CNN – Asia/Pacific

By Angus Watson and Jessie Yeung, CNN New Zealand police have shot and killed an ISIS supporter who injured at least six people in a supermarket “terrorist attack” in the Auckland suburb of New Lynn on Friday, authorities say. “This afternoon at approximately 2:40 p.m., a violent extremist undertook a terrorist attack,” said Prime Minister

By Emiko Jozuka, Chie Kobayashi and Selina Wang, CNN Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga on Friday said he will not run in his party’s forthcoming leadership election, effectively ceding the premiership and opening the race to other candidates after a turbulent term of less than a year. Suga, who assumed the top role last September

By Mohammed Tawfeeq, Nathan Hodge, Nilly Kohzad and Saleem Mehsud, CNN Fighting in Afghanistan’s last major holdout against Taliban rule continued through Friday after heavy clashes erupted overnight between Taliban fighters and an anti-Taliban group, according to Taliban sources. Panjshir Valley, a mountainous, inaccessible region north of Kabul, has a long history of resisting the

By Rob Picheta, CNN The last American military flight left the airport and disappeared into the Kabul sky on Monday — and minutes later, the Taliban flooded the streets around the city’s last exit point, filling the night with celebratory gunfire. It was a decisive and humbling final chapter to the United States’ longest war,

CNN Editorial Research Here is a look at the life of Narendra Modi, prime minister of India. Personal Birth date: September 17, 1950 Birth place: Vadnagar, Gujarat, India Birth name: Narendra Damodardas Modi Father: Damodardas Modi Mother: Hiraba “Heeraben” Modi Marriage: Jashodaben (Chimanlal) Modi (1968-present, separated) Education: Delhi University, B.A., 1978; Gujarat University, M.A., 1983

By Jonny Hallam and Mick Krever, CNN The Taliban on Wednesday showed off dozens of American-made armored vehicles along with newly seized weapons at victory celebrations in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar. In videos posted on social media, the Taliban paraded hardware left behind by both Afghan and US forces after the withdrawal of

By Sheena McKenzie, CNN Taliban leaders declared victory over the United States from the tarmac of Kabul airport on Tuesday, hours after the withdrawal of the last American troops left Afghanistan in the grip of the militant group. The airport that in recent weeks had been the epicenter of a frantic Western evacuation mission was

By Ivana Kottasová, Joseph Ataman, Jo Shelley, Saskya Vandoorne, Madalena Araujo and Nilly Kohzad, CNN (CNN) — When the Taliban recaptured Afghanistan, tens of thousands of civilians decided to flee their homes. Translators, military contractors, public officials, journalists, human rights activists, employees of foreign NGOs and many others suddenly found themselves at risk. Many had

By Anna Coren and Jessie Yeung, CNN Abdul Rashid Shirzad was quiet and nervous on the taxi ride with his family to the Kabul airport, the last American-controlled enclave in the Afghan capital. “We hope to make it, and survive,” Shirzad, 34, a former interpreter for United States Special Forces, said in a video filmed

By Hannah Ritchie, CNN Afghan folk singer Fawad Andarabi was dragged from his home and killed by the Taliban in a restive mountain province north of Kabul on Friday, a local journalist told CNN, raising fears of a return to the militant group’s harsh rule of 20 years ago — including a clampdown on music.

By Nectar Gan and Steve George, CNN The crackdown came quickly and sweepingly, wiping out some of China’s biggest stars and fan clubs in a matter of days. Over the past week, China’s entertainment industry has become the latest to fall into the crosshairs of the ruling Communist Party, following Xi Jinping’s clampdown on political

By Joshua Berlinger, Will Ripley and Jake Kwon, CNN North Korea appears to have restarted operations at a power plant capable of producing plutonium for nuclear weapons, according to the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog. The International Atomic Energy Agency said that clues, such as the discharge of cooling water, observed in early July indicated the

By Alex Marquardt and Jessie Yeung, CNN As many as five rockets were fired at the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul on Monday local time, a US official told CNN. The C-RAM defense system installed at the airport engaged with the rockets, the official said. There are no reports of any casualties at this

By Sandi Sidhu, Nick Paton Walsh, Tim Lister, Oren Liebermann, Laura Smith-Spark and Saskya Vandoorne, CNN Ten members of one family — including seven children — are dead after a US drone strike targeting a vehicle in a residential neighborhood of Kabul, a relative of the dead told CNN. The US carried out what it

By Emiko Jozuka and Chie Kobayashi, CNN Two people have died in Japan days after receiving doses from a batch of Moderna Covid-19 vaccines whose use was suspended Thursday following concerns over a contamination risk, the country’s Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare said Saturday. A causal link between the vaccine and the deaths has

By Laura Smith-Spark, Barbara Starr, Nick Paton Walsh and Sandi Sidhu, CNN The US military carried out a drone strike against what it said was an ISIS-K planner in Afghanistan’s eastern Nangarhar province, amid warnings of possible further terror attacks targeting the last-ditch US evacuation effort from Kabul. The desperate mission to airlift US citizens

By Julia Hollingsworth, CNN When New Zealand went into lockdown last week over a single Delta case, critics were quick to mock the country’s risk-averse approach. British newspapers didn’t hold back. The Times called New Zealand a “mysterious socialist hermit nation” where the public “languish in a Covid prison,” while The Telegraph slammed a once-welcoming

By Rob Picheta and Nilly Kohzad, CNN Afghans who narrowly avoided the terror attack outside Kabul airport on Thursday have described horrifying scenes and piles of victims’ bodies at the site of the blast. Muhammad, who said he assisted US forces and worked with NATO in Afghanistan, was at the airport with his family Thursday,

By Rob Picheta, CNN In the space of just a few years, an ISIS affiliate in Afghanistan has seized on the country’s instability to become one of the region’s most feared terror groups. ISIS-K has claimed responsibility for the deadly bombing attack outside Kabul airport on Thursday, which targeted a frantic Western evacuation operation and

By Ivana Kottasová, Barbara Starr, Kylie Atwood, Nick Paton Walsh, Sam Kiley, Zachary Cohen, Amy Woodyatt, Jennifer Hansler and Nectar Gan, CNN The United States still plans to end its mission in Afghanistan this month, the Pentagon said Friday, as the evacuation of US citizens and allies enters its final, desperate stage after a deadly

By Jessie Yeung and Zixu Wang, CNN They sing, they dance, they’re impeccably dressed — and they’re all children, mostly under 10. Panda Boys, China’s newest boy band, debuted on August 21 with their first song and music video, a pastel-laden synth pop number with a rap and Chinese opera interlude. But just three days

By Nectar Gan and Steve George, CNN China’s coronavirus vaccination drive has surpassed 2 billion doses, authorities announced Friday, but heavy-handed tactics intended to boost inoculation rates are triggering backlash in some areas. As of Thursday, more than 889 million people had been fully vaccinated, with more than two billion shots of domestically-produced Covid-19 vaccine

By Tim Lister, CNN The devastating bomb attack outside Kabul airport on Thursday is a brutal reminder that Afghanistan remains fertile territory for jihadi terrorism and that ISIS remains a resilient presence far beyond its birthplace. The attack was claimed — remarkably quickly — by ISIS-Khorasan, the ISIS “province” active in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.

By Jessie Yeung and Eric Cheung, CNN Hong Kong’s national security police are investigating the group behind the city’s annual June 4 vigil, which commemorates pro-democracy protesters who died in the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown in Beijing, according to a letter to organizers seen by CNN. The Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic

By Saleem Mehsud, Kara Fox, Natalie Croker and Henrik Pettersson and Tim Lister, CNN The Taliban‘s leadership structure has long been a mystery, with little known about how it works beyond the group’s most influential figures. After seizing control of Afghanistan, the Taliban are moving to form a new government, with pledges of inclusivity and

By Rob Picheta and Zahid Mahmood, CNN Fear is mounting for women and girls in Afghanistan after the Taliban told working women to stay at home, admitting they were not safe in the presence of the militant group’s soldiers. Taliban spokesperson Zabiullah Mujahid said at a news conference on Tuesday that women should not go

By Nick Paton Walsh, Brad Lendon, Sheena McKenzie and Ivana Kottasová, CNN The Taliban said Tuesday that they were “not allowing the evacuation of Afghans anymore” and warned that the US must stick to next week’s deadline to pull out, as a frantic Western evacuation operation at Kabul airport picked up pace. The announcement came

By Kara Fox, Tim Lister and Nilly Kohzad, CNN As the Taliban firm up their grip on Afghanistan, there is one remote region whose resistance to the militant group goes back decades. Now, the last major holdout is under threat. The Taliban have been massing forces in and around Panjshir province, the only one yet

By Jessie Yeung, Nectar Gan and Steve George, CNN Beijing was once known as one of the world’s most polluted cities, with dense smog and acrid air a daily reality for residents. Now, its skies are mostly blue — a sign the Chinese capital is entering a new era of clean air, the country’s Minister

By Nectar Gan, CNN China reported no new locally transmitted Covid-19 cases on Monday for the first time since July, according to its National Health Commission (NHC), as authorities double down on the country’s stringent zero-Covid approach. China has been grappling with the spread of the highly contagious Delta variant since July 20, when a

By Nick Paton Walsh, Sam Kiley and Sheena McKenzie, CNN Afghans who have applied for special immigrant visas to the US were told to stay away from Kabul’s airport on Monday, as American officials ramped up evacuation flights and the Taliban said all US forces needed to leave by August 31. Western countries are now

By Ben Westcott and Eric Cheung, CNN Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen received her first shot of the island’s homegrown Covid-19 vaccine on Monday, a public show of support for the new drug which is central to plans for inoculation self sufficiency amid low immunization rates and struggles to obtain vaccines from overseas. Monday’s island-wide rollout

By Sheena McKenzie, Nick Paton Walsh and Sam Kiley, CNN One week after the Taliban takeover of Kabul, the situation at the capital’s airport has become increasingly desperate, with more than 20,000 people in and around the facility trying to board flights and another seven Afghan civilians killed in crushes, amid one of the largest

By Sheena McKenzie, CNN A female journalist receives a call warning that they “will come soon.” A woman lawmaker sits and waits for her killers. A little girl wonders how much longer her school gates will remain open. For Afghanistan’s women and girls, this is the terrifying uncertainty they now find themselves in. As Taliban

By Brad Lendon, CNN An Afghan mother delivered a baby girl just after touching down at Ramstein Air Base in Germany Saturday aboard a US military evacuation flight, the US Air Force said on its social media. In a Twitter thread Sunday, the US Air Mobility Command said the woman went into labor aboard a

By CNN staff Eva Cai knows she wants a child. She’s just not sure if she wants a husband. So, in 2019 she took a train across the border from the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou to Hong Kong, where she froze her eggs in a private clinic. Now age 31, the senior executive still

By Hilary Whiteman, CNN Zahra shelters in her Kabul apartment, anxiously peering through the window at Taliban fighters in the parking lot below. She hasn’t dared to leave her house for days. Only two weeks ago, she and her friend Sara were drinking and laughing at a party in Kabul. The Taliban were approaching —

By Nick Paton Walsh, CNN A former senior official of Afghanistan’s ousted President Ashraf Ghani has detailed a vivid picture of the last weeks of Ghani’s government, including how the President and his advisers were stunned by the speed of the Taliban’s advance on the capital of Kabul. Ghani was far from prepared for the

By Nectar Gan and Steve George, CNN As the highly infectious Delta variant took hold in China last month, Zhang Wenhong, a well-respected infectious disease expert in Shanghai, told a concerned Chinese public to prepare to live with the coronavirus for the long haul — but his candor came at a price. For more than

By Nilly Kohzad, CNN Since the Taliban swept to power in Afghanistan, seizing provincial capitals at lightning speed, it’s been difficult to get a picture of what life is like for Afghans outside the capital, Kabul. Especially for women. On Thursday, CNN reached three women — all in their mid-20s and well-educated — to get

By Jessie Yeung, CNN Chinese astronauts working on the country’s planned space station carried out their second spacewalk on Friday, according to the China Manned Space Agency. Since they were sent into space in June, the three-man crew has been working and living on the Tianhe core module of the space station, the largest spacecraft

By Rob Picheta, Saleem Mehsud and Tim Lister, CNN The Taliban have moved swiftly to crush early opposition to their rule across Afghanistan, clashing with protesters and forcing an entire city to stay inside, as a frantic rush to escape the country intensifies at Kabul’s international airport. A curfew will be imposed “for an indefinite

By Rob Picheta and Saleem Mehsud, CNN The Taliban’s stunningly swift takeover of Afghanistan has caused dread across much of the nation, as Afghans anxiously readjust to life under a militant group that repressed millions when last in power. Under the Taliban’s rule between 1996 and 2001, brutal floggings, amputations and public executions were common.

By Clarissa Ward, Brent Swails and Ivana Kottasová, CNN Little by little, life appears to be creeping back to normal in Kabul, even though no one seem to know quite what this new normal — life under the Taliban — will look like once the dust settles and the last US troops leave the country.

By Nick Paton Walsh, CNN A baby desperately held aloft to US Marines on top of a besieged gate. Shots fired in the air. A crush of Afghan people below screaming — in the English that put them in this predicament — to be allowed in. Outside the north gate to Hamid Karzai International Airport

By Mostafa Salem, Tara John, Tim Lister and Hannah Ritchie, CNN Afghanistan’s former President, Ashraf Ghani, is in the United Arab Emirates, its foreign ministry said in a statement Wednesday. News of his whereabouts comes days after he fled Kabul as the Taliban closed in on the city. “The UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs and

By Jessie Yeung, CNN On July 20, Chinese authorities detected a cluster of Covid-19 cases in the eastern city of Nanjing. The virus soon spread across the country, with dozens of cities reporting infections fueled by the highly infectious Delta variant. At its peak, China was reporting more than 140 new symptomatic cases a day,

By Nectar Gan and Steve George, CNN The chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan has presented Beijing with a propaganda boost, with Chinese state media capitalizing on the crisis to trumpet the supposed decline of America and taunt Taiwan with threats of invasion. The jingoistic rhetoric coincided with air and naval drills launched Tuesday by the

By Julia Hollingsworth, CNN New Zealand’s first community Covid-19 case in six months is the Delta variant — and genome sequencing shows that it’s linked to the growing outbreak in neighboring Australia, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said. The country of five million people went into a nationwide lockdown late Tuesday night, hours after confirming a

By Tim Lister, Clarissa Ward and Gianluca Mezzofiore, CNN Fawad is one of hundreds and probably thousands of Afghans whose applications for visas to enter the US are somewhere in limbo. Now, unable to reach Kabul airport, he and his family are living in fear — too scared to venture outside. Over the past day,

By Clarissa Ward, Brent Swails and Ivana Kottasová, CNN The busy Kabul street looks almost as if nothing has changed. People rush by, as shopkeepers arrange their colorful merchandise, and police direct traffic. There’s one big change, though: There are almost no women here. Since the Taliban took over the Afghan capital on Sunday, women

By Rob Picheta, Celine Alkhaldi, Nada Bashir and Nina Avramova, CNN Thousands of desperate Afghans remain stranded under Taliban rule in Kabul on Tuesday, as the US and its allies — still frantically evacuating their personnel from the city’s airport — reckon with the sudden breakdown of their two-decade effort in Afghanistan. The situation at

By Anna Coren, Sandi Sidhu, Abdul Basir Bina and Hilary Whiteman, CNN Najia was at home with her three young sons and daughter in a small village in northern Afghanistan when Taliban fighters knocked on their door. Najia’s daughter Manizha, 25, knew they were coming — her mother had told her they’d done the same

By Julia Hollingsworth and Chandler Thornton, CNN New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has announced a nationwide lockdown after the country confirmed one coronavirus case — the first locally transmitted Covid-19 case in the community since February. Ardern told a press conference Tuesday authorities were assuming it was the contagious Delta variant, although genome sequencing