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Police in Italy arrest 2 people after apparent torching of a car kills 4 farmworkers

ROME (AP) — Italian police on Tuesday arrested two people accused in the deaths of four migrant farmworkers who were burned alive in a car, a gruesome attack captured on video surveillance cameras, police and news reports said.

According to the video, which was broadcast Tuesday on RAI state television and other Italian media, assailants poured liquid into the back of the car and set it ablaze as it was parked at a gas station in Amendolara, near Cosenza in the southern Calabria region, RAI said.

One of the apparent assailants was then seen trying to keep the doors of the car closed. One man escaped from the car and was treated for burns at a nearby hospital, RAI said.

Castrovillari Prosecutor Alessandro D’Alessio confirmed in a statement that the bodies of four people were found dead in a car on Monday in Amendolara and that two people had been detained in connection with their deaths.

RAI said the dead were three Afghans and a Pakistani national, and that the two men arrested were Pakistani. RAI said the victims were migrant farm workers.

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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