A lightning strike killed a group of farmers harvesting wheat in one province. Heavy rains also caused dozens of houses to collapse in the northwest and east of the country.

Friba Rezayee, the first woman to represent Afghanistan at the Olympics, said Afghan women should still be allowed to participate as part of the IOC Refugee Olympic Team.

Investigators have uncovered evidence linking last month’s deadly attack on the Karakoram Highway to the same Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan cell that killed nine Chinese nationals in a 2021 bombing on the same road.

The pact will harden tighten border procedures and force all the nations in the bloc to share responsibility for migrants.

After attacks in Russia and Pakistan, analysts expect more focus on combating terrorism when China chairs the SCO in July.

The move to deport the Rohingya refugees happened just as India enacted a controversial new citizenship law.

Afghan carpets like watercolours, candles that tell the Palestinian story, a meshing of old and new – Arab Design Now is the centrepiece of a biennial in Doha that announces Qatar as a design destination.

Afghan women have been relying on their handicraft skills to feed their families, making products like dresses, carved furniture and jewellery to sell.

Using Afghanistan as a homebase, Isis cells have hit targets in Russia, Pakistan, Iran and Turkey this year. Baloch separatists have also stepped up their attacks on Chinese interests in South Asia.

UK judges delayed decision on Assange’s last-ditch extradition appeal bid amid concerns he could face death penalty in US. Russia’s foreign ministry said UK’s judicial system was a ‘mockery’.

Moscow court lengthened Wall Street Journal reporter’s pre-trial detention to June 30. US ambassador said Kremlin was using him and other US citizens as pawns.

Putin said investigators have not determined who ordered attack but it was necessary to ‘find out why the terrorists, after committing their crime, tried to flee to Ukraine’.

The top two US generals who oversaw the evacuation of Afghanistan as it fell in 2021 told lawmakers that the Biden administration inadequately planned for the evacuation and did not order it in time.

The two men had made preparations for an attack on police and other people near the parliament in the Swedish capital, ‘in close coordination’ with IS members.

Monday’s operation targeted the Hafiz Gul Bahadur militant faction, which claimed responsibility for the attack on a military outpost that left seven soldiers dead.

New Delhi announces the long delayed implementation of the Citizenship Amendment Act, which sparked violent protests in 2019 when it was unveiled.

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari administered the oath of office to ministers at the presidential office in Islamabad. Sharif previously held the position of PM from April 2022 to August 2023.

Critics fear changes to the 2019 citizenship law, combined with a proposed national register of citizens, can discriminate against the nation’s 200 million Muslims.

Afghanistan’s Taliban government publicly executed three convicted murderers in the past week at sports stadiums as thousands watched.

Herbert Fritz travelled to Afghanistan last year and published an article titled ‘Vacations with the Taliban’. He was arrested shortly afterwards on suspicion of espionage.

A United Nations report says decrees barring women from most areas of public life are being enforced through arrest, harassment and intimidation.

Some politicians have called for the polls to be postponed, but the Election Commission of Pakistan says Thursday’s vote will go on.

New UN report says the threat from al-Qaeda, Islamic State and their affiliates remains high in key conflict zones – and that threat levels have risen in some regions including Europe.

Observers said the Taliban’s hopes that the completed project will become a link to China’s vast network are unlikely to be shared by Beijing.

There are no official laws about male guardianship in Afghanistan, but the Taliban have said women cannot move around or travel a certain distance without a man who is related to her by blood or marriage.

Tehran and Islamabad have mounted attacks across each other’s borders to target rebel groups.