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Nearly 100 people have drowned in floods in Sudan, where rivers have burst their banks, inundating villages and farm lands, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said on Thursday.

The toll over the past month was reported by the Sudanese Red Crescent, which has been leading the humanitarian response to the worst flooding in a generation.

"The (deaths) figure is a direct results of floods -- people who have drowned," Federation spokesman Matthew Cochrane said.

The floods are worse than those of 1988, when tens of thousands of homes were destroyed and a million people forced to flee their homes, according to the humanitarian agency.

"Whole communities have been devastated ... farms, livestock, roads, bridges, latrines, hospitals and schools have been damaged or swept away," John English, head of the Federation's team in Sudan, said in a statement.

Some 60,000 houses have been damaged or destroyed by the flooding, which has struck 16 of Sudan's 26 states, it said.

The United Nations on Monday reported 64 dead and 335 injured in the flooding, which it said had affected 500,000 people in the past four weeks.

The Federation -- the world's largest disaster relief network -- said it was doubling its appeal to donors to 5.5 million Swiss francs ($4.6 million) for Sudan.

Niels Scott, the Federation's operations coordinator for Africa, said the floods have damaged Sudan's fragile water and sanitation systems, leaving many without access to clean water.

"This is increasing the incidence of water-borne diseases such as acute watery diarrhoea," Scott said.

Sudanese Red Crescent workers have distributed chlorine tablets to purify water, mosquito nets and soap to more than 49,000 people. Tents, plastic sheeting and blankets have also been handed out, according to the Federation.

Heavy precipitation and soaring temperatures are expected to continue until the end of the rainy season in October.

Taliban militants have freed two female South Korean hostages on Monday, after much confusion over whether the two Christian aid workers had already been released.

According to Reuters news agency, officials in Seoul confirmed that the women had been freed and handed over the Red Crescent.

Witnesses said that the women were driven in a saloon car by two tribal elders to the village of Arzoo, near the city of Ghazni, where they were released.

Their release is the first good news for anxious family and friends of the hostages in South Korea since two male members of the 23-strong group were shot dead last month, after the government in Afghanistan refused to meet Taliban deadlines to free some of their militant prisoners.

The Christian aid workers were in Afghanistan as medical volunteers with the Saemmul Community Church in Bundang when they were abducted from a bus in Ghazni province more than three months ago.

The Afghan Government has so far refused to meet Taliban demands to free some of their prisoners in exchange for the Korean hostages.

Nineteen South Korean hostages remain in the hands of the Taliban, including 16 women.

Members of the worldwide ecumenical family have expressed support and solidarity to the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew as the Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople - today's Istanbul - is facing growing hardships imposed by the Turkish judiciary.

On 26 June a ruling by Turkey's Supreme Court of Appeals contested the ecumenical standing of the Patriarchate, stating that it is a religious body only authorised to perform religious functions for the Greek Orthodox minority in the country.

The court also ruled that the Patriarchate does not have any legal personality and that the Patriarch is not allowed to bear the title "ecumenical".

The ruling stated that the Patriarch as well as the Patriarchate officers are subject to Turkish law regarding their titles and activities. On 21 August, Bartholomew was summoned to testify before a prosecuting authority in Istanbul on his use of the title "Ecumenical" at a world conference of Orthodox youth that took place in the city a few weeks earlier.

In the face of these developments, on 27 August the Conference of European Churches (CEC) expressed its "strong support" for the right of the Patriarch to use of the title "Ecumenical".

In a letter addressed to Bartholomew, CEC's general secretary, the Venerable Colin Williams, wrote: "We could think of no other church leader in Europe who is so naturally recognised as a key figure in the ecumenical aspirations of the [continent's] churches."

On 29 August a similar letter addressed to Bartholomew by the World Council of Churches (WCC) General Secretary, the Rev Dr Samuel Kobia, expressed the Council's "whole-hearted appreciation of the authenticity and importance of the Ecumenical Patriarchate as an institution and the Ecumenical Patriarch as an office within the wider church world".

In his letter, Kobia conveyed to the Patriarch the WCC's "firm support" and reaffirmed Bartholomew's "ecumenical standing" while cherishing his "leadership in the global ecumenical movement".

The incident, which occurred at 3:15 am was recorded on a security camera installed by the church several months ago, in the wake of the gruesome stabbing deaths of three Protestant Christians in Malatya. Sahin walked up to the door of the church, laid down a box and some other flammable materials, poured liquid over the pile and lit it while smoking a cigarette. He then walked off, returning shortly to find the pile burning brightly on the stone steps. Stepping away down the street, he proceeded to shoot off his pistol loaded with blanks into the air several times. Police arrived within several minutes and were soon joined by 10 people from the neighborhood, but the fire was not put out until the fire department came minutes later.

The suspect was apprehended on a nearby street shortly after the incident still carrying the pistol. The church pastor said that police authorities called him at 8 a.m. to inform him of the incident.

Although the fire blackened the entrance and steps to the church, there was no structural damage to the building.

The pastor has been provided with an armed government security guard since the last week of April, when he returned home with his family after his brother-in-law's funeral. On May 20, the testimony of one of the Malatya murder suspects was leaked to the Turkish press, stating that he had planned to murder the Izmit pastor next. The pastor was again targeted in the Turkish media on July 14, when police authorities in Izmit's Kocaeli province reported the round-up of a mafia-style gang of 23 suspects involved in assassinations of businessmen and a rash of other illegal activities in the region. After his capture, gang leader Ismail Halil was interrogated about the group's alleged plans to murder the Izmit pastor in the near future, for which they were to receive $1 million, according to Sabah newspaper. Halil reportedly claimed his legal right to remain silent on this question.

In a previous incident this summer, a group of neighborhood boys plastered the front of the church building with raw eggs on the morning of July 30, just as the church began a week-long English club for its young people.

Police identified the culprits after viewing the security camera footage, bringing them from their homes to clean up the mess.

"The Protestant community is negatively affected by contemptuous, disinformative media coverage which also has the effect of showing Christians – and in particular persons who have converted to Christianity – as targets for acts of violence," noted a new report released Saturday (September 1) by Turkish Protestants.

Issued by the Legal Committee of the Alliance of Protestant Churches of Turkey, the "summary of concerns" called for the Turkish authorities to create a "culture of tolerance" toward its minorities.

"In the last year, there have been scores of threats or attacks on congregations and church buildings," the report said. "The perpetrators have not been found."

The report concluded, "The State should be guaranteeing freedom of religion and the security of individuals and property."

New Turkish President Abdullah Gul approved a pro-EU reformist cabinet on Wednesday which reflected Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's aim to push ahead with stalled political and economic reforms needed to join the bloc.

Gul, who as foreign minister helped Turkey win EU accession talks status in 2005, is the first politician with a background in political Islam to become president in mainly Muslim but constitutionally secular Turkey, over the army's opposition.

After meeting Gul at the presidential palace, Erdogan named Ali Babacan as Gul's successor as foreign minister. Babacan will remain in his role as chief negotiator in the membership talks.

Kemal Unakitan remains in the post of finance minister, while former banker Nazim Ekren was named minister in charge of coordinating economic issues, an important position as the government pushes for further economic reforms.

"I prepared the new cabinet as a team who have the skills to realise our goals for the coming period ... I believe we formed a strong team," Erdogan told reporters.

The ruling AK Party won a sweeping victory in parliamentary polls in July but was unable to form a new government because of objections by Gul's secularist predecessor Ahmet Necdet Sezer.

Turks will closely follow the military's reaction to Gul after its top brass snubbed his swearing-in ceremony on Tuesday. The military elite fears his presidency will lead to a creeping subversion of the secular order.

Turkey's military considers itself the ultimate guardian of the secular republic founded by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and has ousted four governments in the past 60 years. Its last such move was as recently as 1997, against a government it considered too Islamist, in which Gul was a minister.

ISTANBUL– Police in Izmit have arrested a man who set a fire early morning of 3rd September at the entrance of Izmit Protestant church and then shot off his pistol several times. The church's pastor is the brother-in-law of murdered in Malatya in April and has been targeted by Islamic extremists.

Semih Sahin, the man who set fire to the church entrance reportedly told interrogators that he had been "bothered" by what he heard and read in the newspapers about the Izmit Protestant Church, so he wanted to "make a scene" to arouse public attention against it. According to police, who described the apprehended suspect as a "psychopath," Sahin has a previous criminal and prison record. He was brought before a local prosecutor, formally charged and jailed yesterday afternoon.

One of the top-ranked online software companies that aids parents in protecting their children from negative content has improved its mission, and is signifying it with a name change.

SafeBrowse.com – creator of protective software Safe Eyes – will now be called InternetSafety.com, showing the group’s dedication to creating a safe environment to families surfing the web.

"With the Internet providing unprecedented access to negative online influences such as violence, predators and pornography, parents are searching for ways to keep their children safe online," said InternetSafety.com's CEO, Forrest Collier, in a statement. "We're launching InternetSafety.com as part of our continuing effort to provide Internet users with practical information and tools they can use to stay safe online."

Safe Eyes has already been awarded PC Magazine’s Editor’s Choice Award for the second consecutive year and was also ranked No. 1 by America’s leading consumer advocacy publication.

Company heads hope to continue with the same quality and strive to help keep kids in proper and healthy check.

At InternetSafety.com, parents will be able to access a number of helpful tools to protect their children from online content. This includes tips, strategies, facts and statistics about internet use, so that parents can now how to integrate their values into internet habits with their kids.

With social networking sites on a huge rise in youth culture – such as Facebook and MySpace – it is becoming increasingly easier for youth to get pulled into inappropriate internet worlds. Parents can now have the resources to monitor this type of behavior as well as use tools for web blocking, time control, and instant messenger (IM) monitoring.

“Keeping children safe online requires a combination of technology, education and people – namely, engaged parents," explained InternetSafety.com’s Chief Technology Officer Aaron Kenny in a statement. "InternetSafety.com's goal is to equip those parents with tools to help protect their families online."

The company promoters feel that parents can feel secure in what their children are looking at, as well as themselves if they too have problems with internet temptations.

For those that are interested, parents can also download a free trial of the company’s award-winning product, Safe Eyes, from the website.

The Taliban has agreed to release the 19 South Korean hostages held in Afghanistan in return for the withdrawal of South Korean troops from the country before the end of the year, Al Jazeera television has reported.

The Qatar-based channel said it had received the report from its Kabul correspondent:“There was an agreement between the Taliban and a South Korean delegation to release the hostages in return for the withdrawal of the troops before the end of the year.”

A South Korean presidential spokesman has confirmed the reports but has added that many details still had to be worked out, and that it may take some time before the actual release takes place.

The Taliban reportedly only agreed to the release after South Korea agreed to meet other conditions such as halting its citizens from conducting any Christian missionary activity in the Middle Eastern country.

Under the terms of the agreement, South Korea's 200 non-combat troops in Afghanistan, mostly operating in an engineering and medical capacity, will be withdrawn.

A spokesman for the Taliban, Qari Mohammad Yousuf, has said negotiations were "successful", however, he would not elaborate when asked to comment on the release of the hostages.

The Taliban till now had insisted that the Korean hostages would only be released after Kabul had freed jailed Taliban members.

Taliban and South Korean negotiators were expected to resume talks on Tuesday, following a collapse in negotiations nearly two weeks ago after the Korean team told the Taliban it could not fulfil the group's main demand to free Taliban prisoners jailed by the Afghan Government.

The Taliban Islamic movement kidnapped the 23 Korean Christian aid volunteers on 19 July as they travelled by bus in Ghazni province.

The group has so far killed two male hostages after issuing a series of deadlines, but has also freed two female captives as a gesture of goodwill during the first round of talks.

BRUSSELS - The European Union's regional policy chief will visit Greece on Friday to assess how much financial aid the bloc can award to help deal with the damage caused by the country's worst forest fires in decades.

Regional Policy Commissioner Danuta Huebner will study how Greece can tap the EU's 1 billion euro ($1.36 billion) Solidarity Fund, which helps member states reconstruct after major natural disasters, two European Commission officials said.

The fires have ravaged Greece and yesterday engulfed a Greek Orthodox church in Thisoa village in central Peloponnese, some 250 km southwest of Athens.

"Commissioner Huebner wants to see the extent of the damage herself. The Greeks will have to apply for aid from the Solidarity Fund themselves," one official told Reuters.

It is too early to say how much Greece could get, but the sum is likely to be large, another official said. In 2002, Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic and France shared 728 million euros of EU cash to counter damage from summer floods.

Greek firefighters on Wednesday gained the upper hand over forest fires that have killed at least 63 people and left the government shaken by accusations of incompetence.

The European Commission, the EU executive, was discussing the disaster at its first meeting after the summer holidays on Wednesday.

Afghan President Hamid Kazai said on Thursday the abduction of Korean women by Taliban guerrillas had no precedent in Afghan history and would bring shame on the nation.

The Taliban seized 23 Korean Christian volunteers, 18 of which are women, from a bus in Ghazni province 3 weeks ago. The group has killed 2 male hostages and warned it would kill the remaining captives if Karzai did not free jailed Taliban members.

Karzai, who came under harsh criticism for releasing Taliban prisoners for the freedom of an Italian journalist in March, has repeatedly said he would not resort to a prisoner swap again.

"Women from another country are being kidnapped in Afghanistan ... This would bring historical shame and defamation for this country and this nation," Karzai said.

He added: "Women are being kidnapped in this soil today under the name of Taliban, Muslims and Afghans ... In Afghanistan's history, never anyone has kidnapped women."

Karzai made the comments in Kabul during the opening of a grand meeting between Afghanistan and neighbouring Pakistan on finding ways to tackle the resurgent Taliban and al Qaeda allies. The Taliban could not be reached immediately for comment.

The Islamic movement freed a female French aid worker it had kidnapped following several weeks of captivity in May.

The aid worker's French male colleague and three Afghans were freed later after the apparent payment of a ransom.

The Korean's abduction is the largest by the Taliban since the militants' radical Islamic government was overthrown in 2001.

The hostages are being kept in separate locations and the Afghan government says it would only use force if negotiations between the Taliban and a Korean team fail.

South Korea's presidential spokesman '&P' speaks to the media during a news briefing regarding the South Korean hostages in Afghanistan at the Presidential Blue House in Seoul August 28, 2007....

Taliban militants in Afghanistan have released the last three South Korean hostages

Thursday after freeing 16 of the 19 South Korean hostages over the last two days in separate rounds of handovers.

A rebel negotiator told Agence France-Presse that the Taliban had handed over four hostages

to Afghan tribal leaders earlier on Thursday while the remaining three were released later on Thursday afternoon.

An Associated Press reporter who witnessed all three of Wednesday's handovers also saw the

morning handover of two men and two women to the officials of the International Committee of the Red Cross on a road in central Afghanistan's Janda area.

"They (the hostages) are in different locations and we have to bring them to one place before handing them over," said Taliban negotiator Qari Mohammad Bashir, who was involved in a series of meetings with a South Korean delegation to free the aid workers, according to AFP.

South Korean presidential spokesman '%s' said Thursday that once free, the group would head to Kabul before returning home via Dubai, putting an end to a six-week hostage crisis that began with the abduction of the original group of 23 that was travelling by bus in the insurgency-plagued Ghazni province to provide free medical services to poor Afghan citizens.

Since the July 19 abduction – the largest abduction of foreigners in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001 – two male hostages have been killed. The leader of the group, '%1', was found dead on July 25, and the body of 29-year-old '%2' was found July 30. Prior to the latest releases, two females – 37-year-old '%3' and 32-year-old '%4' – were freed on Aug. 13.

The latest releases occurred a day after the Taliban and South Korea struck a deal in which Korea promised to withdraw its 200 troops from Afghanistan by the end of the year and to block South Korean Christian missionaries from working in the country. The rebels had reportedly foregone their original demand for a prisoner exchange.

Although the South Korea presidential spokesman said Tuesday it may take some time before the actual releases take place, the first set of hostages – three women – was released the next day in the village of Qala-e-Kazi and was followed several hours later by the release of one man and four women in a desert close to Shah Baz. As evening approached, four more hostages – one man and three women – were handed over on a main road about 30 miles from Ghazni, according to The Associated Press.

Sammul Presbyterian Church in '%b', South Korea, the home church of the Korean hostages, has identified the 12 released as '%n'.

The identities of the most recently freed hostages have not yet been confirmed.

[Christian Today correspondent '%m' in Washington, USA contributed to this report]

Christians face ongoing intimidation

As the massive category five storm Hurricane Dean continues to pound its way towards the Gulf of Mexico, Christian organisations are assembling their relief operations in preparation for large-scale devastation.

World Vision in the US said that its Mexico office had pre-positioned relief supplies in Yucatan in anticipation of huge needs for blankets, bed sheets, personal hygiene articles and medicines.

"This is a potentially historical storm," said Aldo Pontecorvo, director of humanitarian emergency assistance for World Vision in Mexico. "The Mexican coastline has never been hit by a Category 5 storm. We're preparing for extensive damage and widespread displacement."

Christian Aid staff and partner organisations are also stepping up relief efforts, including clearing trees and other debris blocking roads in Jamaica. The development agency will also be providing relief to people in Haiti whose crops have been destroyed.

Rhian Holder, Christian Aid’s programme officer in Jamaica, described the scene as the storm moved in:

“It's very, very loud, the wind is roaring and shrieking. The trees are breaking, you're hearing branches snapping, you're hearing thuds, things falling, you're not sure what it is.”

She added: “There is still no electricity across the island and communication is very difficult. In St Thomas, where one of our partners is based, the cell phone masts fell in a couple of areas, so it is very difficult to get through. The road to the airport in Kingston is blocked with trees, boulders and sand that have been blown across it.”

While other agencies will bring food and water, US-based Christian charity New Directions International has readied equipment for emergency shelter in Jamaica, including plastic tarpaulins and tin sheets for temporary roofing, as well as materials for roof repairs in the wake of the hurricane.

"NDI will focus on providing shelter relief and helping people dig out," according to New Directions’ CEO Joseph Williams, who added that the present hurricane resembled the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami and Hurricane Katrina to which New Directions also provided emergency shelter and supply within a few days.

The charity plans to remain in the hurricane-hit regions for the long haul. During the rebuilding phase, it will hand out backpacks full of school supplies among children as part of its Edu-Pack programme, and contribute towards the reconstruction of churches and schools.

The Salvation Army in Texas, meanwhile, has scrambled nine canteens and a mobile command centre to San Antonio in the case Hurricane Dean should take a turn towards the Lone Star State.

The canteens are stocked to feed a hundred first responders while the command centre will allow Salvation Army officers to coordinate their efforts to meet the urgent needs of hurricane victims.

The Taliban said Friday that it will not kill any of the remaining 21 South Korean hostages before its face-to-face meetings with the delegation from the East Asian country.

Nearly a dozen deadlines and numerous threats thereafter to kill the Christian captives have been made since their abduction on July 19.

With a deadlock in negotiations over the Taliban’s proposed prisoner-rebel exchange, the militant group has been working with South Korea on setting up a face-to-face meeting to discuss other options. Yet despite their agreement to meet, a location has not yet been set where both parties feel safe.

Two South Korean female hostages are escorted after their release in Arzoo of Ghazni province, southwest of Kabul, August 13, 2007. Two South Korean women held hostage by the Taliban for more than.

A powerful earthquake has killed more than 330 people in Peru, the nation's civil defense agency reported early on Thursday.

The massive earthquake hit Peru on Wednesday evening killing scores of people as many homes and a church collapsed.

Peru's health minister initially said few died in the 7.9-magnitude quake, but the toll later rose to more than 330, the nation's civil defense agency said. Hundreds were injured.

"Unfortunately we have official numbers," Luis Palomino, the head of the agency, told Reuters. On its web site, the agency said 337 people died and 827 were injured.

Emergency workers said the coastal province of Ica south of Lima was the hardest hit region.

One fire department official in the area said at least four people were trapped when the main tower of the Senor de Luren church in the city of Ica was toppled.

Rescuers struggled to move south toward Ica as portions of the Pan-American Highway, an key coastal route, were impassable and thieves assaulted stranded travelers, radio reports said.

"I was with my children when the movement started and then the walls collapsed. My house was destroyed," Milagros Meneses, 35, told Reuters in the city of Canete south of the capital, Lima. "The hospital gave me a tent for my kids to sleep in."

At least two people were killed in Canete.

Office workers ran onto the streets in fear as tall buildings in Lima shook in two waves that lasted around 20 seconds each and cut power lines.

A tsunami warning was issued for Peru, Chile, Ecuador and Colombia and a small tsunami was detected. But it posed no major threat and the warning was later lifted.