India: ‘A broken country, a country in torment’

Foreign countries should stop encouraging Afghans to leave as the country needs their talents, a Taliban spokesman has said. Zabihullah Mujahid said Afghan nationals should head back to their homes, jobs and normal life, as there was “no danger” to them, adding: “Let’s live together.” He told a press conference that “war for us has…

States tend to have a predictable response to gun laws after mass shootings, a law professor says.

There is excitement in Ghana at becoming the first country to receive coronavirus vaccines through the Covax vaccine-sharing initiative, the One campaign’s executive director for Africa has said. Edwin Ikhuoria told BBC World News the delivery of the vaccine had been long awaited and was welcome news. The Covax programme was set up by World…

Ingrida Simonyte, the prime minister of Lithuania, has criticised Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko’s statement about diverting a flight to Minsk on Sunday. “It is so complicated for anyone who believes in the rule of law, institutions and the Western democracies to believe in anything Mr Lukashenko is saying,” she told BBC World News. “I think…

The EU’s former chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, says changes the UK wants to make to the Northern Ireland protocol have caused him to lose trust because what is at stake is not goods or trade but peace. The protocol was very precisely negotiated by UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson himself less than two years…

The Taliban say they will not extend the deadline for Western forces to leave Afghanistan. A spokesman, Suhail Shaheen, told the BBC’s Yalda Hakim that the 31 August was a red line and that any extension would be a “clear violation” of the Doha agreement between the United States and the Taliban. He said that…