"They tasted salty," Annegret Mewis told the German news agency ddp. "They must have been real tears." Indeed, virtually every one of the 60 or so faithful present were likewise convinced that they had just witnessed a miracle.

"We are not lying. Our atomic work is for serving the nation, not for building arms," Ayatollah Mohammed Emami-Kashani, a member of Iran's highest arbitration body the Expediency Council, said during a Friday prayers sermon broadcast live on state radio.

Hundreds of pastors and church workers are scheduled to attend NEXT Conference on Tuesday to play a role in a network's newest initiative - starting 1,000 new churches in the next five years. The two-day conference in Ocala, Fla., will teach the popular Purpose Driven church model - coined by megapastor Rick Warren of Saddleback Church - for successful church starts across the nation.

The Purpose Driven Planting network, separate from Saddleback Church, steers away from the word church "plant" in its latest effort. Instead, it encourages a church "launch."

"'Planting' denotes slow growth ... like a tree," the Rev. Jim Cowart, one of the conference speakers, told The Christian Post. "We started using the analogy of 'launching' because the Purpose Driven model tries to teach pastors to launch large and healthy."

Rather than encourage a small start, NEXT conference is aimed to help pastors skip over all the growth barriers, Cowart explained.

One of the most common mistakes church planters make is starting with "a core group rather than a launch group," said Cowart. "It goes back to the old model of planting churches - starting small." Although Cowart is not opposed to small beginnings, he said the Purpose Driven model teaches the opposite - launch large.

"A crowd can be turned into a church."

LONDON (Reuters) - A team of British scientists has set sail on a voyage to examine why a huge chunk of the earth's crust is missing, deep under the Atlantic Ocean -- a phenomenon that challenges conventional ideas about how the earth works.

The 20-strong team aims to survey an area some 3,000 to 4,000 metres deep where the mantle -- the deep interior of the earth normally covered by a crust kilometres thick -- is exposed on the sea floor.

Experts describe the hole along the mid-Atlantic ridge as an "open wound" on the ocean floor that has puzzled scientists for the five or so years that its existence has been known because it defies existing tectonic plate theories of evolution.

By Francis Maria Britto

RAIGARH, India (UCAN) - Hailing Jesus' name, local Catholics sang and danced non-stop for two nights and days, their celebration reverberating through the sleepy Banhar mission.

Several of them told UCA News the Feb. 2-4 akhand keertan, a program of non-stop devotional chants, helped revive their weakened faith.

The Catholics, members of Raigarh Diocese in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh, are Gada people, a dalit group. They adopted this form of worship from Hindu practice. The Sanskrit term dalit literally means "trampled upon" and denotes people belonging to groups formerly called "untouchable."

"Faith is dying here, (and we) want to bring awakening," Bishop Paul Toppo of Raigarh explains. Akhand keertan "has become an entry point," the prelate told UCA News on Feb. 4 at the rural Banhar mission. He is based in Raigarh town, 1,750 kilometers (about 1,085 miles) southeast of New Delhi.

"Until today, what we have done has been in accordance with international regulations," Khamenei said. "But if they take illegal actions, we too can take illegal actions and will do so."

Iran says it will never give up its right under the treaty to enrich uranium and produce nuclear fuel. But it has offered to provide guarantees that its nuclear program won't be diverted toward weapons - as the U.S. and some of its allies fear