CNN – Asia/Pacific

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 Rob Picheta, Nadine Schmidt and Tim Lister, CNN Afghans are witnessing early glimpses of the true nature of Taliban rule, after the brutal repression of several protests and the murder of a journalist’s relative betrayed the militant group’s promises to lead an “inclusive” and restrained regime. The German news organization Deutsche Welle (DW) said

By Angus Watson and Julia Hollingsworth, CNN New Zealand will extend a nationwide lockdown for four days after uncovering several locally transmitted Covid-19 cases. The lockdown began Tuesday over a single infection, the country’s first locally transmitted case since February. That patient had contracted highly transmissible Delta variant of the coronavirus. Authorities have since uncovered

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.