JAPAN: A series of powerful earthquakes have killed least 55 people and damaged thousands of buildings, vehicles and boats in the west of the country, officials said today, warning that more quakes could lie ahead.

Aftershocks continued to shake Ishikawa prefecture and nearby areas, the day after a magnitude 7.6 quake rocked the area.

Tens of thousands of homes were destroyed, according to Japanese media reports, and government spokesperson Yoshimasa Hayashi said that 17 people had been seriously injured.

UNITED STATES: A federal judge in New York was expected tonight to reveal the identities of more than 150 people mentioned in a mountain of court documents related to the sex-trafficking scandal centred on the late financier Jeffrey Epstein.

The deadline for objections to the unsealing of the names passed at midnight on Monday, but Judge Loretta A Preska has said that most of the names are already in the public domain and that many had not objected to their release.

Former US president Bill Clinton and Prince Andrew are among the individuals already known to be mentioned in the documents.

SCANDINAVIA: Finland and Sweden recorded their coldest temperatures of the winter today, when thermometers plummeted as low as minus 40°C as a cold spell grips the region.

Cold and snow disrupted transport throughout Scandinavia. A major highway in the south of Norway was closed due to the weather and ferry lines suspended operations.

Swedish train operators said the cold snap had caused substantial problems for rail traffic in the Arctic north.

ETHIOPIA: The landlocked country took its first step towards regaining access to the sea on Monday, signing an agreement in the capital Addis Ababa with the breakaway Somali region of Somaliland to access its coastline.

As part of the deal, Somaliland plans to lease a 12.4-mile stretch of land along its coastline to Ethiopia to establish a marine force base, Somaliland President Muse Bihi Abdi said at the signing.

Ethiopia lost its access to the sea when Eritrea seceded in 1993.