy and cancelling a planned corporate tax cut. The law is aimed at optimising revenue collection and improving tax compliance after state coffers took a big …

A strong earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.1 jolted Tokyo and surrounding areas late on Thursday, stopping train lines and causing sporadic power cuts, but there were no reports of major damage, Japan’s public broadcaster NHK said. The tremor, at 10:41 p.m. (1341 GMT), registered “strong-5” on Japan’s intensity …

The Taliban arrested four ISIS members north of the Afghan capital, the group’s chief spokesman said Wednesday, and witnesses said two Taliban fighters were shot dead in the northeast, raising the specter of all-out conflict. Zabihullah Mujahid said an operation was carried out Tuesday night by special unit forces in …

Afghanistan’s state power company has appealed to a United Nations-led mission to give $90 million to settle unpaid bills to Central Asian suppliers before electricity gets cut off for the country given that the three-month deadline for payments has passed. Since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in mid-August, electricity …

Suspected anti-Indian gunmen killed three civilians in separate street shootings within 90 minutes of each other Tuesday in Indian-administered Kashmir, police said. Two men, one a prominent medical shop owner and the other a street hawker from the Indian state of Bihar, were killed in the space of an hour …

“Instead of being weakened by three years of U.S.-trade war, China’s economy has taken a step forward in comparison with the scale of the United States,” China stated. On Tuesday, U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan will meet China’s Foreign Affairs Minister Yang Jiechi in Zurich this week to follow …

The Indian government has pledged to pay $674 in compensation for every death caused by the COVID-19 virus, the BBC reports. India’s supreme court has approved the government’s decision following a petition by lawyers seeking compensation under the country’s disaster management laws. The south Asian nation has officially recorded more …

Taliban forces unlawfully killed 13 ethnic Hazaras, most of them Afghan soldiers who had surrendered to the group, a prominent rights group said Tuesday. The killings took place in the village of Kahor in Daykundi province in central Afghanistan on August 30, according to an investigation by Amnesty International. Eleven …

France’s President Emmanuel Macron said the forthcoming G20 summit must send a clear message to Afghanistan’s Taliban on the conditions for international recognition. In an interview with France Inter radio station broadcast on Tuesday, Macron said those conditions must include equality for women, access to foreign humanitarian operations, and non-cooperation …