Central Asia & Caucasus Data

US President Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw all US troops from Afghanistan by September 11, regardless of whether a peace settlement has been achieved in the war-torn nation, opens the way for a Taliban takeover of Kabul and ouster of incumbent President Ashraf Ghani’s government. Indeed, compromise was not in the air when the Islamic The post One step closer to a Taliban walkover in Afghanistan appeared first on Asia Times.

PESHAWAR – When China and Iran recently announced their landmark 25-year economic and security agreement, Pakistan’s military leadership was coincidently touting its new “geo-economic vision” for more infrastructure development and integration in South Asia. While the US$400 billion China-Iran pact’s details are still opaque, including in regard to spending priorities, it’s clear that Pakistan is The post China-Iran pact boosts Pakistan’s trade hub dream appeared first on Asia Times.

India is in the grip of a massive second wave of Covid-19 infections, surpassing even the United States in terms of new daily infections. The current spike came after a brief lull: daily new cases had fallen from 97,000 new cases per day in September 2020 to around 10,000 per day in January 2021. However, from the The post India loses a complex plot as Covid surges back appeared first on Asia Times.

Rare-earth metals are critical to the high-tech society we live in as an essential component of mobile phones, computers and many other everyday devices. But increasing demand and limited global supply means we must urgently find a way to recover these metals efficiently from discarded products. Rare-earth metals are currently mined or recovered via traditional The post A safer, better way to mine rare earths appeared first on Asia Times.