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Bus crashes in wet conditions in southern Turkey, killing 9

ISTANBUL (AP) — A intercity bus rolled off a road in southern Turkey’s Antalya province on Sunday, killing nine people, a senior official said.

Images on state broadcaster TRT showed the vehicle lying on its side on an embankment on a highway slip road in Dosemealti, a district to the northwest of Antalya city center.

Provincial Gov. Hulusi Sahin said 21 people were injured, seven of whom suffered critical wounds such as severed limbs. The driver was among the fatalities. The DHA news agency reported that some passengers were thrown from the bus, which had traveled overnight from Tekirdag in Turkey’s northwest.

Antalya, a popular tourist destination on the Mediterranean, has been hit by heavy rain in recent days. “The ground was wet and there was also fog in the area. It’s not a place to speed, but it seems the bus was speeding,” Sahin told TRT.

The same day, seven people died in a head-on car collision in Burdur, some 65 kilometers (40 miles) north of Dosemealti.

Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya took to social media to lament a “traffic culture” that saw 6,351 people die on Turkey’s roads in 2024 and outline existing proposals to tighten traffic laws.

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

By WTOP Staff
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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