Russian container ship carrying fuel drifting again in rough seas
Russian container ship carrying fuel drifting again in rough seas
PRINCE RUPERT, British Columbia — A disabled Russian container ship carrying hundreds of tons of fuel is adrift again but officials said Saturday there is no immediate risk of it reaching shore, hitting rocks and causing a spill.
Royal Canadian Navy Lt. Greg Menzies said a tow line from the Coast Guard ship Gordon Reid got detached, but he noted that the Russian vessel is now 24 nautical miles away from shore. Menzies said efforts are underway to get the line re-attached.
The Canadian Coast Guard vessel Sir Wilfrid Laurier and the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Spar were also on hand to assist if needed, while an ocean-going tugboat was expected to arrive in the area late Saturday or early today.
The Russian container ship Simushir lost power off Haida Gwaii, also known as the Queen Charlotte Islands, as it made its way from Everett, Wash., to Russia. The 10 crew members on board were continuing to try to repair the broken oil heater that has left the vessel disabled, said Lt. Greg Menzies of the Canadian Forces’ Joint Rescue Co-ordination Center.
The Council of the Haida Nation said the weather forecast has the winds subsiding until early today, providing a window to attach another tow line.
Catholic bishops scrap watered-down welcome to gays
VATICAN CITY — Catholic bishops scrapped their landmark welcome to gays Saturday, showing deep divisions at the end of a two-week meeting sought by Pope Francis to chart a more merciful approach to ministering to Catholic families.
The bishops failed to approve even a watered-down section on ministering to homosexuals that stripped away the welcoming tone of acceptance contained in a draft document earlier in the week.
Rather than considering gays as individuals who had gifts to offer the church, the revised paragraph referred to homosexuality as one of the problems Catholic families have to confront. It said “people with homosexual tendencies must be welcomed with respect and delicacy,” but repeated church teaching that marriage is only between man and woman. The paragraph failed to reach the two-thirds majority needed to pass.
Two other paragraphs concerning the other hot-button issue at the synod of bishops — whether divorced and civilly remarried Catholics can receive Communion — also failed to pass.
The outcome showed a deeply divided church on some of the most pressing issues facing Catholic families.
US-led strike on IS-held gas facility in eastern Syria kills 8
MURSITPINAR, Turkey — A U.S.-led coalition airstrike on a gas distribution facility in a stronghold of the Islamic State group set off a series of secondary explosions and killed at least eight people in eastern Syria, activists said Saturday.
The airstrike targeted a distribution station in the town of Khasham in the oil-rich province of Deir el-Zour late Friday, Deir el-Zour Free Radio, an activist collective, said on its Facebook page. The collective named four of those killed and said another four charred bodies were placed in a nearby mosque. It said the slain men were mostly fuel tanker drivers.
Another activist group, the Deir el-Zour Network, described “long tongues of flames” from the strike.
The U.S.-led coalition has aggressively targeted IS-held oil facilities in Syria, which provide a key source of income for the militants. But such strikes also endanger civilians, which could undermine long-term efforts to destroy the group.
By wire sources