Europe's leaders vow to help Afghanistan despite Biden's refusal to delay US pullout

The US president insists the Kabul airlift will end by August 31, defying allied leaders who say Biden's self-imposed cutoff date allows insufficient time to complete evacuations.

Merkel's Union bloc has been sagging in polls for weeks.

"Sadly, the Afghan episode does not offer any geopolitical wisdom or policy prescriptions for the Balkans and the people living there. It is just a painful acknowledgement that the region remains a geopolitical backwater on the Western periphery."

It comes as Ukraine marked 30 years since it decided to leave the Soviet Union.

Michelle Bachelet, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said on Tuesday her office had received “harrowing and credible” reports of human rights abuses by the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The change comes just a month before the country's federal election.

The Rolling Stones' drummer Charlie Watts died on Tuesday in London at the age of 80, his agent Bernard Doherty said, lamenting the death of "one of the greatest drummers of his generation".

“People didn’t feel like Ukrainians. They didn’t have their own identity, but this situation is changing. You can see that people are becoming aware of the fact, that they are one nation. Maybe the war in the East is the reason that they embrac...

Exiled Afghan writer and activist Nadia Ghulam on evacuations, life under the Taliban and a decade forced to live as a man.

Mario Draghi has vowed to accelerate reconstruction efforts in central Italy, five years after a devastating earthquake killed nearly 300 people.

"The Taliban will go and hunt our families, especially those who have a strong link with Western countries," one evacuee told French PM Castex.

The UK Home Office says more than 800 migrants crossed the English Channel on Saturday, a new record for a single day.

Ukraine's deputy foreign minister claimed an aircraft was "de facto hijacked" from Kabul airport before heading to Iran.

France’s health minister announced the COVID-19 vaccine booster campaign on Monday, and now France’s national health body has backed the plan.

One of the five Afghans placed under surveillance after being repatriated to France has been taken into custody, the French government has announced. Meanwhle UK Defence Secretary answers similar reports as the Home Office makes denials.

“We are shocked by the apparent crime that took place at our university,” the university's president, Tanja Bruehl, said in a statement.

Catherine Woollard, Director of the European Council on Refugees and Exiles, said the EU is doing well on evacuating and providing safe routes for people who've worked for the international community. But that's not the full story...

Igor Vovkovinskiy, who was the tallest man in the United States, died of heart disease on Friday in Minnesota, his family said.

"Such a change will, in the opinion of the Ombudsman, be absolutely contrary to the Geneva Convention on refugees," says Marcin Sosniak of the Ombudsman's office. "It is also contrary to European Union regulations."

European leaders are pressing President Biden to extend the US troop withdrawals past the end-of-the-month deadline, although the Taliban have rejected any delay.

On Tuesday Ukraine marks 30 years of independence from the Soviet Union, amid tense relations with Russia. Watch the parade once again in the media player.

The UK, France and Germany are pushing Joe Biden to extend the US president's self-imposed deadline for the total withdrawal of American forces from Kabul.

The decision is linked to Turkey's and the Turkish-Cypriot authorities' plan to reopen the eastern ghost town of Varosha in defiance of UN resolutions.

A 2.5-metre-tall fence will be erected along most of the 150-kilometre border, with construction due to begin next week.

Formed in London in 1975, the Sex Pistols energized and scandalized the British music scene with songs such as “God Save the Queen” and “Anarchy in the U.K.”, but today they're arguing about a song for Disney.

The pilot scheme monitored COVID-19 infections at major summer events including the British Grand Prix, Wimbledon and EURO 2020.

The hijacking of a Ryan Air Flight and the death of Vitali Shishov, who was found hanged in Kyiv, has kept the pressure on Belarus' exiled opposition. Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya talks to Euronews on what has been gained, and what has been lost, one yea...

Greece scrambled firefighting aircraft and ground forces as at least two new blazes including one on the island of Evia, which has already been scarred by wildfires this summer.

Representatives of 46 nations and blocs attended the first international summit on the annexation of Crimea in Ukraine, a summit dismissed as an “anti-Russian event” by the Kremlin.

The individual is alleged to have been collecting secret information about "the latest weapons and their secret technical documentation".

China doesn't want a power grab in Afghanistan, it's more interested in regional stability, argue Lukas Fiala and Hugo Jones.

The August 14 earthquake killed more than 2,200 people

A Taliban spokesman says no extension will be allowed for the withdrawal of international troops from Afghanistan, otherwise they will be 'extending occupation'.

The French league match was halted when Marseille players refused to restart after chaotic and violent scenes, ignited when Dimitri Payet threw back into the stand a plastic bottle which had been hurled at him.

Tropical Storm Henri made landfall in Rhode Island. Just prior, it was packing maximum sustained winds of nearly 100 kilometres per hour .

Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said that his country had already taken in enough refugees from Afghanistan.

Angela Merkel said she supported further peace talks on the situation in eastern Ukraine during her "farewell visit" to Kyiv.

Baker is the sixth woman and first black woman to receive the honour.

Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven announced that he would resign in November to allow his successor to prepare for the 2022 elections.

The Iranian president met Sunday with Japan's foreign minister in the capital of Tehran and the two discussed de-escalation of tensions in the region, Iranian news agencies reported.

The surveillance programme is meant to measure the antibody levels in people before and after a COVID-19 infection.

"The abandonment of Afghanistan and its people is tragic, dangerous, unnecessary, not in their interests and not in ours," former UK PM Tony Blair wrote.

At least eight people, including children, died and three were missing after mudslides and flooding, said Cuitláhuac García, governor of Mexico's Veracruz state.

Israel's military bombed Palestinian militant weapons sites in the Gaza Strip early on Sunday.

“This resettlement of vulnerable people is of utmost importance,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said. “It is our moral duty.”

The protesters are angry at the Taliban takeover and the fast western withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Potential Islamic State threats against Americans in Afghanistan are forcing the U.S. military to develop new ways to get evacuees to the airport in Kabul, a US official told AP.

Angela Merkel has led Germany for the past 16 years and now is campaigning for the person she hopes will become her successor.

Euronews spoke with several Afghan citizens in Kabul this week as well as Taliban fighters.