Pope gets ‘electrifying’ welcome in World Youth Day fest in Lisbon

LISBON, Portugal—Hundreds of thousands of flag-waving young people from around the globe gave Pope Francis a raucous welcome to the World Youth Day festival in Portugal’s capital Thursday, in a sign of youthful support for the 86-yearold pontiff and his calls for inclusivity and economic justice.

In a display of enthusiasm not seen since the early years of Francis’ decade-old papacy, teenagers and young adults thronged a downtown Lisbon park for the opening ceremony of the Catholic jamboree. Pilgrims ran alongside as his popemobile made languid loops through the crowd and a smiling Francis basked in their cheers.

The pope, who was hospitalized twice this year, had said he hoped to be “rejuvenated” by his five-day trip to Portugal, and it appeared as if the sun-baked crowd delivered.

Organizers estimated some 500,000 pilgrims attended the music-and-dance filled World Youth Day opening ceremony in Lisbon’s Eduardo VII park, a figure that was expected to more than double during the festival’s coming days.

Volunteers with huge water packs on their backs doled out water to keep the youngsters hydrated, an increasing concern given temperatures are expected to soar to 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) by Sunday, when Francis closes out the festival with a final outdoor Mass.

Francis is in Portugal through the weekend to preside over the jamboree that St. John Paul II launched in the 1980s to encourage young Catholics in their faith. The Argentine Jesuit has picked up John Paul’s mantle with gusto as he seeks to inspire the next generation to rally behind his key social justice and environmental priorities.

On Thursday, he emphasized his call for the Catholic Church to be welcoming to all, sinners included. “There is room for everyone in the church,” Francis told the crowd, leading the young people in a chant of “todos,” which is Spanish and Portuguese for “everyone.”

“I think he is a very modern pope. I like his thoughts on many things,” Gaia Selva, 27, who traveled to Lisbon from Italy with a group of 374 members of the Salesian religious order and was in the park for the opening ceremony.

“I hope his support can help us as youth but also others, to understand our religion better and to live it to the fullest.”

Maria Seybert, 19, of Littletown, Colorado, was attending her first World Youth Day and

Earlier Thursday, Vice Adm. Brad Cooper, the head of the Navy’s Mideast-based 5th Fleet, met with the head of the Gulf Cooperation Council. The six-nation bloc includes Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

While a statement from the GCC about the meeting did not hint at the proposal, it did say that Cooper and officials discussed “strengthening GCC-U.S. cooperation and working with international and regional partners.”

The Bataan and Carter Hall left Norfolk, Virginia, on July 10 on a mission the Pentagon described as being “in response to recent attempts by Iran to threaten the free flow of commerce in the Strait of Hormuz and its surrounding waters.” The Bataan passed through the Strait of Gibraltar into the Mediterranean Sea last week on

On Wednesday, Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard launched a surprise military drill on disputed islands in the Persian Gulf, with swarms of small fast boats, paratroopers and missile units taking part.

The renewed hostilities come as Iran now enriches uranium closer than ever to weapons-grade levels after the collapse of its 2015 nuclear deal. International inspectors also believe it has enough enriched uranium for “several” nuclear bombs if it chose to build them.

Iran maintains its program is for peaceful purposes, and US intelligence agencies assess Tehran is not pursuing an atomic bomb.

The US also has pursued ships across the world believed to be carrying sanctioned Iranian oil. Oil industry worries over another seizure by Iran likely has left a ship allegedly carrying Iranian oil stranded off Texas as no company has yet to unload it. AP

2 US Navy sailors charged with selling military secrets to China

TWO US Navy sailors have been arrested on charges of providing sensitive US military information to China in exchange for money in what the Justice Department called a relentless effort by China to get US secrets.

Jinchao Wei was the first person ever charged with espionage in the San Diego district, US Justice Department officials said at a news conference. Petty Officer Wenheng Zhao, 26, of Monterey Park, California, was charged with conspiracy and receipt of a bribe by a public official in Los Angeles.

Both men are Chinese-born naturalized US citizens. It wasn’t immediately clear whether they have retained lawyers.

Wei sent documents to China and received thousands of dollars, providing the country information on potential vulnerabilities of ships, photos of military hardware and scores of technical manuals, placing the safety of US sailors in jeopardy, prosecutors said.

“The charges demonstrate the PRC’s determination to obtain information that is critical to our national defense by any means so it can be used to their advantage,” Matthew Olsen, head of the Justice Department’s national security division, told reporters Thursday during a news conference in San Diego. Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington, said he wasn’t aware of the details of the case, but cautioned about jumping to conclusions.

“In recent years, the US government and media have frequently hyped up cases of ‘espionage’ related to China, many of which later proved to be unfounded,” Liu said in a statement. “China firmly opposes the US side’s groundless slander and smear of China.”

Michael Casey, the Biden administration’s pick to lead counterintelligence efforts, said the US faces “unprecedented” threats from China, Russia and other foreign actors during a Senate confirmation hearing in July.

“China, among all such nations, stands apart in terms of the threat that its government poses to the United States,” Olsen said.

Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Christopher Wray said last year that the FBI opens a new counterintelligence case against China every 12 hours on average. China’s foreign ministry routinely denies US allegations of state-sponsored espionage. Bloomberg News seemed inspired by Francis’ exhortations to spread the faith.

“Yeah, know that our church is very broken; we have a lot of sinners and broken people,” Seybert said. “I desire to hear something that encourages us to recognize our poverty and woundedness, and then run with it.”

Many young Catholics around the world have embraced Francis’ core teachings about correcting economic injustices and promoting environmental custodianship, joining churchsponsored foundations and social movements under the banner of the “Economy of Francis” and the “Laudato Sii” movement, named for Francis’ 2015 encyclical on the environment.

Francis pressed those causes again Thursday, first at Catholic University, one of Portugal’s top institutions of higher learning, where he urged students to take risks and reject the temptation to merely perpetuate the status quo, or what the pope called the “present global system of elitism and inequality.”

“An academic degree should not be seen merely as a license to pursue personal well being, but as a mandate to work for a more just and inclusive—that is, truly progressive— society,” he said. AP

South Korea tightens security to prevent stabbing copycats

SOUTH Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol ordered police to mobilize all possible forces as a series of threats to commit copycat crimes were posted on social media after a stabbing rampage near Seoul injured 14 people.

“ The stabbing rampage at Seohyeon subway station is an act of terrorism against innocent citizens,”Yoon said Friday, according to presidential spokeswoman Kim Eun-hye. Yoon instructed police to deploy security personnel with suppression equipment to prevent another attack.

F ourteen people were injured after a man drove a car onto a pedestrian walkway and went on the stabbing rampage at a department store in the affluent district south of Seoul on Thursday. Nine people were stabbed and five others were hit by the car—with two of victims in critical condition, according to the fire and disaster center in Gyeonggi province.

Police arrested the 22-year-old suspect who was diagnosed with schizophrenic personality disorder through psychiatric treatment two to three years ago, Yonhap News Agency reported. Police have only released the family name of the suspect, Choi. F ear of random crime is growing as copycat crime threats were posted online hours after the attack. One of them threatened to kill 20 people Friday morning at Jamsil Station, one the most busiest subway stations in Seoul and connected to the tallest building in the country, according to Yonhap. Thursday’s attack came less than two weeks after a 33-year-old man fatally stabbed a stranger in his 20s near Sillim Station in Seoul and attacked three more men in a nearby alleyway. During the investigation, police reported the suspect as saying he “wanted to make other people miserable” because he was living a miserable life, Yonhap said. Bloomberg News

UCI recognizes Tolentino, 3 other cycling-NOC heads in world congress

PHILIPPINE Olympic Committee

(POC) chief Rep. Abraham “Bambol” Tolentino and three other national Olympic committee (NOC) presidents who are also heads of their cycling federations were recognized by the International Cycling Union (UCI) during its Congress on Thursday in Glasgow, Scotland.

Most prominent among the cycling and NOC heads was UCI president David Lappartient, who now leads France’s Olympic committee—a position the world sporting community believes is a prelude to the Frenchman succeeding Thomas Bach as International Olympic Committee president.

It’s a rare and historic event and opportunity,” said Tolentino of the ongoing UCI World Championships where the sports’ governing body packed the world championships in 13 cycling disciplines in 11 days in Scotland.

“ This won’t be happening again soon,” said Tolentino, adding that next year’s world championships in Zurich would only feature road events.

A lso recognized alongside Lappartient and Tolentino were NOC and cycling head of Indonesia, Raja Sapta Oktohari, and Mauritania’s Abderrahmane Ethmane.

Their recognition was one of the agenda in the UCI’s 192nd Congress attended by the international federation’s 203 member-countries in Glasgow. The UCI was founded 123

PSC does a simul as PNG returns with Batang Pinoy

THE Philippine National Games (PNG) returns after four years and will be held simultaneously with the Batang Pinoy National Championships from December 17 to 22 both at the Rizal Memorial Sports Complex in Manila and PhilSports Complex in Pasig City.

PSC Chairman Richard Bachmann made the announcement on Tuesday where he also bared that the Batang Pinoy will now cater to children athletes aged 17 years old and below, and no longer at 15 years old.

Twenty sports will be played in both PSC programs—archery, arnis, athletics, badminton, basketball 3x3, boxing, chess, cycling, dancesport, esports, gymnastics, karatedo, lawn tennis, sepak takraw, swimming, table tennis, taekwondo, beach volleyball, weightlifting and wushu.

We have 20 sports for now, but we intend to add more next year,”

Bachmann told a press conference at the Rizal Memorial Sports Complex Friday. “We have to build local events, I’ll make sure the NSAs [national sports associations] are invited.”

The PNG featuring the national and elite athletes aged 18 years or older was last held in Cebu City in 2018, while the Batang Pinoy returned from the pandemic hiatus last December in Ilocos Sur. Bachmann, who was joined in the media briefing by newly-appointed Executive Director Paulo Francisco Tatad, also unveiled the new logos for Batang Pinoy and PNG that bears the colors and traditional icons of the flag while adding elements that highlight the essence of grassroots sports talents. “

Together with Chairman Bachmann, we will do our very best in the coming months and years to increase the participation of our youth in our grassroots sports programs like the BP and PNG, and improve our facilities and infrastructure for our athletes,” Tatad said. Josef Ramos years ago on April 14, 1900.

Tolentino also had the opportunity to get close and personal with Lappartient and former UCI president Pat McQuaid.

Lappartient was one of the commissaires in the Asian road and track cycling championships the country hosted at the Amoranto Velodrome and Subic in 1995, while McQuaid called the Philippines his second home in the mid and late 1990s when—as UCI’s road commission head—he worked on transforming the Marlboro Tour into a major international race in Southeast Asia.