AFP, Tehran
Iran will never coordinate with the United States in Syria and other regional conflicts, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in remarks published on his website today.
“We don’t want such a coordination as their main objective is to stop Iran’s presence in the region,” Khamenei said in a transcript from a speech to university students.
Iran and Russia support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s fight against armed rebels and terrorists, including those of the ISIS.
China to hold drills in South China Sea
Reuters, Beijing
China will hold military drills around the disputed Paracel Islands in the South China Sea, the maritime safety administration said on Sunday, ahead of a decision by an international court in a dispute between China and the Philippines.
China routinely carries out exercises in the South China Sea, where its territorial claims overlap in parts with Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan.
A divided Poland mulls total
abortion ban
AFP, Germany
A 35-year-old woman rests on her hospital bed in Germany after an abortion. Her staunchly Catholic country, Poland, has one of Europe’s most restrictive termination laws, so she and her partner drove just over the border.
“We told no one. Because I know it’s forbidden, because I was afraid, even of people’s reactions,” said the mother-of-one who wished to remain anonymous.
5 dead, 25 hurt in Florida bus crash
AP, Fort Lauderdale
Five people were killed and 25 were injured when a bus carrying farmworkers collided with a tractor trailer causing both vehicles to burst into flames Saturday on a highway in the Panhandle, sheriff’s officials said.
The Blue Bird bus from Georgia was carrying roughly 34 adults and children when it ran a flashing red light before hitting the tractor trailer, then spun around and hit the semi again. One of the bus passengers killed was a small child.
The driver of the semi-truck, Gordon Sheets, 55 of Copiague, New York, also died, said Wakulla County Sheriff Charlie Creel.
