National mourning in Morocco after earthquake; Vietnam and America cosy up, and more

This is the world in brief from the Economist. Our top stories. King Muhammad VI declared three days of national mourning after an earthquake struck Morocco late on Friday, killing at least 2,000 people. Rescue teams continue to struggle to reach remote villages. The Quake is the country's deadliest since 1960, with a magnitude of 6.8. It was also the biggest in the area for at least 120 years. Algeria, which severed ties with Morocco two years ago, said it would open its airspace to allow aid to reach its neighbour. Vietnam upgraded relations with America to their highest level, a status previously granted only to China, Russia, India and South Korea during a state visit by President Joe Biden. The two countries will cooperate on semiconductors and minerals. America is drawing closer to a regime with a bad human rights record because it wants to counter China's influence in the Indo-Pacific region. Luiz in Asio Lula de Silva, Brazil's president, said that Vladimir Putin, his Russian counterpart, could attend next year's G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro without being arrested. Mr. Putin faces a warrant from the international criminal court of which Brazil is a member for war crimes. On Saturday, G20 leaders unexpectedly agreed to a joint communique, which did not denounce Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Arby Ahmed, Ethiopia's Prime Minister, said that his country had finished filling reservoirs for its planned dam on the main tributary of the Nile River. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance dam is expected to produce 6,000 megawatts of electricity, more than doubling Ethiopia's current capacity, but Sudan and Egypt, which both rely on the Nile for water, view the projects as a threat. Armenian separatists who control Nagorno-Karabakh have allowed in aid shipments from Azerbaijan for the first time in decades. Azerbaijan's government agreed to reopen some of the region's road links to Armenia. Azerbaijan, which surrounds the breakaway region, had severed those links for nine months, pushing some of Nagorno-Karabakh's 120,000 ethnic Armenian residents close to starvation. The agreement should ease their plight. Ukraine's spy chief, Kirill Obedanov, said that his country's counteroffensive would continue, quote, in the cold wet and mud. Mark Milley, America's top general, said that the operations would slow as weather conditions deteriorate over the next month. Ukraine's army has pushed Russian forces out of dozens of villages since June, but minefields have stalled its advance. Koko Goff, a 19-year-old American tennis player, won the U.S. Open. It is her first Grand Slam title. She had lost the first set to her Belarusian opponent, Arena Sabalinka, but made an impressive recovery, winning two sets to one. Ms. Goff is the first American teenager to win the tournament since Serena Williams, her idol, who did so for the first time in 1999. And figure of the day, 7% Chili's Poverty Rate in 2022, down from 68% in 1990.