World Briefs

AUSTRALIA Two men will be charged over the fatal shooting of a police accountant outside a Sydney police building two weeks ago as investigators continue to probe an extremist network with members as young as 12, officials said yesterday.

GERMANY Graffiti artists hired to work on the set of Showtime’s “Homeland” have duped the popular series, painting Arabic slogans criticizing the show on walls seen in the background. In the episode aired in the U.S. Sunday — set in a Hezbollah-run refugee camp in Lebanon but filmed in Berlin — star Claire Danes can be seen walking by slogans including “Homeland is racist” and “Homeland is a joke and it didn’t make us laugh.”

UK Doctors have found that Ebola can linger in some male survivors for up to nine months but aren’t sure if that means they might still be infectious, according to new research. In a study of 93 men in Sierra Leone, scientists found the Ebola virus in semen samples from about half of them. The risk seemed to decline over time. Ebola was detected in all nine men tested at two to three months after their illness began but in only 11 of the 43 survivors tested at seven to nine months.

UK-ECUADOR Ecuadoran officials are asking the United Kingdom to let WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange leave his asylum at country’s embassy in London briefly for medical checks. Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino told a news conference on Wednesday that Assange needs an MRI for a pain in his shoulder that began three months ago.

ISRAEL Palestinian assailants carry out a pair of stabbings in Jerusalem, even as Israel begins deploying hundreds of soldiers in cities across the country in a stepped-up effort to counter a month-long wave of violence that has seen near daily, apparently spontaneous attacks.

BELGIUM European Union leaders faced stern warnings at yesterday’s summit meeting their credibility would suffer if they failed to respect pledges on tackling the refugee emergency. The leaders promised last month to provide hundreds of millions of euros for Syrian refugees and to help Africa better manage its borders, as well as funding experts to fingerprint and screen new arrivals in Italy and Greece.

GREECE’s coast guard says eight people are missing after a wooden boat carrying migrants or refugees attempting to reach the eastern Aegean island of Lesbos sank after colliding with a patrol boat during a rescue operation.

USA Electric car maker Tesla Motors is leapfrogging competitors with a new autopilot system that lets cars change lanes by themselves. Tesla CEO Elon Musk added a word of caution though: Drivers need to keep their hands on the wheel, and the autopilot system will chime to remind them if they don’t. Drivers — not Tesla — will be held liable if there’s a crash, Musk said.