NEW YORK -- When U.S. President Joe Biden told the world Monday that he did not regret withdrawing from Afghanistan, he supplied his rationale and laid out the guiding principles of his foreign policy.

No fighting indefinitely in a conflict not in America's national interest. No doubling down on a foreign civil war. No attempting to remake a country by endlessly deploying American forces. On a tactical level, he supports counterterrorism but not counterinsurgency and will use over-the-horizon capability to target direct threats to

Instead of a ladder to the last helicopter out of Saigon, a new image of desperation and collapse seared itself into the world's mind this week. A crowd of Afghans swarming a whale-like U.S. Air Force transport, grasping at its oblivious sides as it took off from Kabul airport.

A few managed to get a hold on the plane's landing gear bays as it climbed, only to plunge to their deaths onto the capital below -- bookending America's war on terror in a

NEW DELHI -- Asian countries -- including India, the Philippines and South Korea -- are rushing to evacuate their diplomats and citizens from Kabul, the capital city of Afghanistan, which has fallen under the control of the Taliban, amid similar rescue efforts by countries around the world.

"In view of the prevailing circumstances, it has been decided that our ambassador in Kabul and his Indian staff will move to India immediately," Indian foreign ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi posted on Twitter on Tuesday.

A few hours later an

Ian Bremmer is the president of Eurasia Group and GZERO Media and author of Us vs. Them: The Failure of Globalism.

An Israeli company called NSO Group has created a spyware tool called Pegasus that gives its users an extraordinary ability to surveil and steal secrets from anyone who carries a smartphone.

Investigative reports and advertising materials from NSO reveal that Pegasus can listen to phone calls and voicemails, track the phone owner's movement and current location, steal passwords, and collect emails, videos, and browsing history. It can

NEW DELHI -- India's southern Kerala state, which was lauded for its efficient handling of the coronavirus pandemic early on, is currently battling a rise in daily infections, accounting for more than half of the country's new cases at a time when the devastating second wave of COVID-19 is ebbing nationwide.

The picturesque state, with a population of about 35 million, reported India's first case in January 2020 in a female medical student who had returned from the Chinese city

SINGAPORE (Reuters) -- The head of Afghanistan's central bank has fled Kabul, questioned the loyalty of Afghan security forces and blamed President Ashraf Ghani and his inexperienced advisers for the country's swift and chaotic fall to the Taliban.

In a Twitter thread on Monday detailing how he worked at the bank until militants were at the gates of the city, Acting Gov. Ajmal Ahmady also said that U.S. dollar supplies were dwindling and described escaping the capital on a military flight.

"On Sunday I

TOKYO -- Asian countries are increasingly counting on COVID-19 vaccination certificates to normalize international business travel, which has all but dried up due to the pandemic.

However, the rapid spread of the delta variant has added to the difficulty of coming up with common entry standards, given differences in vaccination rates and public health capacities in Asia. This highlights the challenge of opening borders and exempting travelers from quarantines through European-style "vaccine passports."

Singapore on Aug. 10 began granting entry to fully vaccinated foreign

HONG KONG -- Hong Kong's deep-pocketed consumers are going on a shopping binge, boosting sales of luxury goods and services amid continued COVID-19 restrictions.

Consumer spending in the city is bouncing back with a vengeance after a slump due to the pandemic. Retail sales in the first six months of the year surged 8.4% from the same period of last year even though there are no free-spending tourists from China's mainland or other countries.

The robust recovery in consumption has been

KUALA LUMPUR -- The search for Malaysia's next prime minister is on, after Muhyiddin Yassin ended a rocky 17 months in power by tendering his resignation on Monday.

Political parties have been scrambling to gather support behind their preferred replacements with written declarations. Online, countless polls have asked Malaysians to "virtually" vote for their candidate of choice. But with the palace ruling out a snap election due to COVID-19, it is up to King Sultan Abdullah Ri'ayatuddin to choose a premier he believes