A senior Taliban figure has urged the group’s leader to scrap education bans on Afghan women and girls, saying there is no excuse for them, in a rare public rebuke of government policy.

President Biden spoke by phone Sunday with the families of three Americans held by the Taliban, Ryan Corbett, George Glezmann and Mahmood Habibi.

India and Afghanistan have taken a significant step in securing their first high-level bilateral engagement. No foreign government, including India, officially recognizes the Taliban regime.

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai decried the state of women’s rights in Taliban-led Afghanistan as “gender apartheid.”

The fate of Americans who are currently held in Afghanistan by the Taliban continue to hang in the balance as President Biden prepares to leave office.

President Joe Biden spoke Sunday with relatives of three Americans the U.S. government is looking to bring home from Afghanistan, but it was unclear from the call if a deal to bring them back that is now on the table could be completed before the he leaves office next week.

The Taliban authorities say that around 3 kilometers of the pipeline has been completed, out of more than 770 km needed to bring Turkmen gas to the Pakistani border.

Activist urges Muslim leaders to confront Afghanistan’s government over its oppressive policies against girls and women

"Simply put, the Taliban in Afghanistan do not see women as human beings," she told an international summit hosted by Pakistan on girls education in Islamic countries. Ms Yousafzai told Muslim leaders there was "nothing Islamic" about the Taliban's policies which include banning female education and stopping women from working.

GENEVA — The Taliban must provide Ryan Corbett, an American held in Afghanistan for nearly two years, with immediate medical care to prevent irreparable harm to his health or even his death, a United Nations expert said Thursday.

The president has decided not to surrender Muhammad Rahim al Afghani, whom the U.S. alleges worked for Osama bin Laden, unless the Taliban turns over missing American Mahmoud Habibi.