Around the world
North America A 37m-tall schooner ran aground in shallow waters near the Statue of Liberty. The 121 tourists on board were ferried in small boats to a lower Manhattan marina. The Clipper City, a 48m-long steelhulled boat that has six sails, two topsails and two steel masts, was to be brought back to port by a tugboat after high tide. Asia/Oceania Thai police struggling to solve the murders of two British tourists want the FBI’s help to analyse semen found on the body of Hannah Witheridge, and say they need more time to catch the killers. There has been little progress working out who killed Witheridge, 23, and David Miller, 24, since their bodies were found on the holiday island of Koh Tao a week ago. Police have been criticised for failing to seal off the crime scene fast enough and then focusing on two British brothers travelling with Miller and a group of migrant workers, who were all later cleared by forensic tests. Australian senator Jacqui Lambie has again told Muslims who adhere to sharia law to get out of the country. However, in an embarrassing television interview on ABC, the Palmer United Party senator struggled to explain just what sharia is. Sharia is the moral, legal and religious code followed by all Muslims, but made notorious by extremist groups like Isis (Islamic State) wanting to implement hardline aspects of Islamic law. “Well I think, um, when it comes to, um, sharia law, um, you know to me it’s um . . . it obviously involves terrorism. It involves a power that is not a healthy power,” Lambie said. She did not have a problem with Muslims, she said. “I have a problem with extremists and sharia law. I want to see their full allegiance — not 50 per cent to the Australian constitution and Australian law. It is one law for all — that is the Australian law, full stop.” Europe
Nato’s top general said yesterday that the two-week-old truce between Ukraine and pro-Russian militants fighting in the country’s east is a “ceasefire in name only”, and he said that by enabling a free flow of weapons and fighters across the border Russia has made it nearly impossible to determine how many of its troops are operating inside Ukraine. US Air Force General Philip Breedlove, the Supreme Allied Commander Europe, said after meeting Nato military chiefs that he is hopeful about yesterday’s announced agreement for creation of a buffer zone between Ukrainian and proRussian forces. The deal reached by Middle East A suicide bomber on a motorcycle killed a number of Hizbollah fighters when he blew himself up close to a checkpoint in eastern Lebanon of the powerful Shia group, a security official says. A merry-goround in front of St Paul’s church at the 181st Oktoberfest in Munich yesterday. representatives of Ukraine, Russia, the Moscow-backed rebels and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe marks an effort to add substance to the September 5 ceasefire agreement that has been frequently broken by clashes. Breedlove has put the main blame on Russia for the continuing conflict. Lebanon’s National News Agency said three people had been killed at the checkpoint, without specifying that they were fighters. Africa Two popular young peace activists were among 10 prominent Libyan civil rights workers and senior army officers assassinated in the eastern city of Benghazi on Saturday. The co-ordinated killings took place at a time when the country is in chaos: an Islamist-led coalition is holding Tripoli and the UN has reported that 250,000 have fled the fighting. Benghazi, Libya’s eastern capital, is used to violence after a four-month campaign by a former general, Khalifa Hiftar, against an Islamist militia, Ansar alSharia. But the latest mass killing is unprecedented. The teenage campaigners, Tawfik Ben Saud and Sami Elkawafi, were known for their cheerful efforts to promote peace and democracy and were being mourned by friends yesterday. “I knew Elkawafi. This has the fingerprints of Ansar alSharia,” said Hasan al-Emin, a Libyan politician.