CHINA: The government placed sanctions on seven companies today in response to recent US announcements of military sales and aid to the breakaway Chinese island of Taiwan.

The sanctions are also an response to the recent approval of the US government’s annual defence spending Bill, which a Chinese Foreign Ministry statement said “includes multiple negative sections on China.”

ECUADOR: A probe into the military’s role in the disappearance of four children this month was delayed for almost two weeks, even though police had access to surveillance videos showing soldiers taking two of the children, it was reported today.

The surveillance video was handed in to authorities the day after the children went missing. But an investigation into the military’s role in the disappearance was not announced until 15 days had passed.

MEXICO: Investigators have found 12 bodies in clandestine burial sites in the northern border state of Chihuahua.

State prosecutors said on Thursday that the skeletal remains had been found in Ascencion, about 110 miles west of Ciudad Juarez.
Investigators found 11 separate shallow pits into which a dozen bodies had been dumped. 

MIGRATION: More than 10,000 people died trying to reach Spain by sea this year, according to a report by Spanish migration rights group Walking Borders. This is the most since the group began keeping a tally in 2007.

This means that an average of 30 migrants died every day this year while attempting to reach Spain, the group said on Thursday.

Overall deaths rose by 58 per cent compared with last year, the report added.