Latest Afghanistan News

The Taliban tell the West to look past harsh edicts on Afghan women and girls and build ties

Jun. 30, 2024 16:20 PM EDT

ISLAMABAD (AP) — The Taliban on Sunday told the West to look past the measures they have imposed on Afghan women and girls for the sake of improving foreign relations. Their chief spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the Taliban uphold certain religious and cultural values and public...

Debate takeaways: Trump confident, even when wrong, Biden halting, even with facts on his side

Jun. 28, 2024 09:32 AM EDT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The presidential debate was a re-run that featured two candidates with a combined age of 159, but it went especially poorly for one of them, President Joe Biden. Already fighting voter concerns about his age, Biden, 81, was halting and seemed to lose his train of...

Julian Assange is now free to do or say whatever he likes. What does his future hold?

Jun. 27, 2024 12:16 PM EDT

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — He has run for office, published hundreds of thousands of leaked government documents online, and once lobbied to save his local swimming pool. One of the most polarizing and influential figures of the information age, Julian Assange is now free after five years in...

Stella Assange thanks Australian lawmakers for WikiLeaks founder's freedom

Jun. 27, 2024 12:14 PM EDT

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Stella Assange thanked the spectrum of lawmakers who campaigned for her husband, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, to be freed during her visit Thursday to Australia’s Parliament House, where political leaders differed over how welcome the convicted felon was in his...

Women's rights will be raised at the UN meeting being attended by Taliban, UN official says

Jun. 27, 2024 00:17 AM EDT

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. political chief who will chair the first meeting between Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers and envoys from about 25 countries answered sharp criticism that Afghan women have been excluded, saying Wednesday that women’s rights will be raised at every session. ...

Pakistan security forces have arrested 2 key Pakistani Taliban commanders, an official says

Jun. 26, 2024 05:36 AM EDT

QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) — Security forces in Pakistan have arrested two key commanders of the Pakistani Taliban in the country's volatile southwest, an official said Wednesday. The interior minister of Baluchistan province, Ziaullah Langau, congratulated the security forces for...

Afghanistan-South Africa T20 World Cup semifinal pits cricket's overachievers against underachievers

Jun. 26, 2024 03:33 AM EDT

TAROUBA, Trinidad (AP) — Rashid Khan was hoisted on the shoulders of his celebrating Afghan teammates and then joined in a circle with the squad and took his turn to dance on the field, all beamed live for the TV audience. The joy of reaching the Twenty20 World Cup semifinals for...

What to know about WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and the guilty plea that freed him

Jun. 26, 2024 00:05 AM EDT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The guilty plea by WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange brings a stunning conclusion to an international saga of the quixotic hacker who exposed government secrets. The deal reached with the U.S. Justice Department came after Assange spent 12 years either in...

WikiLeaks’ Assange pleads guilty to publishing US military secrets in deal that secures his freedom

Jun. 25, 2024 23:38 PM EDT

SAIPAN, Northern Mariana Islands (AP) — WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange pleaded guilty to obtaining and publishing U.S. military secrets Wednesday in a deal with Justice Department prosecutors that secures his liberty and concludes a drawn-out legal saga that raised divisive questions about...

Who is Julian Assange, the polarizing founder of the secret-spilling website WikiLeaks?

Jun. 25, 2024 21:54 PM EDT

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — He emerged on the information security scene in the 1990s as a “famous teenage hacker" following what he called an “ itinerant minstrel childhood” beginning in Townsville, Australia. But the story of Julian Assange, eccentric founder of secret-spilling website...