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At least five people were killed and 50 others were injured when a bomb exploded near a procession of Muharram mourners in Punjab, Pakistan, news sources said. An explosion targeting an Ashura procession in Pakistan’s Punjab has killed at least five people and injured dozens more, Al-Mayadeen reported. Videos circulating …

Tropical storm Grace strengthened to a hurricane on Wednesday as it barreled toward Mexico’s Caribbean coast, threatening to bring heavy rain, flash flooding, and large waves, meteorologists said. A hurricane warning was in effect for a string of beach resorts, including Cancun, on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, the US National Hurricane …

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Wednesday there was about 4,500 U.S. military personnel in Afghanistan’s capital Kabul and there “have been no hostile interactions with the Taliban and our lines of communication with Taliban commanders remain open.”

Police say the unclaimed attack was carried out on a convoy transporting workers to Shell oil and gas project, killing seven people. Seven people have been killed in an attack on a convoy transporting workers to a Shell oil and gas project in Nigeria’s southeast, police say. No group claimed …

More than 900 Polish troops are involved in the operation, which comes after EU members accused Minsk of opening the gates. Poland has deployed hundreds of troops to support its border guards at the frontier with Belarus as a surge of refugees and migrants sought to enter the country. Defence …

Spain plans to airlift around 500 people including Spanish embassy staff and Afghans who worked with them and their families from Kabul, radio station Cadena SER said on Wednesday, citing sources close to the evacuation. A first military plane landed at Kabul airport late on Wednesday morning, the Spanish Foreign …

China has again called on the US to abide by the provisions of the Beijing-Washington communique and halt military ties to Chinese Taipei, insisting that the island territory is an inalienable part of China. Marking the 39th anniversary of the issuance of the communique regarding arms sales to the Chinese …

At least three people were killed in anti-Taliban protests in the Afghan city of Jalalabad on Wednesday, witnesses said, as the Islamist group moved to consolidate power and Western countries ramped up evacuations from a chaotic Kabul airport. Thousands of people are trying to flee the country, fearing a return …

A Singapore court sentenced a British man to six weeks in prison on Wednesday, local media reported, after he repeatedly breached coronavirus protocols by refusing to wear a face mask in public. Benjamin Glynn, 40, was found guilty on four charges over his failure to wear a mask on a …

Malaysia’s king will name a new prime minister as soon as possible but the appointee will have to face a confidence vote in parliament to prove his majority, the palace said in a statement on Wednesday. Muhyiddin Yassin resigned as prime minister on Monday after conceding he had lost his …

China’s President Xi Jinping on Wednesday spoke with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, Chinese state television said. China will unswervingly develop friendly relations with Iran and the two sides should continue to support each other on issues concerning each other’s core interests and major concerns, Xi was quoted by the state …

Australia flew 26 people out of Afghanistan in its first rescue flight, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Wednesday, after Australian troops arrived to help with the evacuation from Kabul airport that has been secured by U.S. and British colleagues. Australia said on Monday it would send 250 military personnel …

German Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke with Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Kahn, the Emir of Qatar and the head of the U.N. Refugee Agency (UNHCR) on Tuesday evening, her spokesman said on Wednesday. “The chancellor spoke yesterday, in the early evening, with Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Kahn as well as with …

Seventeen people were injured on Wednesday in a stampede at a gate to the airport in the Afghan capital, Kabul, a NATO security official said, as Western countries stepped up the evacuation of their diplomats and others. Afghan civilians seeking to leave after the Taliban seized the capital on Sunday …

At least two US officials stationed in Germany began to seek medical treatment after developing symptoms of the mysterious health ailment known as Havana Syndrome, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday, citing unnamed US diplomats. No further details were provided.

A statue of a prominent anti-Taliban fighter killed by the group before they took power for the first time in the 1990s has been decapitated in Bamiyan city, residents said Tuesday. “We are not sure who has blown up the statue (of Abdul Ali Mazari), but there are different groups …

Five states have intensive care units over 90% full. The United States is facing a COVID-19 surge this summer as the more contagious delta variant spreads. More than 622,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 and over 4.3 million people have died from the disease worldwide, according to real-time data compiled …

US authorities arrested a Chicago pharmacist Tuesday for selling dozens of official cards showing proof of COVID-19 vaccination on eBay, the Justice Department said. The department said Tangtang Zhao sold 125 official Centers for Disease Control and Prevention vaccination cards for $10 each. Zhao worked at an unidentified chain of …

Voting tech firm Smartmatic Corp has accused Fox News of executing a coordinated disinformation campaign, saying that the network perpetrated the narrative that the firm conspired against Donald Trump in last year’s United States presidential election. A Fox News lawyer was grilled by a judge about the network’s extensive coverage …

As they completed their takeover of Afghanistan, the Taliban insisted that they would not revert to the brutal medieval rule that turned the hardline Islamist group into an international pariah in the late 1990s. Dubbed the Taliban 2.0 for their skilled use of social media, the militant’s image revamp is …