US gun control: ‘Not enough support to overcome division’

The UN Security Council and international communities, particularly those in the region, need to do more to bring the Taliban back to peace talks, the chair of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission has said. Shaharzad Akbar told BBC World News that countries within the region in particular needed to tell the Taliban that coming…

Afghan journalist Bilal Sarwary has covered events in Afghanistan over the past 20 years, from the US-led invasion to the fall of Kabul to Taliban militants earlier this month. He told BBC World News how repeated visits from the Taliban to his office had caused him and his family to go into hiding and then…

Kabul airport has become the epicentre of the crisis in Afghanistan, with many thousands seeking to flee the country after the Taliban swept to power last week. The BBC’s chief international correspondent Lyse Doucet witnesses the atmosphere on the tarmac as men, women and children are evacuated from their homeland.

Thousands of people from the Karen, or Kayin, state of Myanmar have fled to Thailand in recent days following airstrikes by Myanmar’s military. But those that have crossed into Thailand are now being told to go home, a spokesperson for the Karen Peace Support Network said. The spokesperson, whose identity is being concealed for security…

European countries pausing use of the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 jab were risking the lives of their citizens and “throwing caution to the wind”, Dr Anthony Cox, who researches drug safety at the University of Birmingham has said. He told BBC World News: “What we seem to have had is like a cascade of bad decision making…

Reports of a build-up of Russian troops on its shared border with Ukraine is “significant” and could lead to open conflict, Carl Bildt, co-chair of the European Council on Foreign Relations has said. He told BBC World News: “It’s clearly a deliberate decision by the Kremlin to escalate the conflict. Where this will lead us…