Briefly

MOROCCO

Earthquake death toll passes 2,900

Villagers in parts of Morocco devastated by the country's biggest earthquake in over a century camped outside for a fifth night on Tuesday, as the death toll rose to more than 2,900. Search teams from Spain, Britain and Qatar joined Moroccan efforts to find survivors from the 6.8 magnitude quake that struck in the High Atlas Mountains late on Friday, flattening traditional mud-brick houses ubiquitous in the region. State TV reported on Tuesday that the death toll had risen to 2,901, with 5,530 people injured. With much of the quake zone in hard-to-reach areas, authorities have not issued any estimates for the number of missing people.

UNITED STATES

Sanctions waived for prisoner swap with Iran

The United States waived sanctions to allow the transfer of $6 billion in Iranian funds from the Republic of Korea to Qatar, a step needed to carry out a previously announced US-Iran prisoner swap, according to a US document seen by Reuters on Monday. The broad outlines of the US-Iran deal, under which five US citizens detained by Iran would be allowed to leave in exchange for the transfer of the funds and the release of five Iranians held in the US, were made public on Aug 10. The fund transfer and prisoner exchange could take place as early as next week, Reuters quoted eight Iranian and other sources familiar with the negotiations as saying.

TURKIYE

17 suspects arrested over 2016 failed coup

Turkish police have detained 17 suspects in northwestern Turkiye over their alleged ties with a network believed to be behind a defeated coup in 2016, local media reported on Tuesday. Gendarmerie command units rounded up the suspects when they tried to illegally flee to Greece from the border province of Edirne, according to the Ihlas news agency. There were arrest warrants for four suspects on charges of belonging to the network of US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen and the Syrian Kurdish group, the Democratic Union Party, said the agency.

UNITED KINGDOM

Creator of Dolly the Sheep dies at 79

British scientist Ian Wilmut, whose research was central to the creation of the cloned animal, Dolly the Sheep, has died at the age of 79, the University of Edinburgh said on Monday. He died on Sunday, years after being diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. Wilmut, along with Keith Campbell from the Animal Sciences Research Institute in Scotland, generated news headlines and heated ethical debates in 1996 when they created Dolly. The sheep, named after country singer Dolly Parton, was the first mammal to be cloned from an adult cell, using a process called somatic cell nuclear transfer.

INDIA

Canada's PM finally leaves after plane woes

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau belatedly left India on Tuesday after an aircraft breakdown forced a two-day extension of his visit to New Delhi for the G20 summit. Trudeau arrived in India for the meeting of the leaders of 20 leading economies on Friday and was due to return home on Sunday after laying a wreath at a memorial to Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi. However, a mechanical fault detected during preflight checks resulted in the grounding of his plane by the Canadian Armed Forces and he was stranded along with his entire delegation.

Agencies Via Xinhua