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The Washington Post is reporting that more than 1,000 Afghan soldiers fled into neighboring Tajikistan early on Monday to escape clashes with Taliban insurgents.
The Taliban has mounted an aggressive campaign for territory as NATO forces withdraw from Afghanistan to meet a September 11th deadline.
Citing a statement from Tajikistan's border authority, Tajik state-run news agency Khovar said Monday that 1,037 Afghan servicemen have crossed the border from Afghanistan's Badakhshan province.
The president of Tajikistan has released a statement on his website, saying he's ordered the mobilization of 20,000 reserve troops to the border. Tajik authorities have repeatedly said they will not interfere in internal Afghan matters.
The BBC reports that the influx was the third wave of Afghan soldiers to flee into Tajikistan in recent days and the fifth wave in two weeks that brings a total of Afghan soldiers fleeing into Tajikistan to nearly 1,600.
OPEC-plus ministers called off oil output talks on Monday after clashing last week when the United Arab Emirates balked at a proposed eight-month extension to output curbs, meaning no deal to boost production has been agreed.
On Sunday, Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdul Aziz Bin Salman called for a compromise and rationality to secure a deal after two days of failed discussions last week.
But today, four OPEC-plus sources said there had been no progress and that talks have been called off without a new date set.
The failure to agree on Monday means an expected increase in oil output from August will not take place. That could drive up oil prices which were already at their highest since 2018.
France's champagne industry group on Monday blasted a new Russian law that forces foreign producers to add a "sparkling wine" reference to their bottles of champagne and called for the halting of exports of the bubbly drink to Russia.
The law signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday requires all foreign producers of sparkling wine to describe their product as such on the back of the bottle - though not on the front - while makers of Russian "shampanskoye" may continue to use that term alone.
The French champagne industry group called on its members to halt all shipments to Russia for the time being and said the name "champagne", which refers to a region in France where the drink comes from, had legal protection in 120 countries.
