SOUTH KOREA - He urged those in affluent societies to listen to “the cry of the poor” among them. The Pope also beatified 124 Korean martyrs killed for refusing to renounce Christianity in the 18th and 19th centuries. Pope Francis, on a five-day visit to the country, said of the martyrs’ charity and courage: “Their example has much to say to us who live in societies where, alongside immense wealth, dire poverty is silently growing.” Later he flew by helicopter to a church-run hilltop centre for the sick, disabled and homeless. The Catholic Church has grown rapidly in South Korea, doubling in 25 years to about 11 per cent of the 50 million population.

EUROPE - A baying mob surrounds a synagogue chanting “Death to Jews”, a gang of men storms a Jewish school bus screaming “Heil Hitler” and a cafe owner puts up a sign saying “dogs are allowed, but Jews are not.” It could have been Germany in the 1930s when a wave of anti-Semitic hatred carried Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Party to power, paving the way for the Holocaust during the Second World War. Yet these disturbing events have taken place in France, Australia and Belgium within the past fortnight, leaving Jewish communities reeling at the sudden rise in anti-Semitic attacks and abuse. There is a growing fear, however, that the conflict in the Middle East is being used as an excuse to vent prejudice against Jews across Europe. Demonstrations against the Gaza conflict in France, Belgium, Italy, Holland, Hungary and Sweden have quickly turned from being anti-Israel to open hatred of Jews in general. Chants of “Gas the Jews” at protests in Germany have provided flashbacks to the Holocaust unleashed by the Nazis.

UK - Some demonstrators targeted the store in Hodge Hill, Birmingham, because it claimed that the supermarket was selling Israeli produce. A protest outside the store by around 100 demonstrators turned serious when some stormed into the building as families shopped on Saturday. Shoppers and staff were left watching in horror as the protestors "became aggressive" and started hurling produce around from the shelves. Police who were called to deal with the protest were attacked and one person was arrested for assaulting a police officer as others were led from the store. A spokesman for Tesco said it was aware of the "small number" of protests outside its stores but said it would not be stopping stocking produce linked to Israel. A campaign group has threatened the Government with legal action over its failure to suspend exports of military equipment to Israel.

USA - From a cheap student staple to a pricey bowl of broth, noodle dishes are soaring in popularity. But they could also wreak havoc with your health, a new study warns. US scientists found people who ate noodle dishes two to three times a week - including the Japanese noodle soup dish ramen - had an increased risk of developing cardiometabolic syndrome.

USA - In the 1970s, Monsanto introduced a new chemical to kill weeds. Known commonly as Roundup, it was capable of killing whatever weed got in its way. Seed companies later developed varieties of plants that were immune to Roundup’s killing power, enabling farmers to use one herbicide — Roundup — for all their crops.

USA - North Carolina officials say there has been a huge increase over the past two years in the number of Tar Heel families who have pulled their kids out of public schools and begun educating them at home. The number of homeschools has jumped 27 percent since the 2011-12 school year, NewsObserver.com reports. As of last year, 98,172 North Carolinian children were homeschooled; that’s 2,400 students more than the number who attended a private school. While the sputtering economy is the reason families are choosing homeschooling over private schooling, the nationalized learning experiment (Common Core) is the main reason families are leaving the public schools in the first place. “Common Core is a big factor that I hear people talk about,” Beth Herbert, founder of Lighthouse Christian Homeschool Association, told NewsObserver.com. “They’re not happy with the work their kids are coming home with. They’ve decided to take their children home.”

USA - The United States military has concluded that there are too few Yazidi refugees still trapped in the mountains of northern Iraq to warrant mounting a potentially risky rescue, the Pentagon said late Wednesday.

Military advisers who earlier in the day visited the Sinjar mountains, where as many as 30,000 people were thought to still be trapped, said that they found “far fewer” Yazidis than expected and that those who were there were in better condition than anticipated. Food and water dropped in recent days have reached those who remain, the Pentagon statement said. The Pentagon said the visit proved that the actions the United States had taken in recent days had succeeded in preventing the Islamic State from capturing and executing the Yazidis, members of a religious sect that Sunni extremists view as heretics.

USA - A new report reveals that US President Barack Obama's administration stopped a shipment of missiles to Israel late last month and tightened weapons shipment procedures to Israel, as tensions between the two nations grow amid Operation Protective Edge. The report in the Wall Street Journal, released Wednesday night, cites US officials in Obama's administration, who say they discovered Israel had requested a large number of Hellfire missiles directly through military-to-military channels. An initial batch of the missiles was about to be shipped, according to sources in Israel and the US Congress.

ISRAEL - Israel would not survive as a nation if it had to lay down its weapons, the Chief Rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, has insisted. He said that while the British Jewish community was “filled with pain” over the loss of life in Gaza, Israel was “understandably and justifiably” defending itself from Hamas rocket attacks.

IRAQ - ISIS has been slowed for the moment. But local fighters in Iraq say if they’re going to continue to battle ISIS, they’ll need drones and advanced weapons to do it. American airpower and Kurdish troops have been able to blunt the advance of ISIS in northern Iraq — for now. But if they’re going to continue to survive the ISIS onslaught, the Kurdish government says, they’re going to need surveillance drones and other advanced weapons from the US.

IRAQ - Last week, tens of thousands of Yazidis fled from the northern Iraqi town of Sinjar into nearby mountains, escaping violence from the Sunni militant group that calls itself the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS. Their plight — stranded, and dying of hunger and thirst — prompted the United States to conduct airstrikes against ISIS, in the first major US military push in Iraq since 2011. Suddenly, international attention has turned to this tiny faith group, whose estimated population ranges from 300,000 worldwide to 700,000 in northern Iraq alone.

USA - Mr Obama said Islamist fighters had been stopped from massacring tens of thousands of Yazidis by missile strikes and humanitarian aid drops. He said the US and UK had led a joint mission to provide emergency aid to the trapped refugees, while missile strikes checked the sweeping advance of ISIS militants. Mr Obama said terrorists were ‘killing and enslaving Yazidi civilians in their custody and laying siege’ to Mount Sinjar. He said: ‘Without food or water they faced a terrible choice – starve on the mountain or be slaughtered on the ground. That’s when America came to help.’ But he said: ‘We broke the ISIL siege of Mount Sinjar. We helped vulnerable people reach safety and we helped save many innocent lives.’ It came after Downing Street said the situation had improved so much that further aid drops may not be necessary. The announcement came just 24 hours after David Cameron revealed the Government was working on plans for a dramatic international rescue mission to save the trapped refugees.

SAUDI ARABIA - Saudi Arabia donated $100 million Wednesday to a UN body established to coordinate and assist international counter-terrorism efforts and called on other nations to match its support. “The goal is to help provide the tools, technologies and methods to confront and eliminate the threat of terrorism,” Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi ambassador to the United States, said in presenting a check to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon. Saudi King Abdullah provided seed money to establish the UN Counter¬terrorism Center in 2011. Since then, the center has held conferences and issued papers but has had little direct impact on the ground.

CENTRAL AMERICA - Low rainfall linked to the El Nino weather phenomenon has led to drought in parts of Central America, causing widespread damage to crops, shortages and rising prices of food, and worsening hunger among the region’s poor. An unusually hot season and extended dry spells have brought drought to areas in eastern and western Guatemala and El Salvador, southern Honduras and northern and central Nicaragua, destroying swathes of bean and maize crops, the region’s staple foods, and putting pressure on subsistence farmers and food prices.

BRAZIL - A severe drought affecting Brazil’s biggest city has led to a “water war” that could cause the water supply to collapse in parts of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Authorities in São Paulo have been battling a water crisis for months as reservoirs run dry for lack of rainfall. The dispute over resources has caused conflict between the state governments in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Reports suggested the row could end up in the hands of the president, Dilma Rousseff. Residents in Rio state have reportedly already been affected with shortages that coincided with the temporary reduction in water flow at the dam. Local authorities said families in Barra do Piraí were finding their taps dry for 12 hours a day.