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● <B>ALLEGED DESECRATION. USA threatened of Muslim holy war. </B> A group of Afghan Muslim clerics threatened yesterday to call for a holy war against the United States in three days unless it hands over military interrogators reported to have desecrated the Koran. ?If that does not happen within three days, we will launch a jihad against America.?The warning came after 16 Afghans were killed and more than 100 hurt last week in the worst anti-US protests across the country since US forces invaded in 2001 to oust the Taliban for sheltering Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network. The USA has tried to calm global Muslim outrage over the incident, saying disrespect for the Koran would not be tolerated, and military authorities were investigating the allegation.
● <B>VATICAN CITY. Pope delegates first beatification of his papacy. </B> Pope Benedict on Saturday dropped his predecessor?s practice of presiding over beatification ceremonies and instead asked a senior cardinal to elevate two nuns to the ranks of the ?blessed of the Church?. Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins presided over the rites to beatify an American nun, Mother Marianne Cope, who worked with lepers in Hawaii, and Mother Ascensione Nicol Gesu, the founder of a religious order in Peru. Benedict?s decision to delegate the first beatifications of his pontificate has raised speculation that he wants to downgrade the significance of the event, which became an important hallmark of John Paul?s papacy.
● <B>ATTACK. Iraqi Foreign ministry official assassinated. </B>Gunmen assassinated a senior Foreign Ministry official in Baghdad on Saturday, police said. Jassim al-Muhammadawy, director general of administration in the ministry, was shot outside his home in western Baghdad. Three bystanders were wounded in the attack, the police official said.
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