Asia

Opium poppy production in Afghanistan, once the world’s top supplier, has plummeted since the Taliban outlawed cultivation of the crop in 2022, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) report shows.

Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, currently in jail facing what he states are more than 150 cases filed to prevent him from contesting elections next year, has been replaced as head of the party he founded, officials have announced.

Russia’s energy giant, Gazprom, has set a new record for daily gas deliveries to China through the Power of Siberia mega pipeline, the company announced on Saturday.

Pakistan has formally sought membership in BRICS, the grouping of five emerging economies that includes rival India alongside Brazil, Russia, China and South Africa. It comes at a time the body is fast gaining the status as the leading bloc of the Global South.

Western currencies have been almost completely phased out in Moscow-Beijing trade, as nearly all payments between the two countries are now carried out in rubles and yuan, Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Andrey Belousov has stated.

Sino-Russian relations have withstood the test of the complex international situation, Chinese President Xi Jinping has stated, adding that Beijing intends to develop the ties.

The rapid rise of the BRICS is transforming the global economy, with the group’s share of world GDP in terms of purchasing power parity (PPP) set to rise well beyond of that of the Group of Seven (G7) major advanced economies, Bloomberg has reported.

US President Joe Biden reportedly intends to urge his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping to wield his clout with Tehran to prevent the Palestine-Israel conflict from escalating into a wider regional one.

Mulla Abul Ghani Baradar, the Deputy Prime Minister of Afghanistan's caretaker government for economic affairs, appreciated Tehran for sheltering Afghan refugees seeking asylum in the Islamic Republic over the past decades.

The five current members of the BRICS group increased trade by 56% from 2017 to 2022, reaching some $422 billion worth of turnover last year, Bloomberg has reported.

Thousands of Afghan refugees and migrants in Pakistan are heading to the border to return home as a Pakistani deadline to leave the country expires.

The West is now seeking to expand the current European conflict, that it is responsible for, to Asia, Russia's Defense Minister has warned. Sergey Shoigu was speaking at China’s biggest annual military diplomacy event, the Beijing Xiangshan Forum, on Monday.

Relations between Russia and North Korea have now soared to new heights, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has stated during his landmark two-day trip to Pyongyang.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has arrived in China to attend the Belt and Road Initiative conference and hold a meeting with President Xi Jinping of China.

Moscow is grateful to Beijing for its proposals on ways to end the Ukrainian crisis, but the government in Kiev keeps rejecting any constructive talks while stubbornly seeking Russia’s defeat on the battleground and suffering “enormous” losses in its failed counteroffensive, Russian President Vladimir Putin has stated.

An explosion ripped through a mosque in Pul-e-Khumri, the provincial capital of north Afghanistan's Baghlan province, on Friday, inflicting casualties, Provincial Director for Information and Culture Asadullah Mustafa Hashimi says.

The death toll from the powerful earthquake that struck Afghanistan on Saturday has risen to 2,445 while more than 9,200 people have been injured, the Xinhua news agency reported. According to the outlet, 13 villages in the Zanda Jan district of Herat have been completely wiped out and many victims remain trapped under the rubble.

The United Nations has warned Islamabad that its plans for the “phased and orderly” mass deportations of migrants, including up to 1.7 million Afghans, could threaten their safety after Pakistan announced a crackdown on people living in the country illegally.

The death toll from strong earthquakes that jolted western Afghanistan has risen to more than 2,000, a Taliban government spokesman confirmed Sunday. It’s one of the deadliest earthquakes to strike the country in two decades.

Iran’s ambassador to Afghanistan has stated the United States’ main policy on Afghanistan is to create insecurity and instability for the country’s neighbors.

Russian President Vladimir Putin will discuss important strategic issues with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping during his upcoming visit to China, Beijing's ambassador to Moscow told Russian state news agency TASS.

Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has been moved to a jail near capital Islamabad after a court extended his custody by two more weeks in a state secrets case related to his 2022 removal.

Beijing has blasted a recent move by Washington to impose a new round of sanctions against a number of Chinese individuals and entities over accusations of providing Tehran with drone production materials.

Trade between Russia and China has maintained its brisk momentum since reaching record levels in 2022, with exports and imports experiencing robust growth since the start of 2023, the Russian Customs Service has reported.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has confirmed that he will visit Pyongyang next month to continue talks with his North Korean counterpart following recent agreements made by Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Moscow, Reuters reported.