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Pakistan road crashes kill at least 24 people and injure 45 others

ISLAMABAD (AP) — A truck plunged into a canal and a passenger bus overturned, in separate road crashes hours apart in Pakistan on Saturday, killing at least 24 people and injuring 45 others, officials said.

The first crash happened in Sargodha, a city in the eastern Punjab province, where a truck carrying passengers and cargo skidded off the road and fell into a canal amid heavy fog. Fourteen people were killed and nine others were injured, according to police and rescue officials.

In a separate crash, at least 10 people were killed and 36 others were injured when a speeding passenger bus overturned on the Makran coastal highway in the southwestern Balochistan province, senior police official Aslam Bangulzai said. The bus was traveling from the southern city of Karachi to Jiwani, a town in Balochistan, he said.

Traffic crashes are common in Pakistan and are often blamed on reckless driving, poor road conditions and weak enforcement of traffic laws.

Beijing bans 4 New Zealand lawmakers from entering China because they visited Taiwan

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Beijing banned four New Zealand lawmakers from traveling to China for a year and demanded they apologize because they visited Taiwan on a parliamentary trip, according to a message from the Chinese embassy conveyed via parliamentary officials and shown to The Associated Press on Thursday. China has hit lawmakers from other countries with sanctions related to contact with Taiwan before, but it's the first time for New Zealand parliamentarians, the government in Wellington said. Beijing has been increasing pressure in recent years on the democratically governed island that it claims as its own territory. Two lawmakers reached by the AP on Thursday rejected the demand for an apology, while the other two could not be immediately reached. New Zealand's government said it would express concern about the travel bans to Beijing. The elected officials visited Taipei in May, as New Zealand parliamentarians have done “for decades,” a spokesperson for Foreign Minister Winston Peters said in a statement.
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