19,065 victims ID'd from May quake

Beijing

19,065 victims ID'd from May quake

A Chinese official said today that 19,065 of the people who died in May's massive earthquake in Sichuan province have been identified.

Li Jiang, from the Sichuan provincial propaganda office, said that an official translation at a news conference incorrectly stated that 19,065 schoolchildren had died in the disaster.

The government still has not given a separate figure for the number of students killed.

The children's deaths became a sensitive political issue for the government, with parents of the dead staging protests demanding investigations. Many of the parents also have been subjected to intimidation and financial inducements to silence them.

The earthquake, which was centered in the southwestern province of Sichuan, displaced millions and left China struggling to carry out reconstruction work.

Halifax, Nova Scotia

Conjoined twins die on plane to U.S.

Conjoined 1-month-old twin girls from Liberia who were traveling to New York for medical treatment died aboard a plane that was diverted to Canada on Thursday.

Cpl. Joe Taplin said the Delta Air Lines flight was about 35 minutes from the Nova Scotia coast when the girls' mother noticed the infants had stopped breathing.

"A medical doctor on board gave medical assistance, but the twins were pronounced dead when they arrived" at the airport, Taplin said.

Mexico City

Emigration drops 42% in two years

Mexican emigration has dropped 42 percent over the last two years, a government study released Thursday showed, confirming that America has become less appealing amid an economic downturn and stepped up raids against illegal migrants.

About eight of every 1,000 Mexicans emigrated between February and May of this year, according to the survey conducted by the National Statistics and Geography Institute. That's a 42 percent drop from the same period in 2006.

In all of 2007, an estimated 814,000 Mexicans emigrated, compared to 1.2 million in 2006. The figure — which was reached through household surveys — did not break down legal and illegal migration.

Buenos Aires, Argentina

Senate OKs plan for pension takeover

Argentina's Senate approved a state takeover of $23 billion in private pension funds Thursday, a move analysts say could protect retirees from short-term stock-market chaos but also limit their long-term retirement income.

Senators voted 46-18 in favor of the nationalization after nearly 12 hours of debate, bringing an end to a 14-year-old pension system created during a wave of privatizations throughout Latin America.

President Cristina Fernandez has argued the law would protect retirees' funds from market fluctuations amid the global financial crisis. Critics have called it a money grab by a government that faces huge debt payments and upcoming congressional elections.

Quito, Ecuador

Audit suggests default on debt

A presidential commission Thursday recommended Ecuador default on almost 40 percent of its $10 billion foreign debt, accusing former officials and bankers of profiting from "illegitimate" bond deals.

President Rafael Correa, a leftist U.S.-trained economist, said he would seek to halt payment on the loans and hold foreign investment banks and ex-government officials responsible. He did not, however, declare a default.

He said he would seek to punish those responsible but did not say whether he wants criminal prosecution.

Bogotá, Colombia

Suspected leader of scheme deported

David Murcia Guzman, the president of a failed Colombian financial-services company suspected of laundering drug profits and bilking thousands of mostly poor investors of millions of dollars, has been arrested in Panama and deported, officials said Thursday.

DMG is one of 40 financial-services companies in Colombia under investigation for running suspected pyramid, or Ponzi, schemes.

Also

Zimbabwe visit: Former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and former President Carter are going to Zimbabwe on a humanitarian mission this weekend despite a front-page story in Thursday's Herald newspaper — President Robert Mugabe's mouthpiece — saying the government has advised them not to come.

Arctic grab: The European Union's executive body said Thursday the bloc should try to obtain its fair share of oil, gas, minerals and fish exposed by the melting of the Arctic ice cap. The move is likely to irk Russia, Canada, the United States and Norway, which are issuing new territorial claims in the polar region.

Congo fighting: The U.N. Security Council unanimously agreed Thursday to send 3,100 more peacekeeping troops to Congo, while rebels said they remained committed to a pullback from the front lines despite an army attack.

Seattle Times news services