Afghanistan

The US Geological Survey (USGS) says the magnitude 6.3 quake struck near the city of Herat. It was at a depth of 6.3km.

At least one person has died, according to local health authorities.

Another 100 are being treated for injuries in the regional hospital, the World Health Organisation said.

More than 90 percent of those who died in the earlier quakes were women and children, the UN's children agency Unicef said.

It is the first officially confirmed public execution since the hardline Islamist group seized power last year.

Reuters reports the execution in Farah province was of a man accused of stabbing another man to death in 2017, Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid said, and was attended by senior Taliban officials.

The execution was carried out by the father of the victim, who shot the man three times, Mujahid said in a subsequent statement.

Many are on the brink of starvation amid the strict regime and the worst drought in 30 years.

World Vision New Zealand national director Grant Bayldon said Afghanistan was now likely the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

"[Years of drought] mean crops have failed and then with the Ukraine crisis going on, it's meaning that the price of grain and getting it into Afghanistan has skyrocketed. People have less money and food is more expensive," he said.

The average household income was just $1 per day.

At a press conference, the Afghanistan Ministry for the Prevention of Vice and Promotion of Virtue announced that all women would have to cover their face in public.

The decree also said if women have no important work outside then they should stay at home.

Akif Muhajir, spokesman for the ministry, told the BBC the order was based on the Quran and the life of the Prophet Muhammad.

During the conference, the ministry spelled out punishments for the male guardians of the women who failed to obey the new rules.

The first explosion tore through a Shia mosque in the city of Mazar-i-Sharif.

At least 31 people were killed, and 87 were wounded, the BBC has been told.

The Islamic State group (IS) admitted carrying out the attack. The Taliban say they have defeated the IS but the group remains a serious security challenge to Afghanistan's new rulers.

The attack on the Mazar-i-Sharif mosque was carried out using a remotely detonated booby-trapped bag when the building was packed with worshippers, the IS jihadists said.

In a joint statement, the 22 nations demanded that the Islamist regime respect its pledge not to harm former government or security personnel.

"We are deeply concerned by reports of summary killings and enforced disappearances", the statement says.

It follows a damning report on killings and abductions by the Islamist regime.

Released by the Human Rights Watch earlier this week, the report documented more than 100 executions and abductions of former Afghan government officials since the Taliban took control of the country almost four months ago.

Mirza Ali Ahmadi and his wife Suraya found themselves and their five children on Aug. 19 in a chaotic crowd outside the gates of the Kabul airport in Afghanistan when a U.S soldier, from over the tall fence, asked if they needed help.

Fearing their two-month old baby Sohail would get crushed in the melee, they handed him to the soldier, thinking they would soon get to the entrance, which was only about 16 feet away.

Attackers targeted the 400-bed Sardar Daud Khan hospital starting with two massive explosions outside the building, officials said.

Gunmen then broke into the hospital grounds, witnesses said.

An affiliate of the Islamic State group, IS-K, later said it had carried out the attack.

Photographs and video footage from Kabul showed a plume of smoke over the area and recorded the sounds of gunfire. A doctor in the building told the AFP news agency he had been sent to seek shelter in a safe room during the attack and could hear guns being fired.

Bodies were seen scattered inside the Said Abad mosque, used by the minority Shia Muslim community.

More than 100 people were injured in the blast in the northern city.

The Islamic State group said it was behind the attack. Sunni Muslim extremists have targeted Shias who they see as heretics.

IS-K, the Afghan regional affiliate of the IS group that is violently opposed to the governing Taliban, has carried out several bombings recently, largely in the east of the country.

Testimony by Gen Mark Milley and Gen Frank McKenzie to Congress seemed to contradict President Joe Biden, who said he did not recall any such advice.

The Taliban took power in August, after rapidly advancing through the country.

Gen Milley said the US had been taken by surprise by the speed of the Afghan government's collapse.

The two US generals were questioned by the Senate armed services committee along with Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin on Tuesday.