Pope Benedict's urged Britain to stay faithful to its Christian roots even in an age of religious (disbelief). On the first day of his state visit, Pope Benedict addressed tens of thousands of people at an open-air mass in the city of Glasgow. Kolon Blam reports. The Pope used the open-air mass in Glasgow's largest park Bellahouston to put forward a strong defense of Catholicism and a faith of what Elio called aggressive secularism. The Pope said some sought to exclude religious belief from public (discourse). But it was, he said, a guarantee of liberty and respect. He had particular message for young Catholics telling them the temptations of drugs, money, sex and alcohol would not bring happiness, instead they were destructive and divisive. In earlier remarks, he acknowleged that church authorities were too slow in responding to revelations of child sexual abuse by priests. The French President Nicolas Sarkozy has had sharp exchanges with European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso over France's expulsions of hundreds of Roma (migrants). Mr. Sarkozy confirmed reports that they had argued for lunch for EU leaders in the wake of an earlier comparison made by EU commissioner Viviane Reding between the expulsions and the mass deportations during the second world war. Mr. Sarkozy said the other European leaders had all agreed those comments were outrageous. All the leaders and heads of the European states were shocked by the comments made by the vice president of the commission. I don't want to argue about this. Madam Reding has apologized for the very injurious comments she made, but all heads of states without (exception) indicated that it was deeply shocking that someone should address themselves in such a manner with reference to the past which deeply hurt all their compatriots. Mr. Barroso said that some excessive comments had been made, but it was now time to move beyond useless rhetoric. Official figures in United States suggest the number of Americans regarded living in poverty increased by nearly 4 million in a single year between 2008 and 2009. The US Census Bureau says one in seven Americans is now poor. Mark Bardel reports. The Census Bureau's figures for 2009 show for a third year in a row poverty in the world's richest country is continuing to (rise). The Bureau says it's the most significant increase since 2004 and the sharpest jump in poverty since 1994. It indicates Americans of Asian origin are the richest, black people the poorest. It's hardly surprising that poverty is rising last year as the economic crisis continues to bite. More disturbing, the figures had been released today showing more American homes were repossessed last month than any time since the financial crisis began. The major industrialized countries have agreed to cancel Liberian government's debts worth more than 1 billion dollars. The decision was taken by the group known as the Paris club which (issued) a statement welcoming Liberia's determination to implement measures to reduce poverty and aid economic growth. BBC news. The new United Nations envoy for Somalia says that the international peace-keeping force there may need to be tripled to curb what he calls the increasing threat from (insurgents). The troops for African Union in Somalia are defending the transitional government from Ashibab islamic militants who control much of the capital Mogadishu and has been linked to Al-Qaide. The envoy Augustine Mahiga told the security counsil that more troops were needed to stop foreign fighters and weapons getting into the country through the port of Kismayo which is under control of Ashibab. The security forces in Mexico say they've killed 19 people in a seven-hour gun battle in the northeast of the country. The soldiers said they returned fire when they were attacked in a legal road block a hundred kilometers east from Monterey. The authorities in Burma are barring several areas of the country from taking part in the general (election) in November although already described by critics as a sham. State media said polling would not take place in a number of townships in five states where they said the vote would not be free and fair. Vivian Marshel at our Asia Pacific Desk reports. It isn't clear exactly how many of Burma's several hundred constituencies have been erased from the vote. But they're in five states mostly along the eastern and northern borders which are all home to armed ethnic groups. They've been resisting the Burmese government's attempts to bring them into a border guard force. Burma hasn't had a general election for twenty years. The last one was won by the pro-democracy party led by Aung San Suu Kyi. But the military authorities aloned the result. A researcher at the internet giant Yahoo has calculated the number of pi to its two-quadrillionth digit more than doubling all previous records. Pi is the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter. It can not be expressed exactly as a fraction and consequently its decimal representation never ends or repeats. The researcher (calculated) the number in 23 days using a thousand computers.