Fighting raged for several hours after the jails - Abu Ghraib to the west of the capital and Taji to the north - came under attack.

Mortar fire and suicide bombs were used to gain access to the jails, whose inmates include al-Qaeda prisoners.

At least 20 members of the security forces were killed as they struggled to regain control.

A senior Iraqi MP, Hakim Al-Zamili, said that about 500 prisoners had escaped from the notorious Abu Ghraib prison.

Most of them were senior members of al-Qaeda who had been sentenced to death, he told Reuters news agency.

"It's obviously a terrorist attack carried out by al-Qaeda to free convicted terrorists with al-Qaeda," the agency quoted an unnamed security official as saying.

Abu Ghraib was used to torture opponents of the regime during Saddam Hussein's rule, and its infamy increased in 2004 when photographs were published showing detainees being abused by US guards.

The prison attacks were launched at about 21:30 (18:30 GMT) on Sunday night.

Gunmen fired mortar rounds at the prisons, and then used car bombs at the entrances.

The situation was eventually brought back under control on Monday morning, with the use of military helicopters.

Iraqi authorities initially denied any prisoners had escaped in the attacks, but now acknowledge "some" prisoners escaped.

The Interior Minister, Wissam al-Firaiji, said the attackers, who he called "terrorists," had been well-armed.

"The attack against Taji jail alone was carried out by nine suicide bombers and three car bombs driven by suicide bombers," he told reporters.

"The attackers also lobbed more than 100 mortar shells," he added. "The inmates are now under control,"

Northern flashpoint

Elsewhere in Iraq, two attacks on security forces in the northern city of Mosul killed 33 people, officials said.

A man drove a vehicle packed with explosives up to a military convoy.

"A suicide bomber was following the convoy and when it stopped in the middle of road he detonated his vehicle right behind it," a policeman told Reuters news agency.

A group of soldiers and at least two passers-by were among the dead, officials said.

A second attack was launched on a group of policemen, several of whom were killed when gunmen stormed their checkpoint.

Mosul, 360km (220 miles) north-west of Baghdad, is one of Iraq's major flashpoints.

Insurgent groups such as al-Qaeda have found the city a fertile recruiting ground.

It is the capital of the Sunni-dominated Nineveh province, and many Iraqi Sunnis resent the Shia-led government, correspondents say.

It is unclear who was behind the incidents, but there has been a recent escalation in violence across Iraq.

More than 200 people have been killed since the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, and 2,500 Iraqis have died in violent attacks since April, according to UN figures released this month.

"We have zero tolerance for any behaviour of this nature," said Abbas Hussain, the UK pharmaceutical firm's Asia Pacific business head.

The acknowledgement comes as GSK says it is co-operating with a Chinese investigation into alleged bribing of doctors to prescribe the firm's drugs.

Meanwhile, rival AstraZeneca said one of its staff was also being questioned.

The firm said on Monday that the Chinese police had visited its Shanghai office on Friday and taken the employee away.

It comes after several GSK employees have been detained.

The firm's British head of finance in China, Steve Nechelput, has been subject to a travel ban since the end of June, GSK acknowledged on Thursday.

"GSK is taking this situation extremely seriously and that is why we are here," said Mr Hussain in a statement.

"Certain senior executives of GSK China who know our systems well, appear to have acted outside of our processes and controls which breaches Chinese law

"I want to make it very clear that we share the desire of the Chinese authorities to root out corruption wherever it exists. We will continue to work together with the [Chinese Ministry of Public Security] and we will take all necessary actions required as this investigation progresses."

He also said that the company would cut its prices in China.

Last week, police in China said GSK had transferred 3bn yuan ($489m; £321m) to travel agencies and consultancies to facilitate bribes to doctors.

Chinese authorities have taken into custody four Chinese executives at GSK in connection with the allegations.

They accuse GSK of using travel agencies to bribe government officials, doctors and hospitals in order to boost sales and prices of their drugs. The investigation began at the end of June, police said.

One of the four executives, vice-president and operations manager Liang Hong, appeared on state television on 16 July and said he had funnelled money through travel agencies for arranged conferences, some of which were never held.

GSK's general manager for China, Mark Reilly, is said to have left the country for Britain last month.

The Chinese authorities have said that similar transfers were made by other pharmaceutical multinationals, but without naming any.

The first earthquake near Dingxi city had a magnitude of 5.98 and was shallow, with a depth of just 9.8 km (6 miles), the US Geological Survey said.

Just over an hour later, a magnitude 5.6 quake hit the same area, it added.

In 2008, an earthquake in Sichuan province left up to 90,000 people dead and millions homeless.

A factory worker in Minxian county told AFP that he felt "violent shaking" and "ran to the yard of the [factory] plant immediately".

"Our factory is only one floor. When I came to the yard, I saw an 18-storey building, the tallest in our county, shaking ferociously, especially the 18th floor," he said.

The area has been hit by 371 aftershocks, according to the Earthquake Administration of Gansu province.

Tremors were felt in the provincial capital, Lanzhou, and as far away as Xian, 400km (250 miles) to the east.

At least 5,600 houses in the province's Zhangxian county are seriously damaged and 380 have collapsed, while some areas suffered from power cuts or mobile communications being disrupted, the earthquake administration added.

"Many have been injured by collapsed houses," a doctor based in Minxian county was quoted by Reuters news agency as saying. "Many villagers have gone to local hospitals along the roads."

The earthquake has caused a direct economic loss of 198 million yuan ($32m; £21m), the Dingxi government said on its microblog.

Both the Chinese President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang had called Gansu province to express their concern for the victims and stress the importance of the rescue operations being conducted well, the Dingxi government added.

Crews of fire fighters and rescue dogs have already arrived at the scene, the BBC's Celia Hatton in Beijing reports.

The closer to the surface an earthquake strikes, the more damage it can cause, our correspondent adds.

The earthquake reportedly triggered a series of mudslides and landslides, making it difficult for rescuers to access some areas hit by the quake.

The Gansu military police have deployed 500 soldiers, including 120 specialist rescuers, while 500 emergency tents and 2,000 quilts are also being transported to affected areas, Xinhua added.

Officials from the civil affairs, transportation and earthquake departments were also visiting local towns to assess the damage, a statement on the Dingxi party website said.

Rain is expected in the region later, leading to fears that this will make rescue efforts more difficult, or cause more landslides.

"Showery weather is expected tomorrow, and lighter rain the day after that. The rain may have an adverse effect on rescue efforts - please pay attention and be on guard!" the Dingxi government wrote on its microblog.

Residents in towns near the earthquake also reported feeling the tremors.

"You could see the chandeliers wobble and the windows vibrating and making noise, but there aren't any cracks in the walls," AP news agency quoted a clerk at Wuyang Hotel, about 40 km (25 miles) from the epicentre, as saying.

"Shop assistants all poured out onto the streets when the shaking began," the clerk said.

Sales fell 1% to an annual rate of 5.08 million, from a downwardly-revised 5.14 million in May,the National Association of Realtors said.

The surprise fall suggests a sharp rise in mortgage borrowing rates seen at the end of the month may have affected activity sooner than expected.

The average 30-year mortgage rate rose from 3.68% to 4.07% in the month.

This brought the interest rate back up to its highest level since October 2011.

Borrowing costs began to rise sharply in late June as markets began to anticipate that the US Federal Reserve would curtail its monetary stimulus measures and then begin raising interest rates far sooner than previously thought.

Despite this, analysts had been expecting property sales to continue rising for another month, to 5.27 million on an annualised seasonally-adjusted basis.

The dollar weakened on the result, with the euro gaining a further half cent to $1.321.

"Affordability conditions remain favourable in most of the country, and we're still dealing with a large pent-up demand," said Lawrence Yun, chief economist at the estate agents' industry body behind the statistics.

"However, higher mortgage interest rates will bite into high-cost regions of California, Hawaii and the New York City metro area market."

Despite the dip, sales remain near a three-year high. The housing market rebound has also seen a steady recovery in property prices and an uptick in the previously moribund homebuilding activity.

In another sign of healthy, the share of "distressed" sales - properties that have been repossessed by mortgage lenders, or which are forced into sale in order to repay a defaulted mortgage - dropped to just 15%, from 18% in May and 26% a year ago.

Distressed sales, typically carried out at a significant discount, have weighed the market down and made it much harder for homebuilders to offer new properties at attractive prices, depressing the construction sector.

QUETTA: Two people were killed and eight injured after an explosion took place in Chaman, a town along the Pak-Afghan border, DawnNews reported on Monday.

According to the police, the bomb blast occurred near the Bab-e-Dosti gate at the border outside a mosque. The explosion was loud enough to be heard across the city. After the blast, security forces cordoned off the area. The injured were rushed to the district hospital.

Security forces also foiled a second possible attack after explosives were discovered next to the hospital’s gate.

Security was beefed up in Chaman after the explosion took place.

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court on Monday reserved its ruling in the case relating to the doling out of billions of rupees by former prime minister Raja Pervez Ashraf for development projects in various constituencies under the People’s Works Program II. A total of Rs42.486 billion was released for development on the instructions of the former prime minister — Rs25bn more than his annual discretionary fund.

A three judge bench of the apex court, headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, reserved its ruling after today's hearing of the case.

The bench moreover directed the concerned departments to review anew development schemes launched during Ashraf's tenure.

The departments were directed to ascertain whether the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA) rules had been followed in the disbursement of funds.

The court moreover ordered that funds be disbursed in cases where the PPRA rules were followed. It added that in instances where this condition had not been satisfied and where the allocation was not in line with public interest, funds relating to such schemes should be deposited back into the national treasury.

Moreover, the bench ruled that civil and criminal cases should be initiated against those involved in violating the rules of procedure.

Interior designer Marte Deborah Dalelv was on a business trip in Dubai when she says she was raped in March.

She reported the attack to the police, but was charged with perjury, having extramarital sex and drinking alcohol, receiving a 16-month prison sentence.

The case has angered rights groups and the Norwegian authorities.

Ms Dalelv had had her passport returned and was free to leave the country, a Norwegian official told the BBC. She was not being deported, and was expected to return to Norway in the next few days.

A worker at the Norwegian Seamen's Centre in Dubai, where Ms Dalelv has been allowed to stay since she was sentenced last week, said Ms Dalelv was "relieved and happy" at the news.

In Norway, Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide tweeted: "Marte is released! Thanks to everyone who signed up to help."

The Norwegian government said it had been in daily contact with the Dubai authorities through diplomatic and official channels since Ms Dalelv was sentenced - arguing the jail term represented a human rights violation.

Ms Dalelv went public about the sentence last week in a series of interviews.

Ms Dalelv says she had been on a night out with colleagues on 6 March when the rape took place.

She reported it to the police, who proceeded to confiscate her passport and seize her money. She was charged four days later on three counts, including having sex outside marriage.

Her alleged attacker, she said, received a 13-month sentence for extramarital sex and alcohol consumption.

The man she accused of raping her - a colleague - has also been pardoned, a Norwegian official has said.

Despite developing fast as a cosmopolitan tourism destination in recent years, Dubai remains deeply conservative, and its strict laws have caught out foreigners in the past.

Public displays of affection and drunkenness are frowned upon.