Officials from Pakistan, Afghanistan, and China are meeting in Urumqi to discuss regional security concerns and potential confidence-building measures.
The visas were granted to the five Iranian players after US President Donald Trump spoke to Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese following reports that the players had requested asylum.
A collection of newspaper frontpages from across the world, on a day when Afghanistan fell to the Taliban for the second time.
Shah, in a video that has gone viral on Twitter, said every Indian Muslim must introspect if they want 'reform and modernity' in the religion or live with dated 'barbarian' values.
England previously faced Afghanistan at the 50-overs Cricket World Cup in 2023, as well as at the Twenty20 World Cup in 2022.
The United States has announced the end of its 20-year-old war in Afghanistan as the last American military flight flew out of the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul shortly before the August 31 deadline.
Ahead of the second anniversary of its grabbing power in Afghanistan, the Taliban has banned women's beauty salons in the country.
Dominic Xavier offers his take on the situation in Kabul after the Taliban takeover.
The police also said that an initial probe has suggested that the banned terrorist group Islamic State of Iraq and Syria is behind the suicide attack that injured over 100 people in Khar, the capital of Bajaur tribal district.
Ahmed Shah Massoud's assassination, 9/11 and the defeat and ejection of the Taliban suggested a break in Afghanistan's history, but the events of August 2021 and the Taliban's return shows how deeper continuities remained in place, points out T C A Raghavan, former Indian high commissioner to Pakistan.
The explosion took place at 4 pm at the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl workers' convention in Khar, the capital of Bajaur tribal district.
Police in Pakistan's restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province said on Monday that an initial probe has suggested that the banned terrorist group Islamic State is behind the suicide attack on a political convention of a hardline Islamist party that killed at least 46 people and injured over 100.
Some Afghan girls began attending primary school this week.
Reuters Photographers Jorge Silva and Zohra Bensemra capture slices of life of Kabul.
The terror group is in touch with the international community and intra-Afghan parties to make government in Afghanistan.
Students returned to class in Kabul weeks after the Taliban took over the Afghan capital to find their classrooms divided by a curtain to separate male and female students.
The Talibs appear in complete control of Afghanistan days after American troops left the country.
Women petition the Taliban. Talibs patrol Kabul's streets. Afghans flee into Pakistan.
Pakistan, in recent months, has been increasingly frustrated by the Taliban government's reluctance to eliminate the terrorist groups, including the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
A couple of days before American troops leave Kabul on Tuesday, August 31, images to remember from the Afghan capital and elsewhere...
"I judge by the first day of their control over Kabul. The impressions are good. The situation in Kabul is better now (under Taliban) than it was under Ashraf Ghani," Russian Ambassador to Afghanistan Dmitry Zhirnov was quoted as saying by Moscow's Ekho Moskvy radio station on Monday.
Hundreds of Afghan protesters, including many women, took to the streets of Kabul on Tuesday, September 7, 2021, in an anti-Pakistan protest chanting 'Death to Pakistan', denouncing Islamabad's interference in Afghanistan as well as airstrikes by Pakistani jets in Panjshir province in support of the Taliban.
The man said he and his family was in a panic after the Taliban entered Kabul and his daughter was running a high fever.
Virat Kohli stepped down as India's 20-overs skipper and lost ODI captaincy too with Rohit Sharma taking over as their sole white-ball leader.
'We are in constant touch with the central and West Bengal governments, but the situation is fluid and very little information is trickling in from Afghanistan. Phone lines are jammed and visuals from Kabul are disturbing. Those living in India are distraught'
Chief executive Nick Hockley told local media on Wednesday that rising vaccination rates in Australia gave him "a degree of optimism" that the lucrative series against England would go ahead as planned, starting in Brisbane on December 8.
'It will remain hostile to Indian interests owing to its close proximity to China.'
Blinkin said the US will engage with the Taliban not on the basis of what a Taliban-led government says, but what it does to live up to its commitments.
India is apprehensive about the Taliban's return as it would mean loss of access to Baluch rebels and help to the restive tribals of Waziristan. This would be a setback to the Indian strategy of returning the compliments of death by a thousand cuts to Pakistan, notes Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'No other military in the world could accomplish what we and our allies and partners did in such a short span of time. That is a testament not only to our forces' capabilities and courage but also to our relationships and the capabilities of our allies and partners,' Austin said in a statement at the conclusion of the American mission in Afghanistan.
'I have never been afraid of death or threats, and I have never wanted to give up and silence my voice.'
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, during his telephonic conversation with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday, discussed the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan amidst chaotic airlifts of Afghan civilians and diplomats by the US and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation countries before the August 31 deadline.
'The threat of ceding space to China in Afghanistan appears to be one factor propelling our government to get a bit more active now.'
The last 15 days have turned the life of young Afghan television anchor Beheshta Arghand upside down.
The Taliban has its backers, notably Pakistan and China. Their purpose is to have a monstrous entity near India's northern borders to keep democratic, secular India off-guard, observes Amulya Ganguli.
'We have tried to get in touch with the embassy as well as the Ministry of External Affairs. We have not heard from them yet but I am confident that the government must be putting efforts for our safe and quick evacuationfrom Kabul'
Cut off from the world and having to contend with an orthodox and repressive Taliban government, Afghans are facing the brunt of Pakistan's decades old policy of nurturing militant groups, note Harsh V Pant and Kriti M Shah four months after the Taliban took Kabul.
'It was always anticipated that the return of the Taliban would embolden armed Islamists including anti-India groups like the Lashkar and Jaish.'
Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban leader freed from a Pakistani jail on the request of the US less than three years ago, has emerged as an "undisputed victor" of the 20-year war in Afghanistan, according to a British media report.
Stephane Dujarric, Spokesman for the Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, told reporters on Wednesday that the group of about 100 UN personnel from across the system travelled from Kabul to Almaty, where they will continue their work remotely.