A vehicle belonging to the Taliban was hit by an explosion in a town north of the capital Kabul on Friday, it announced on Friday.

Two suspects were detained in a search operation after the incident that occurred in Charikar, the provincial capital of Parwan, said the Taliban government’s spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid.

Mujahid added that several members of the terror group Daesh, also known as ISIS, were killed in the operation and that some were captured alive.

Some members of the Taliban were reportedly wounded in the bomb attack and clashes broke out during the operation.

Attacks by Daesh have increased after the Taliban took over Afghanistan in August. The terror group is responsible for bomb attacks in the eastern city of Jalalabad on Sept. 18 and 19 in which four people were killed.

Taliban officials have, however, claimed that Daesh does not pose a major threat and that terrorist groups would not be allowed to operate in the country./aa

Despite the government's claims that the energy shortage will be gone in weeks, the UK's fuel crisis has persisted on Friday.

According to a statement by the Petrol Retailers Association (PRA), an independent trade union that represents 65% of the UK’s nearly 10,000 petrol stations, people were still unable to refuel their vehicles due to shortages across the country.

At least 21% of motorists reported a shortage of fuel. Staff at various fuel stations have been facing verbal abuses and harassment by motorists looking for fuel.

“Trying to calm the situation right now is a huge task. Demand continues to rise,” PRA Chairman Brian Madderson said, adding British soldiers will be delivering fuel by the coming weekend.

On Wednesday, PRA Executive Director Gordon Balmer released a statement reassuring the public that the crisis will end soon. “There are early signs that the crisis at pumps is ending, with more of our members reporting that they are now taking further deliveries of fuel.”

“Fuel stocks remain normal at refineries and terminals, although deliveries have been reduced due to the shortage of large goods vehicle (HGV) drivers. We have conducted a survey of our members this morning and only 37% of forecourts have reported being out of fuel today. With regular restock taking place, this percentage is likely to improve further over the next 24 hours,” Balmer added.

Earlier this week, the military was put on stand-by due to a lack of HGV drivers resulting in the ensuing fuel crisis and other shortages in the food sector. Delivery and haulage companies are currently training soldiers on the specific requirements and rules on delivering petrol to stations./aa

A day after Ethiopia ordered seven UN humanitarian staff to leave the country, UN said on Friday it is the long-standing legal position of the organization not to accept the application of the doctrine of persona non grata, with respect to UN officials.

"This is a doctrine that applies to diplomatic agents accredited by one state to another state," said Farhan Haq, the spokesman for Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, at a press briefing.

"The application of this doctrine to United Nations officials is contrary to obligations under the Charter of the United Nations and the privileges and immunities to be accorded to the United Nations and its officials," he added.

The spokesman also said Guterres received a call on Friday from the Prime Minister of Ethiopia Abiy Ahmed, in which he reiterated the "position of the United Nations, which was formerly conveyed today to the permanent mission".

He said the rule is that when concerns arise with regard to the conduct of UN personnel, the requirement is that such concerns are appropriately conveyed to the organization and then the Secretary-General will make the necessary determinations and take the necessary steps to address the matter.

On Thursday, Ethiopia ordered the UN officials to leave the country within 72 hours.

According to a statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, staffers from different UN organizations have been declared “persona non grata” for "meddling in the internal affairs" of the nation.

The statement did not provide further details but the declaration was made in connection with the agencies’ operations in Ethiopia's northernmost region of Tigray.

A region of 5.5 million people, Tigray came under intense international spotlight after an armed conflict began between the federal government and forces of the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF).

The US strongly condemned Ethiopia for expelling the UN officials and urged the international community to take action.

The White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the expulsions came amid reports that warn that thousands of people are starving to death in northern Ethiopia./aa

The president of the Malta chamber of commerce said on Friday that trade between Turkey and Malta increased remarkably and that there is further potential for Turkish and Maltese enterprises to expand their collaboration.

President of Malta Chamber of Commerce, Enterprise and Industry Marisa Xuereb and President of Maltese Turkish Business Council under the Chamber of Commerce (Malta) Ezgi Harmanci evaluated the trade, collaboration, and investment areas between the two countries in an exclusive interview with Anadolu Agency.

Referring to the developing relations between the two countries with increasing momentum, Xuereb said: "Trade relations concentrated in certain sectors, mostly maritime and construction. These are, of course, areas where Turkey brings a lot of technical know-how, especially in larger projects."

She mentioned that there are some cultural commonalities that help the Malta-Turkey economic partnership, saying: "Turkish investors who come to Malta see that they can work with Maltese. We hope that Maltese investors will now try to approach the Turkish market, start investing there, and have similar positive experiences."

She also expressed that Malta is a country where every country feels comfortable doing business together.

"We see a lot of potential for cooperation between Turkish and Maltese companies in third countries since Malta is a 'hub' that connects people together. Everyone who comes here finds a piece of their identity in something. So it's a place where everyone can feel at home."

Malta has Europe in the north and Africa in the south, and that it has many similar points with Africa due to cultural and historical connections, linguistic and geographical proximity, she explained. "We know Turkey is also very interested in North Africa."

Libya

To a question that there have been recent trilateral contacts in foreign policy between Turkey, Malta, and Libya, and asked if there will be trilateral trade, Xuereb responded: "Malta has always supported the stability of its neighbor Libya, and it is also the first country to launch direct flights to Libya after (many) years. This is also an interesting development for Turkish businesspeople."

Turkish Airlines offers flights to Malta, from which you can fly to Tripoli, she said, adding that the distances are relatively short.

"There is a very good cooperation between the Maltese and Libyan authorities, which means Malta has this direct route, (which is) the main factor in the resumption of flights," she added.

Explaining that Turkish investments in Malta began in traditional areas, Harmanci said: "The Turks are in a very strong position right now in maritime, construction, production, trade, import, export, many sectors you can think of."

Turks dominate the construction sector in Malta, She said, adding, "Large-scale construction projects, roads, and infrastructure projects have been and continue to be made entirely by Turks."/aa

Germany said on Friday it was concerned over the deteriorating humanitarian crisis along Poland's border with Belarus, as migrants from the Middle East continue to flock there in a bid to enter the EU.

Speaking to media representatives in the capital Berlin, government spokesman Steffen Seibert said: "I think the first thing you have to say again is that the Belarusian ruler, Mr (Alexander) Lukashenko, is instrumentalizing refugees and migrants and that is completely unacceptable. And at the same time, effective border protection must always respect humanity and applicable law."

"From the point of view of the federal (German) government, it is primarily important that the people who are now on the border, those seeking protection, that they quickly get the necessary support, especially now with the falling temperatures. That they can get clothes, food, necessary medicines. So humane solutions for these people have to be found quickly," he added.

International aid organizations have warned that with night frosts setting in and winter fast approaching, the conditions for migrants on the Poland-Belarus border region are becoming increasingly critical.

Meanwhile, Seibert called on Poland to treat the refugees "in accordance with European and international law and European values."

Several migrants are already known to have died in the border area in recent weeks.

Poland is presently building a fence along the 418-kilometer (260-mile) border, which is largely made up of thick forest.

On Sept. 2, a 30-day state of emergency was declared on a 3-kilometer-wide strip of the border. As a consequence, aid workers and media representatives are not permitted to enter the crisis area.

Warsaw is currently contemplating to extend the state of emergency for an additional 60 days./agencies

The United Nations Human Rights Office said Friday that it does not have "meaningful" or "other" access to China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights spokesman Rupert Colville said his office has no permission from China to access Xinjiang, where ethnic Uyghur Muslims have reportedly been subjected to years of abuses of their identity and culture.

“We've had no access to Xinjiang, meaningful or otherwise,” said Colville in an answer to a question from Anadolu Agency at a UN news conference. “Obviously, this is not the only avenue we're pursuing.”

He said the UN Rights Office chief Michelle Bachelet is “finalizing an assessment of the available information we have on allegations of serious human rights violations in Xinjiang to make that public sometime down the line.”

Since she assumed office in 2018, Bachelet has been calling on China to allow her office access to the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

At the Human Rights Council on Sept. 13, she said she was sorry that there was no progress on the issue.

According to the UN data, at least 1 million Uyghurs are kept against their will in places Beijing calls "vocational training centers" and the international community defines as "re-education camps".

China does not provide information on how many camps there are in Xinjiang, how many people there are, and how many of them have returned to social life.

While the UN and other international organizations reiterated their calls for the camps to be opened for inspection, China has allowed a few of its designated centers to be partially viewed by a small number of foreign diplomats and journalists.

Several countries have accused China of ethnic cleansing of Uyghurs in Xinjiang,

Beijing has denied any wrongdoing, dismissing the allegations as "lies and (a) political virus"./aa

Former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili was detained following his return to the country after eight years, the country's prime minister announced on Friday.

Irakli Garibashvili said in a press conference that Saakashvili, who had an arrest warrant to his name, was detained by security forces.

Noting that the Interior Ministry had previously received information on Saakashvili's plans to come to Georgia from Ukraine, Garibashvili said the process was "completely under control," adding that Saakashvili was transferred to a penitentiary.

The Interior Ministry shared footage of Saakashvili's imprisonment in the southeastern city of Rustavi, 30 kilometers (about 19 miles) from Tbilisi.

Separately, the prosecutor's office said in a statement that Saakashvili had been sentenced to six years in absentia.

Saakashvili, who spent the last eight years abroad due to the warrant, announced on Facebook earlier on Friday that he had returned to the city of Batumi on Georgia's Black Sea coast.

His return came a day before local elections are to be held in the country and he urged the public to go to the polls and "protect" their votes by gathering in the center of the capital Tbilisi on Sunday.

Saakashvili went to the US in 2013 after his presidential term expired, with then-President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko granting him Ukrainian citizenship in May 2015. Saakashvili was appointed Governor of Odessa, but resigned from this post in 2016.

He has been the Chairman of the Executive Committee of the National Reform of Ukraine since 2020./aa

At least 23 Palestinians were injured and dozens of others suffered tear gas inhalation as the “Israeli” security forces forcibly dispersed several anti-settlement rallies across the occupied West Bank on Friday.

Ahmed Jebril, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society’s emergency director in the Nablus city, northern West Bank, said 11 Palestinians were injured by “Israeli” rubber bullets in clashes on the Mt. Sbeih, near Beita village, south of Nablus city. He added that four people were injured as they fell during the clashes.

He added medical teams also treated seven people hit with “Israeli” rubber bullets in Beit Dajan village, east of Nablus city.

In the village of Beita, a video showed an “Israeli” drone firing tear gas canisters.

The “Israeli” Broadcasting Corporation network said the drone fell down due to a technical failure.

In the village of Kafr Qaddum, east of Qalqilya, the coordinator of the Popular Resistance Committees in the village, Murad Eshteiwi, told Anadolu Agency that the “Israeli” army fired live bullets, rubber-coated metal bullets, and tear gas canisters after the weekly Friday prayers to disperse an anti-settlement rally in the village.

He added that one Palestinian child was hit in his leg with a rubber-coated bullet.

Meanwhile, in the southern occupied West Bank, clashes erupted between Palestinians and the “Israeli” army following the Friday prayer in the Bab al-Zawiya area, central Hebron city, where dozens were treated for suffocation caused by “Israeli” tear gas canisters.

Every Friday, Palestinians organize marches against settlements and the separation wall in a number of villages and towns in the West Bank.

“Israeli” and Palestinian estimates indicate that there are about 650,000 settlers in the West Bank, including occupied Jerusalem, who live in 164 settlements and 116 outposts./agencies

US Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh on Thursday evening tested positive for COVID-19, according to a Supreme Court statement.

Per the court's regular testing protocols, Kavanaugh had a routine test ahead of Justice Amy Coney Barrett's investiture on Friday, said the statement.

He has no symptoms and has been fully vaccinated since January.

Kavanaugh, 56, has his last negative test that came Monday before the justices' in-person conference.

Kavanaugh's wife and daughters are also fully vaccinated, and they tested negative on Thursday.

As a precaution, the Kavanaugh couple will not attend Justice Barrett's investiture on Friday morning, the statement added./agencies

Researchers at the University of Washington say they have uncovered data which shows that since 1980, official government statistics on the number of people killed by police is vastly underestimated, by more than half.

The federal government's National Vital Statistics System (NVSS) keeps official track of those killed in police interactions, and according to the researchers, the NVSS lists that number at 13,700 killed between 1980 and 2019.

But the researchers say they used three independent, open-source databases, Fatal Encounters, Mapping Police Violence and The Counted, to reach a far higher number: 30,800, or 17,100 more deaths than reported by the NVSS.

The study, published Friday in the Lancet, also says that Black men are 3.5% more likely to die at the hands of police than White men and Black women about 1.4% more likely to die than White women.

The senior author of the study, Mohsen Naghavi told ABC News, "Police violence and racism is really a public health problem."

The study also lays out a plan for the NVSS to overhaul how it keeps track of police deaths, pointing out that the same US states that are responsible for those deaths are also the ones responsible for reporting them. The report calls that a "conflict of interest", and also says that coroners who make the determination of "homicide" on a death report run the risk of miscalculation when it comes to police killings.

As for the racial disparity in police killings, the study says "Proven public health intervention strategies are needed to address these systematic biases."

The study mentions how high-profile police killings in the past year have spurred the Black Lives Matter movement and a greater interest in digging deeper into police killings, particularly of Black Americans.

The NVSS has yet to comment on the report./aa