Man-made disasters

Ahead of a one-on-one meeting on Sept. 21 on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, the U.S. and Turkey's top diplomats said they would continue to work on Afghanistan.

The European Union will focus on humanitarian aid as it figures out how to deal with the Taliban, aiming on an informal arrangement with Afghanistan's new rulers to ensure safe aid corridors, four diplomats and two officials said.

The Pentagon retreated from its defense of a drone strike that killed multiple civilians in Afghanistan last month, announcing on Sept. 17 that a review revealed that only civilians were killed in the attack, not an Islamic State extremist as first believed.

"The strike was a tragic mistake," Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command, told a Pentagon news conference.

Viola player Bahar was practising at her music college in the Afghan capital, when news broke that the Taliban had reached the city.

"We will not allow any individual or group to use our territory against any other country," said Foreign Minister Muttaqi of Afghanistan's new Taliban government, the first comment by a Taliban government member on an agreement reached last year with the United States.

In his address to the members of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, Josep Borrell pointed out that Brussels would try to coordinate activities with other EU members in order to organize a diplomatic presence in Kabul.

It is a moral duty to deliver humanitarian aid to the Afghan people, Turkey's foreign minister said on Sept. 13.

Addressing a high-level U.N. ministerial meeting on the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan, convened by Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu argued that "a humanitarian and security crisis in Afghanistan would have direct implications across the globe."

The United Nations exhorted the world on Monday to raise 6 million for Afghanistan, where poverty and hunger are spiraling since the Taliban took power and billions in foreign aid have dried up amid Western distrust of the Islamist militants.

Women in Afghanistan can continue to study in universities, including at post-graduate levels, but classrooms will be gender-segregated and Islamic dress is compulsory, the Taliban government's new higher education minister said on Sept. 12.

In a pre-recorded message to mark the 20th anniversary of 11 September terror attacks, US President Joe Biden remembered the events as a moment defined not only by heroism but "unity and resilience." "We learned that unity is the one thing that must never break," Biden said in a six-minute video filmed at the White House, news wires reported.