The insurgents ordered its fighters to refrain from violence and allow safe passage to anyone seeking to leave, said a Taliban leader in Doha.

There’s only one way out for those fleeing the endgame of the Afghan war, and tickets on the last planes out of Kabul are almost gone.

The best photos from the international wire agencies as chosen by our picture editors

After two decades of fighting in Afghanistan, the Taliban is on the verge of seizing power again for the first time since 2001. But what does the fundamentalist force want?

While children under 12 are not eligible for vaccinations, children now make up about 24 per cent of the nation’s COVID-19 hospitalisations.

A major earthquake reduced buildings to rubble and sent shock waves across the Caribbean, where people fled their homes for fear they might collapse.

France is planning a sporting extravaganza like no other with much of it outdoors and open to the public.

Lebanon’s central bank governor said nobody was running the country as he defended his decision to halt fuel subsidies that have drained currency reserves, saying the government could resolve the problem quickly by passing necessary legislation.

The Duke of York can no longer ignore Virginia Roberts Giuffre and her accusations.

Embassy management asked staff to destroy anything with US logos, flags as the insurgents captured a province just south of the capital.

A five-year political impasse has locked the country in a crisis that has generated an exodus of about 7 million people, the largest in the world.

MPs and relatives questioned how the gunman was able to legally hold a pump action shotgun despite mental health problems and a series of videos he posted online.

Researchers publishing their study in The Lancet said an urgent investigation was needed to identify and promote best infection control practices.

The month ranked in the top 10 warmest for North America, South America, Africa and Oceania, says the US-based NOAA.

Rather than a considered exit, America’s departure is a demoralising moment and another blow to its prestige.

Once a faceless bureaucrat, China’s foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian is delivering a different kind of aggression from his chosen battleground: Twitter.

New figures show 68 Australian-Japanese children have been caught up in international child abductions and custody disputes.

A young man who killed five people, including his mother, in Britain’s first mass shooting in over a decade had complained online about difficulties meeting women and being “beaten down” by life.

The Taliban now controls more than two-thirds of the country just weeks before the US plans to withdraw its last troops.

“The country is going back to the 1990s,” said Noor Agha, 26, who fled to Kabul from Kunduz on Sunday. “We’re in another civil war now.”

While the Taliban have said they’re open to “political solutions” in the peace talks, they have captured at least 13 provincial capitals in little over a week.

When the time comes, and when it’s safe to do so, let’s all reclaim the art of doing things. It’s the least we can do once the pandemic is over.

British ministers are under pressure to explain how a security guard was given a job at the British embassy in Berlin despite red flags in plain sight.

Police said several other casualties were receiving treatment after a gunman kicked down the door of a house and killed five people, including a girl under 10.

It was once a stop on the hippie trail and inspiration for the Lonely Planet guidebooks. So how did Afghanistan come to be defined by war and terrorism?

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Members of the Royal family, including the Prince Charles, fear the damage his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein has caused to the monarchy is already too great.

“The politics was always in the room with us on the other side of the table,” Peter Ben Embarek said of the investigation conducted in China.

Beijing is investing over $US65 billion in infrastructure projects in Pakistan as part of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) under its wider Belt and Road initiative.

Former prime minister Tony Abbot says it would be good for the Trans-Pacific Partnership and good for democracies if Taiwan were brought in from the cold.

The Panamanian-registered ship ran aground in a harbour in northern Japan, then split in two and was leaking oil.

Colleagues and friends of Australian TV journalist Cheng Lei have made a plea to Beijing on the anniversary of her arrest.

Biden’s 2019 campaign pledge could not foresee the pandemic, nor the full measure of Trump’s effort to sow doubt about the legitimacy of the 2020 election.

Of the Italian athletes who competed in Tokyo, 46 were foreign-born. Many more could be representing the country of their birth with a law change.

Much of the world has yet to see enough doses to vaccinate even the most vulnerable. In the Netherlands, however, they are letting surplus doses expire.

Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s lawyer said his team was preparing to present fresh testimony that would throw further doubt on the prince’s account.

The high rate of vaccine refusal in the US has revealed the dark side of American individualism and liberty: selfishness and a lack of empathy. 

New Zealand’s chief epidemiologist said plans by NSW to increase vaccination so restrictions can be relaxed “will just make things worse”.

It’s unlikely the suspect David S. had diplomatic immunity because in such a case he would have normally been expelled from the country instead of being detained.

Defence Minister Nobuo Kishi has warned China’s clout is backed by force and coercion, and it is trying to make its dominance “into a fait accompli”.

Taliban fighters could isolate Afghanistan’s capital in 30 days and possibly take it over in 90, a US defence official cited US intelligence as saying.

The Australian WikiLeaks founder appeared dishevelled in court as a London judge widened the scope of a US appeal against a block on his extradition.

Swiss biologist Wilson Edwards was widely quoted in China for his fierce criticism of the World Health Organisation. But the embassy thinks he is ‘fake news’.

Spavor is among a handful of Canadians in China facing stiff punishments in the wake of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou’s December 2018 arrest.

The best photos from the international wire agencies as chosen by our picture editors

Hours after the threat, Milenio Television anchor Azucena Uresti posted a photo of herself smiling, saying she would be on-air as usual. A minute later, the broadcast began.

Sir Andrew Pollard told British MPs that Delta was so widespread, it made sense to only test and treat people with symptoms, rather than all their contacts.

In coming together over a massive infrastructure spending plan, Republican and Democratic senators showed that Congress, for all its dysfunction, can still do its job.

The monarchy is much bigger than Andrew and it won’t hesitate to drive a stake through him should events in a New York courtroom spiral out of control.

Lithuania said earlier this year it planned to open its own representative office in Taiwan, and has donated 20,000 COVID-19 vaccine doses to the island.