Pope beatifies Mother Teresa
Vatican City, Oct. 19 (UPI) -- Pope John Paul II Sunday beatified Mother Teresa before hundreds of thousands of pilgrims packed into St. Peter's Square in Vatican City.
The beatification is the last formal step to sainthood for the world-famous nun, who died six years ago at age 87.
Thousands of pilgrims had also been paying tribute to Mother Teresa in Calcutta, India, where the nun spent more than 60 years attending to the sick and dying, the BBC reported.
The 83-year-old pope so admired Mother Teresa that he put her on the fast track to sainthood.
"Brothers and sisters, even in our days God inspires new models of sainthood," Pope John Paul II told the crowd.
Among those attending the ceremony was Monica Besra, a young Indian woman who claimed in 1998 that her large stomach tumor vanished after praying to Mother Teresa.
The claim was formally recognized as a miracle by the Vatican last year, paving the way for Mother Teresa's beatification.
Mother Teresa won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 for her decades of service to the sick and destitute.
Her Missionaries of Charity order, begun in 1950 with only 12 nuns, has grown to 4,500 sisters in 133 countries. They run homes, schools and hospices for the poor and dying.
Bin Laden tape draws Bush warning
BANGKOK, Thailand, Oct. 19 (UPI) -- President Bush says a new message claiming to be from al-Qaida leader Osama Bin Laden should persuade the world to support the U.S.-led war on terror.
"The bin Laden tape should say to everybody the war on terror goes on, that there's still a danger to free nations," the President said in Bangkok, Thailand, where he is attending the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit
In the tape, aired Saturday on the Arabic television station al-Jazeera, the speaker calls on the U.S. to withdraw from Iraq and warns of more suicide attacks inside and outside the United States, BBC reported.
The tape praises the continuing violence against U.S. forces in Iraq, where more than 100 American troops have been killed since Bush declared major hostilities over in May.
Two U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq attack
KIRKUK, Iraq, Oct. 19 (UPI) -- Two U.S. soldiers were killed and one wounded late Saturday in an attack near the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, CNN reported.
With the latest deaths, 338 U.S. troops have been killed in the Iraq war since it began in March, 218 of those by hostile fire.
The report said a U.S. mounted patrol of Humvees was attacked by rocket-propelled grenades and small arms fire, according to 4th Infantry Division spokeswoman Maj. Josslyn Aberle.
The patrol returned fire, but the assailants fled, she said. The wounded soldier was reported to be in stable condition.
In a separate incident, U.S. forces in Fallujah, west of the Iraqi capital, came under attack Sunday, after their convoy hit a landmine or an improvised explosive device. It was not immediately clear if there were any casualties.
A crowd of bystanders watched, some of them cheering, the BBC said.
Bush: No treaty with North Korea
BANGKOK, Thailand, Oct. 19 (UPI) -- President George Bush said Sunday the United States has no intention of invading North Korea but rejected a non-aggression pact with the communist state.
Speaking in Bangkok, Thailand, where he is attending the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, the president said he planned to talk to Asian leaders about how to defuse nuclear tensions in the region, the BBC reported.
Washington is pushing for further six-party talks with Pyongyang to try to persuade it to give up its nuclear ambitions. Negotiations in Beijing in August ended without success.
North Korea has said it is not interested in further talks unless the United States is prepared to discuss a non-aggression treaty.
