British police respond to oil tanker with stowaway trouble

LONDON (AP) — British police and coast guard units responded Sunday to an incident on an oil tanker in the English Channel after the crew reported they had stowaways onboard who had become verbally abusive.

The incident, which began about 10 a.m. on the Libyan-registered tanker Nave Andromeda, was continuing Sunday evening. The coast guard scrambled two helicopters to the scene, and authorities imposed a three-mile exclusion zone around the vessel.

“Police are currently working closely with our partners, including the Maritime & Coastguard Agency and Border Force, to bring this incident to a safe conclusion,” the Hampshire police said in a statement.

Pat Adamson, a spokesman for the ship’s owner, Navios Maritime Acquisition Corp., described the situation as a “security incident” involving stowaways and said the tanker was not hijacked.

The Nave Andromeda left Lagos, Nigeria, on Oct. 6 and had been expected to dock in Southampton, England, at 10.30 a.m. Sunday, according to ship tracking website MarineTraffic.com. The tanker has been circling an area about 5 miles southeast of Sandown on the Isle of Wight since about 10 a.m., tracking data shows.

Polish women enter churches to protest abortion restriction

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Women’s rights activists furious over a tightening of Poland’s already restrictive abortion law staged protests outside and inside churches on Sunday, disrupting Masses and finding themselves confronted with accusations of “barbaric” behavior.

At the Holy Cross Church in Warsaw, a group of far-right nationalists blocked stairs leading to the entrance. When one woman managed to push her way through, the nationalists grabbed and threw her on the pavement.

A video posted from the northern Polish city of Szczecinek showed young women surrounding a priest and yelling at him to “Go back to the church” and to “F— off.”

The actions on Sunday follow a ruling on Thursday by Poland’s constitutional court that declared that aborting fetuses with congenital defects is unconstitutional. Poland already had one of Europe’s most restrictive abortion laws, and the ruling will result in a near-complete ban on abortion.

With the coronavirus surging in Poland, large groups of people packed closely together demonstrated their rage on the streets for a fourth straight night in cities large and small across the nation, including Warsaw, Gdansk and Poznan, where mounted police on horse guarded a church.