USA - The cost of rebuilding the vast area devastated by Hurricane Katrina and providing relief to its inhabitants is expected to exceed $200 billion (109 billion pounds), a sum comparable to the gross domestic product of Poland.
GERMANY - Pope Benedict XVI decried the "cruel fanaticism" of terrorism Saturday and urged Muslims to join Christians in trying to combat its spread.
EUROPE - The EU and China have signed a deal to end the strife over textile quotas that has left more than 75 million Chinese garments piled up in European ports
USA - Nations around the world are offering aid to the crisis-hit United States, with donations coming from old friends like Britain and old foes like Cuba alike.
NEW ORLEANS, USA - Governor threatens looters with shoot-to-kill. Relief convoys arrive after four days.
USA - United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan has urged the world community to offer assistance to the United States after Hurricane Katrina which he says has caused a "huge disaster".
MOSCOW, RUSSIA - Siege that ended with 331 dead leaves sorrow.
IRAN - Iran's decision to resume sensitive uranium work in violation of an agreement it negotiated with three EU nations last November.
USA - Two days after Katrina, life in coastal Mississippi remained brutally primitive. There was no power, little to eat or drink and no sign of a quick recovery. Even the little things proved all but impossible.
SOMALIA - The lives of Somalis continue to be blighted by a "catastrophic" level of daily violence and "brutality", says a report by a medical charity.
ASIA - Oil prices surged to an all-time high of 67.10 dollars a barrel on August 12, and while they have since pulled back to around 64 dollars, analysts said prices remain volatile due to strong demand and tight supplies.
GERMANY - His visit to the Cologne synagogue, rebuilt after World War II, will mark only the second time in history that a head of the Catholic Church has entered a Jewish place of worship.
PORTUGAL - Police think they may have been started deliberately and they have arrested more than 70 people.
ITALY - Speaking before yesterday’s Angelus prayer to a group if some 8,000 pilgrims in Les Combes, in Italy’s Valle d’Aosta, where he is vacationing, the Holy Father recalled Europe’s deeply Christian roots and challenged the continent to return to them.
Pope Benedict noted today’s feast of the Apostle James, ‘whose relics are venerated in the famous shrine of Santiago de Compostela in Spain, the destination of countless pilgrims from all over Europe.’ He also recalled Friday‘s feast day of St Bridget of Sweden, patroness of Europe, and the July 11th feast of St Benedict, who he called ‘another great patron of the ‘old continent.’
‘Contemplating these saints,’ he said, ‘it is natural to pause and reflect on the contribution that Christianity has made, and continues to make, to the building of Europe.’
Benedict then turned to the pilgrimage made by ‘Servant of God John Paul II in 1982 to Santiago de Compostela, where he performed a solemn “European act” during which he pronounced these memorable words: ‘I, bishop of Rome and pastor of the Universal Church, from Santiago, address to you, old Europe, a cry full of love: Return to yourself! Be yourself! Discover your origins. Revive your roots. Experience again those authentic values that made your history glorious and your presence in other continents beneficial.’
USA - Engineers are scrambling to right the largest semi-submersible oil platform in the world, the $US1 billion ($1.34 billion) Thunder Horse in the Gulf of Mexico, which is tilting precariously following the passing of Hurricane Dennis, before another storm arrives.
“Just what is an APOSTLE?”
Today we find the Church of God in a “wilderness of religious confusion!”
The confusion is not merely around the Church – within the religions of the world outside – but WITHIN the very heart of The True Church itself!
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