Kabul

An Afghan delegation will attend the upcoming U.N. climate change summit in Azerbaijan, the foreign ministry spokesman told AFP on Saturday, marking a first since the Taliban government came to power.

First, it was women – or, rather, it was always women. Draconian measures against them, restrictions on their appearance, education, social life, terror… Now, the… absurd, in many cases, laws imposed by the Taliban regime in Afghanistan are beginning to touch men, forcing them to ask themselves: should they have spoken up earlier is the question.

A soldier of Afghan Taliban forces patrols on the vicinity of Torkham border of Nangarhar province, east of Kabul, Afghanistan, Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024.

A key border crossing between Pakistan and Afghanistan that remained closed for three days following skirmishes has reopened, an official said on Thursday.

Afghanistan's Taliban rulers celebrated three years in power on Wednesday with a military parade paying homage to their homemade bombs used in war, fighter aircraft and goose-stepping security forces.

Since the Taliban returned to power, Afghan women have been barred from going on long trips, travelling by plane or entering government buildings unless they are accompanied by a man.

Under the Taliban government's austere interpretation of Islamic law, the "mahram" practice long rooted in Afghan society has become compulsory.

A Taliban official said journalists were committing "a major sin" by taking pictures, Afghan media reported yesterday.

Television and pictures of living things were banned under the previous Taliban rule from 1996 to 2001, but a similar edict has so far not been imposed since authorities took back power in Afghanistan in 2021.

A bomb targeting a polio protection team in northwestern Pakistan Monday killed at least five police officers, officials said.

"A police truck transporting around 25 policemen for anti-polio campaign duties was targeted by an IED (improvised explosive device)," Anwar ul Haq, a senior government official in Bajaur district, told AFP.

In a concerning trend, more than 3,000 Afghan nationals have been repatriated to Kabul from Turkey over the past 20 days, marking a significant uptick in deportation efforts, as reported by Afghan news agency Khaama Press. The head of the Ministry of Refugees' Legal Support Directorate shared this information, revealing that the deportees included seven families and seven children.

When the White House calls, you answer - even if you don't want to. That's exactly Kate Wyler's (Keri Russell) sworn duty in "The Diplomat" when she's ordered to hop on the next flight to London instead of Afghanistan. A change of mission wasn't what she had in mind, and the new gig bears tectonic implications for her marriage and political future.

US President Joe Biden's administration has blamed his predecessor Donald Trump for the deadly and chaotic withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan in 2021, leading to one of the darkest moments of Biden's presidency, the Associated Press reported.

As the Afghan government fell, there were scenes of despair at Kabul airport as huge crowds tried to flee the Taliban, the BBC recalled.