Select foreign aid and rescue teams have joined desperate efforts to find any remaining survivors high in Morocco’s Atlas mountains, as the death toll rose to 2,497 people three days after a powerful earthquake that has left many villages still inaccessible.

Moroccan authorities said they had “responded favourably” to offers of help from visiting search and rescue teams from Spain, Qatar, Britain and the United Arab Emirates, but were yet to accept further offers of aid from other countries despite the urgent nature of the disaster.

Five children of Urfan Sharif, who fled to Pakistan with his wife and brother after his 10-year-old daughter Sara was found dead in Surrey, were found by police in Pakistan during a search on Monday, police officials have said.

Police recovered the children from Sharif’s father’s home in the northern city of Jhelum.

Nasir Mehmood Bajwa, a district police officer, told the Guardian: “Police with a heavy contingent on Monday evening raided Sharif’s residence in Jhelum and recovered five children. They are healthy and in good condition.”

Australia’s Indigenous rights referendum loses steam

Several polls show that the government has failed to convince skeptical and undecided voters to back the Indigenous rights amendment. The vote is due on October 14.

Support for Australia’s historic Indigenous rights referendum has slumped, according to a poll published Monday, suggesting the proposal is on track for defeat.

Australians will be asked in the “Voice to Parliament” vote on October 14 whether they support altering the constitution to set up an Indigenous panel to advise the federal parliament.

A survey conducted for the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper found support has slid to 43%, down from 46% in August, led by a loss of confidence with voters in the states of New South Wales and Victoria.

North Korea’s Kim to visit Russia for talks with Putin, state media confirm

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un will soon visit Russia to meet President Vladimir Putin, the two countries confirmed on Monday, a potentially landmark summit amid Moscow’s deepening isolation over the war in Ukraine.

Kim will visit Russia in the coming days at the invitation of Putin, the Kremlin said, while North Korean state news agency KCNA said the two would “meet and have a talk”, without elaborating.

US officials have said the pair would discuss possible arms deals to aid Russia’s war in Ukraine and provide North Korea with a much-needed economic and political lifeline.

Whether Kim made the trip for his second summit with Putin had been closely watched by governments because of recent overtures that signalled closer military cooperation between the nuclear-armed North and Russia as it wages its war in Ukraine.

Despite denials by both Pyongyang and Moscow, the United States has said talks are advancing actively for North Korea to supply arms to Russia which has expended vast stocks of weapons in more than 18 months of war in Ukraine.

After slew of disasters, Greeks wonder what is happening to their democracy

Floods, wildfires and a deadly train collision this year have raised questions about the competence of state 

 and central government.

 I came across Matoula Tzela as she threw shrink-wrapped bricks of exercise books onto the pavement outside her stationery shop in the village of Palamas.

Muddy floodwater had risen almost a metre inside her shop, and the notebooks, along with backpacks, Playmobil toy sets and physics and maths textbooks on the lower shelves were now worthless. They would have been sold this week, as the Greek school year begins.

She is uninsured, and still owes money for consigned merchandise, but Tzela and her husband feel lucky.

Palamas sits between two small rivers, which swelled with the rainfall brought by Storm Daniel late last Monday. Tzela was among the first to hear the coming flood.