United States (US) Vice President Kamala Harris vowed "enduring engagement" in Asia on Monday, offering reassurances of Washington's commitment to the region even as the US completes its chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Taliban takeover.The hard-line Islamists' swift return to power a week ago, and desperate scenes of thousands trying to flee, have cast a shadow over the US' status as a global superpower.But on a visit to Singapore, her first stop on a trip

Now that so many sad truths about Afghanistan are being spoken aloud, even in the major media - let me add one more: The war, from start to finish, was about politics, not in Afghanistan but in the United States (US).Afghanistan was always a sideshow. According to the official report, the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks were launched from US soil, by people who trained in Florida.Most of the named perpetrators were Saudis.

United States (US) Vice President Kamala Harris began a trip to Asia Sunday where she will offer reassurances of Washington's commitment to the region after the chaotic US pull-out from Afghanistan and Taliban takeover.The hard-line Islamists' swift return to power a week ago, and desperate scenes of thousands trying to flee, have cast another shadow over the US' status as a global superpower.But on her visit, which includes stops in Singapore and Vietnam, Harris will seek to a

The last time the Taliban were in power, social networks were a thing of the future -- but this time around, the militants' takeover of Afghanistan poses tricky questions for the likes of Facebook and Twitter.As their arrival in Kabul sparked worldwide panic, Taliban officials took to Twitter to project a message of calm beyond Afghanistan's borders.Claims that the Taliban forces young girls to marry fighters are "poisonous propaganda", the group's international media

China's overtures to the Taliban indicate a bid to extract maximum benefit from the dramatic collapse of the United States (US) project in Afghanistan.But Beijing will remain watchful of the hardliners now running the show in Kabul, especially as Afghanistan borders China's eastern Xinjiang province, home to the Muslim-majority Uyghurs, analysts say.Around a fortnight before the Islamists seized power in a lightning offensive that stunned the world, Foreign Minister Wang Yi hosted a

A huge international airlift of foreigners and Afghans who worked with them continued on Tuesday as thousands of people terrified at the prospect of Taliban rule flocked to Kabul airport.NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance would send additional aircraft to bolster the operation after member states met on Tuesday, adding that evacuations were "gradually resuming" following chaotic scenes on Monday after commercial flights were halted.In addition to aircraft, the

There is no shortage of benchmarks to count the cost of the United States’ (US) longest war. Blood is by far the most precious metric. Treasure feels insignificant by comparison. But as images of Afghans swarming Kabul airport, desperately trying to flee Taliban rule, flood screens around the world, the vast sums the US spent trying to build Afghanistan into a liberal democracy deserve a thorough audit.

The Taliban declared the war in Afghanistan over after taking control of the presidential palace in Kabul while Western nations scrambled on Monday to evacuate their citizens amid chaos at the airport as frantic Afghans searched for a way out.President Ashraf Ghani fled the country on Sunday as the Islamist militants entered the capital virtually unopposed, saying he wanted to avoid bloodshed, while hundreds of Afghans desperate to leave flooded Kabul airport."Today is a great day for th

The Taliban raced closer to a complete military takeover of Afghanistan on Sunday after capturing more major cities, leaving only the isolated capital Kabul for them to conquer.The insurgents took control of the key eastern city of Jalalabad on Sunday, just hours after seizing the northern anti-Taliban bastion of Mazar-i-Sharif - furthering an astonishing rout of government forces and warlord militias achieved in just 10 days."We woke up this morning to the Taliban white flags all over t

China on Friday rejected the World Health Organization's (WHO) calls for a renewed probe into the origins of COVID-19, saying it supported "scientific" over "political" efforts to find out how the virus started.Pressure is once more mounting on Beijing to consider a fresh probe into the origins of a pandemic which has killed more than four million people and paralysed economies worldwide since it first emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan.A delayed and heavily