BBC- At least 54 people have been killed and scores more injured after the truck they were being transported in crashed in southern Mexico, authorities say.

More than 150 people, said to be migrants from Central America, were crammed into the truck’s trailer when it rolled in the state of Chiapas.

Pictures from the crash scene show victims strewn across the road next to the overturned truck.

There were also rows of what appeared to be bodies covered in white sheets.

It is one of the worst accidents of its kind in Mexico. Forty-nine people were confirmed dead at the scene and five more died in hospital, Chiapas Governor Rutilio Escandón said.

Some 105 people – 83 men and 22 women – were also injured in the crash, he said.

Emergency officials said the victims included men, women and children. Their nationalities have not been confirmed, but local officials said most of the people on board were from Honduras and Guatemala.

The truck was reportedly speeding when it flipped on a sharp bend and hit a pedestrian bridge on a main road leading to the Chiapas state capital Tuxtla Gutiérrez.

Chiapas, which neighbours Guatamala, is a major transit point for undocumented migrants.

Hundreds of thousands of migrants fleeing poverty and violence in Central America try to cross through Mexico each year in a bid to reach the US.

Many of them pay smugglers, who illegally transport them in crowded and dangerous trucks on the long journey.

The US-Mexico border is the deadliest single crossing in the world according to data from the International Organization for Migration (IOM). This year alone, at least 650 people have died trying to cross the border – more than in any other year since IOM’s records began.

There are also many deaths on the perilous journey towards the border, however these are harder to accurately document, the IOM said in a statement.

Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador described the crash as “very painful” and wrote on Twitter that he “deeply regrets the tragedy”.

Last month, a migrant caravan heading through Chiapas found that the local authorities had clamped down so hard on people providing lifts to migrants, they effectively had to undertake the entire journey on foot.

That meant carrying their children in their arms in the blistering heat and torrential downpours of southern Mexico’s rural states.

It’s a tactic employed by the government to try to break the migrants’ will, to see if any will give up and turn back or accept asylum conditions in Mexico.

Throughout it all, trucks have continued to transport thousands of migrants right under the noses – or with the complicity – of the state authorities.

Their trailers filled with scores of families standing in cramped and unsafe conditions for hours, it’s a wonder such accidents aren’t more frequent.

Often the biggest danger to the migrants is from suffocation as the people-smugglers fail to provide sufficient ventilation or hydration for the trip.

Yet most of those in this horrific accident came from Central America and will have been escaping economic ruin, the effects of severe weather from climate change on their livelihoods or gang violence. Or some combination of all of these factors.

With that in mind, many thousands more will continue to consider the dangers of the road to be a risk worth taking to flee the unbearable conditions at home.

BBC- New Zealand will ban the sale of tobacco to its next generation, in a bid to eventually phase out smoking.

Anyone born after 2008 will not be able to buy cigarettes or tobacco products in their lifetime, under a law expected to be enacted next year.

“We want to make sure young people never start smoking,” Health Minister Dr Ayesha Verall said.

The move is part of a sweeping crackdown on smoking announced by New Zealand’s health ministry on Thursday.

Doctors and other health experts in the country have welcomed the “world-leading” reforms, which will reduce access to tobacco and restrict nicotine levels in cigarettes.

“It will help people quit or switch to less harmful products, and make it much less likely that young people get addicted to nicotine,” said Prof Janet Hook from the University of Otago.

The crackdown has been met with mixed reactions.

“I reckon it’s a good move, really,” one man told Reuters news agency. “Because right now there’s a lot of young kids walking around with smokes in their mouth. Public are asking how they’re getting these smokes.

“And it’s also good for myself too because I can save more money.”

However, others have warned that the move may create a black market for tobacco – something the health ministry’s official impact statement does acknowledge, noting “customs will need more resource to enforce border control”.

“This is all 100% theory and 0% substance,” Sunny Kaushal, chairman of the Dairy and Business Owners Group, a lobby group for local convenience stores, told New Zealand’s Stuff news site. “There’s going to be a crime wave. Gangs and criminals will fill the gap”.

New Zealand is determined to achieve a national goal of reducing its national smoking rate to 5% by 2025, with the aim of eventually eliminating it altogether.

At the moment, 13% of New Zealand’s adults smoke, with the rate much higher among the indigenous Maori population, where it soars to almost a third. Maori also suffer a higher rate of disease and death.

New Zealand’s health ministry says smoking causes one in four cancers and remains the leading cause of preventable death for its five million strong population. The industry has been the target of legislators for more than a decade now.

As part of the crackdown announced on Thursday, the government also introduced major tobacco controls, including significantly restricting where cigarettes can be sold to remove them from supermarkets and corner stores.

The number of shops authorised to sell cigarettes will be drastically reduced to under 500 from about 8,000 now, officials say.

In recent years, vaping – smoking e-cigarettes which produce a vapour that also delivers nicotine – has become far more popular among younger generations than cigarettes.

New Zealand health authorities warn however, that vaping is not harmless. Researchers have found hazardous, cancer-causing agents in e-cigarette liquids as well.

But in 2017 the country adopted vaping as a pathway to help smokers quit tobacco.