LONDON, Sept 28 (Reuters) - British and Nigerian civil society groups have urged the British government to return funds confiscated from Nigerian politician James Ibori, a convicted fraudster, to his country in a swift and transparent way so the money can benefit ordinary Nigerians.

In a letter to Britain's home and foreign affairs ministers, a coalition of close to 50 NGOs said the long-delayed confiscation process had undermined the strong anti-corruption message sent by Ibori's conviction over a decade ago.

27 September 2023; MEMO: The death toll from a deadly earthquake that hit Morocco earlier this month has neared 3,000, the government said Wednesday, Anadolu Agency reports.

There is an update on the death toll, the martyrs’ number has risen to 2,960

government spokesman, Mustapha Baitas, told journalists.

The last update by authorities on 13 September said the death toll was 2,946.

BEIJING, Sept 28 (Reuters) - China launched its first high-speed rail line that will travel across several bays and skim along the coast of the southeastern province of Fujian near the Taiwan Strait, state media reported on Thursday.

A bullet train departed from Fuzhou, the capital of east China's Fujian province Thursday morning, setting up the opening of the 277-km (172-mile) Fuzhou-Xiamen-Zhangzhou railway, Xinhua reported.

HOHHOT, Sept. 28 (Xinhua) -- Erenhot, the largest land port on the China-Mongolia border, has handled more than 1 million inbound and outbound travelers so far this year, with a single-day high of over 8,800 people, local authorities said on Thursday.

Customs clearance services for passenger traffic at the Erenhot highway port, located on the border of north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, resumed on Jan. 8, and China-Mongolia international passenger train services resumed on Aug. 30.

MOSCOW, September 28. /TASS/: Moscow is disappointed about Yerevan’s intention to sign the Rome Statute, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

"Armenia knows very well that we are not a party to [the Rome Statute], and Armenia is fully aware of the hardly digestible decision [of the International Criminal Court to issue an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin] made based on this statute. We know that Yerevan is well aware of this. This is not something we approve of," the Kremlin official said, commenting on Armenia’s actions on the matter.

26 September 2023; MEMO: Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, said Tuesday that the US is “creating a Kurdish quasi-state” in Syria, Anadolu Agency reports.

He spoke at a news conference in Moscow and said he briefed his Tunisian counterpart, Nabil Ammar, at a meeting Tuesday about the work that Russia, Turkiye and Iran are carrying out within the framework of the Astana format to promote Syrian settlement.

GENEVA (AP) — A court in northern Switzerland on Thursday acquitted a former security Belarusian operative over the enforced disappearances of three of President Aleksander Lukashenko’s political opponents in the late 1990s, said an advocacy group that spearheaded the case.

Judges in the northern town of Rorschach said they were not convinced that the defendant, Yuri Harauski, a former member of a Belarusian military unit known as SOBR, was involved in the disappearances.

JERUSALEM, Sept 28 (NNN-MA’AN) – At least 33 children were injured last night, when a school bus overturned at a crossroad west of Jerusalem, Israeli authorities said.

At least 33 passengers aged 8-12 were evacuated to hospitals, two of whom sustained serious injuries, one was in a moderate condition and 30 sustained light injuries, Zaki Heller, a spokesman for Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service, said in a statement.

The condition of the driver was not immediately clear.

TASHKENT, Sept 28 (Reuters) - One person was killed and 162 injured by a powerful explosion on Thursday at a warehouse near Tashkent's airport that sparked a fire and shattered windows in apartment blocks nearby, authorities in Uzbekistan said.

A teenage boy died after a window frame fell on him, the health ministry said in a statement, adding that 24 people had been hospitalised, but faced no threat to their lives, while 138 were treated for injuries.

Flights were operating as normal at the international airport in the capital, its administration said.

MOSCOW, September 28. /TASS/: The creation of an alternative to SWIFT will be one of the issues on the agenda of BRICS countries’ meeting next year, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov told a forum, adding that a whole number of BRICS members already have their own systems.

27 September 2023; MEMO: The Biden administration announced, Wednesday, that it is admitting Israel into the United States Visa Waiver Program (VWP), allowing visa-free entry by Israeli citizens from 30 November, officials said.

MOSCOW, September 27. /TASS/: The terrorist attack on the Nord Stream pipelines was organized one way or another by the US and the UK, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, adding that these countries were involved in what happened.