The quake’s epicentre was located at a latitude of 36.10°N and a longitude of 71.20°E, with a depth of 130 kilometers.
In the old and new Great Game, Afghanistan has held a central position. Peter Hopkirk, in his path-breaking book The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia, chronicled the 19th-century geopolitical chessboard involving Britain and Russia.
There is an unconfirmed report that the US has redeployed at the Bagram air base in Afghanistan. This base was the command centre for NATO and US forces throughout their occupation of Afghanistan.
Within Pakistan, the unforgiving regions of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Baluchistan have had an especially violent ‘gun-culture’, for a long time. Bloody, inter-tribal, anti- ‘foreigner’ and familial feuds are a way of life, and often the family sentinels peer at their neighbours through rifle ports.
Afghan refugees awaiting resettlement to the United States have written an 'open letter' to Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to immediately halt their deportation to Afghanistan as the March 31 deadline approaches closer.
''These medicines will be handed over to the representatives of the World Health Organisation (WHO) in Kabul and will be administered at the Indira Gandhi Children Hospital, Kabul,'' the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said.
Confirming the incident, the father of the kidnapped child Mohammad Dawod Rateb said "The eight-year-old Sedra was kidnapped at about 7 a.m. local time."
India announced a grant of 50,000 tonnes of wheat and medicines for the Afghan people. It sent a note verbale to Pakistan on 4 October requesting it to permit Indian trucks carrying this aid to move through its soil. Pakistan has thus far permitted Afghan products to be moved to India by road but not the reverse.
The target of the blast remained unknown and no group has claimed responsibly for the attack so far. Islamic State (IS)-affiliated militants have staged several bomb explosions in Kabul and other places since Taliban's takeover in mid-August.
Globally, one in three women have experienced physical or sexual violence, mostly by an intimate partner. Afghanistan has one of the highest rates of violence against women globally, with nine out of 10 women experiencing at least one form of intimate partner violence in their lifetime.
