A British couple who spent almost two decades running education programs in Afghanistan were detained by the Taliban earlier this month, their children said in interviews with a number of British news outlets. The couple, Peter Reynolds and Barbie Reynolds, were arrested on Feb. 1 when returning to their home in the country’s Bamiyan province,…
Trump administration appointees running the main United States aid agency have in recent days fired hundreds of employees who help manage responses to urgent humanitarian crises around the world, according to two U.S. officials and four recent employees of the agency. The firings add to doubts raised about whether Secretary of State Marco Rubio is…
But they said the administration said they won’t “get ahead” of itself. POLITICO asked Starmer on a trip to Kyiv last month if he’d commit to a vote on any British peacekeepers. He declined to give such a commitment. ‘United front’ MPs from Westminster’s opposition parties are demanding parliament’s involvement, too. “We support the prime…
The US and China are facing off at the United Nations over control of Afghanistan policy and aid, with the outcome likely to set the tone for relations between the two giants at the global body, analysts said. “An obscure diplomatic dispute over who should draft United Nations Security Council resolutions on Afghanistan is turning…
On Thursday morning, a 24-year-old Afghan refugee drove into a union demonstration in central Munich, injuring nearly 40 people. The police say they are investigating whether the driver, who confessed to a deliberate attack, acted alone. The attack happened just 10 days before federal elections that have been focused on migration, and the crash could…
Tens of thousands of Afghan refugees who have congregated in Pakistan’s capital region to seek resettlement in other countries are being ordered to move elsewhere in Pakistan by March 31. The refugees have arrived in large numbers in the capital, Islamabad, and in neighboring Rawalpindi because of the embassies and refugee agencies based there. Forcing…
Of President Trump’s cabinet picks, Tulsi Gabbard, a former representative from Hawaii, could have the hardest time making it through the confirmation process. On Thursday, with several key senators still undecided, she appeared before the Senate Intelligence Committee for an all-important hearing as senators grilled her on her past remarks about Edward Snowden and her…
The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court said on Thursday he had requested arrest warrants for the supreme leader of Afghanistan’s Taliban government and the country’s chief justice for their “unprecedented” persecution of Afghan women and girls. The prosecutor, Karim Khan, said in a statement that the Taliban’s leader, Sheikh Haibatullah Akhundzada, and the…
An executive order signed by President Trump on Monday that suspends refugee admissions to the United States puts at risk thousands of citizens of Afghanistan who helped the American mission during the war there, the president of a California-based resettlement group said. The order would affect not only scores of Afghans who are now in…
Chinese defence ministry spokesman Zhang Xiaogang said China expressed “strong dissatisfaction and resolute opposition” to the annual report, which was released on Wednesday. The report “misinterpreted China’s defence policy … spread rumours, slandered the Chinese military, and exaggerated the ‘China military threat’,” Zhang said in a ministry statement. The China Military Power Report has been…