Pope Francis said Wednesday he was ashamed of the fact that over 216,000 children have been sexually abused in the French churches since 1950.

Following a meeting at the Vatican, Pope Francis said: “I would like to express my sadness and pain for the trauma they experienced. It's my shame, our shame, that the Church couldn't put them at the center of its concern for too long.”

Referring to an investigation report on sexual abuse against children in France’s Catholic churches, the pope stated these events should not be repeated and asked all the bishops to take necessary measures in this regard.

Describing the situation as a "difficult test", he urged the French Catholics to ensure that the church remains a safe home for all.

In a stunning revelation, an independent commission Tuesday said that there were 216,000 cases of child sex abuse in the Catholic Church in France between 1950 and 2020.

During a news conference, the French Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in Church (CIASE) said anywhere from 2,900 to 3,200 priests and other members of the church were given a free hand to abuse parishioners, which was subsequently covered up by the church leaders.

The commission was set up in 2018 by the Bishop’s Conference of France and the national congregations conference to look into the matter.

Jean-Marc Sauve, the former head of CIASE, stated that the Catholic church did not take the necessary measures against sexual abuse incidents./aa

A group of five EU countries, including Spain, France, the Czech Republic, Romania and Greece, called for investigation into the record-high gas prices in a common statement released on Tuesday.

"Price of gas and wholesale prices of electricity have dramatically increased in the last months. It is a considerable and increasing burden for households and our companies, with a particularly intense impact on the most vulnerable and our SMEs," the statement said.

The statement is signed by Spanish First Vice-President and Minister for the Economy and Digital Transformation Nadia Calvino, French Minister for the Economy, Finance and the Recovery Bruno Le Maire, Czech Minister of Finance Alena Schillerova, Greek Minister of Finance Christos Staikouras, and Romanian Minister of Finance Dan Vilceanu.

The signatory countries urged for a common approach at the European level, adding that "We need a European policy toolkit to coordinate national responses to immediately react to dramatic price surges."

"Second, regarding gas, the functioning of the European gas market should be investigated to understand why current gas contracts have been insufficient," it noted.

The document also suggested building common guidelines on gas storage in order to mitigate and smooth price increases and better coordination on gas purchases to increase bargaining power.

Improvement of wholesale electricity market

The countries also noted the need to reform the wholesale electricity market, stressing electricity market's many advantages such as securing energy supplies at all times, for all European countries.

"But it needs to be improved to better establish a link between the price paid by the consumers, and the average production cost of electricity in national production mixes. This is all the more important as decarbonisation will increase the use of electricity in our economy," the document said.

The countries also suggested that the EU should focus on achieving energy independence by investing in the diversification of its energy supply and reduce European dependency on gas exporting countries as fast as possible.

"The ETS (Emissions Trading System) is essential to give an explicit price to carbon and trigger energy transition. Therefore, to give public and private stakeholders an opportunity to plan ahead and shift their investments to low-carbon activities, we need to ensure a more predictable carbon price and avoid excessive volatility," it concluded./agencies

US indices bounced back from previous losses to close in positive territory Wednesday as hopes of raising the debt limit calmed concerns about an American default.

Despite opening in negative territory and extending losses, the Dow Jones closed at 34,417, a 0.3% gain, or 102 points.

The S&P 500 also recovered to end at 4,363, up 17 points, or 0.41%.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq finished at 14,501, rising 0.47%, or 68 points.

The stock price of Uber jumped 3% and Twitter rose more than 2.3% with Microsoft, Airbnb, Amazon and Google's parent firm Alphabet each gaining over 1%.

The positive sentiment returned to the market after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell offered Democrats to pass a short-term debt limit extension to cover current spending levels into December. The move could avoid the US running into default on Oct. 18.

"To protect the American people from a near-term Democrat-created crisis, we will also allow Democrats to use normal procedures to pass an emergency debt limit extension at a fixed dollar amount to cover current spending levels into December," he said in a statement.

"This will moot Democrats’ excuses about the time crunch they created and give the unified Democratic government more than enough time to pass standalone debt limit legislation through reconciliation," he added.

Amid easing fears, the VIX volatility index was down 1.4% to 21 after the fear index earlier climbed as high as 24.4.

The yield on 10-year US Treasury notes also fell 0.22% to 1.528%, but the dollar index was up 0.26% to 94.22.

Precious metals also recovered with gold adding 0.2% to $1,763 per ounce and silver rising 0.2% to $22.67.

Oil prices reversed course from three-year highs with a 2.2% loss. Brent crude was trading at $80.83 per barrel and US benchmark West Texas Intermediate was at $77.06.

Bitcoin was above $55,000, its highest level in almost five months, with a 7.3% daily gain.

The total value of the digital coin market stood at almost $2.31 trillion with Bitcoin dominating with a 45% share, according to data by digital asset price-tracking website CoinMarketCap./agencies

The US Treasury Department said Wednesday it sanctioned four members of the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG) in Mexico.

The Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated the CJNG Mexican nationals for operating through the port of Manzanillo in Colima and the surrounding areas.

OFAC characterized CJNG as a violent Mexico-based organization and claimed it is responsible for trafficking a significant proportion of fentanyl and other deadly drugs that enter the US.

"CJNG’s criminal success is partly due to its influence over strategic locations such as Manzanillo," OFAC Director Andrea M. Gacki said in a statement. "This Pacific coast port serves as a significant gateway for Colombian cocaine and precursor chemicals imported from Asia, including those used to synthesize fentanyl for ultimate distribution in the US."

The Treasury Department said OFAC collaborated with the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and Mexico’s Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF).

The UIF in June 2020 blocked three of the four individuals' bank accounts in Mexico due to their support for CJNG, the statement noted.

"Together, they help coordinate CJNG’s drug trafficking operations through the port of Manzanillo and maintain contact with cocaine sources of supply in Colombia," it said.

"CJNG’s expansion and control of strategic drug trafficking territory, including the state of Colima and its port of Manzanillo, has come in part through violence against rivals and Mexican government officials," it added./aa

NASA announced plans to test its Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) planetary defense system by launching a spacecraft in November that will attempt to strike an asteroid.

The launch window begins Nov. 24 and the DART spacecraft will launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in the state of California, NASA said in a statement released Tuesday. The site is about 158 miles (254 kilometers) northwest of Los Angeles.

After detaching from the SpaceX rocket, the spacecraft will cruise for about one year until it reaches its target: a pair of asteroids and will crash into the smaller one, Dimorphos, at nearly 15,000 miles per hour (241,402 kilometers per hour). NASA stresses that the mission is just a test and the asteroids are not a threat to Earth.

The resulting collision is expected to only alter the speed of the moonlet by less than 1%, but NASA said the crash "will change the orbital period of the moonlet by several minutes - enough to be observed and measured using telescopes on Earth."

DART will be powered by solar arrays that it will deploy to fuel its electric NASA Evolutionary Xenon Thruster – Commercial (NEXT-C) system. The flight is intended to demonstrate the feasibility of the next-generation ion engine technology.

Thomas Statler, a NASA scientist, said on the space agency's podcast that the mission is intended to ensure "that a rock from space doesn't send us back to the Stone Age," though he emphasized that there is "no known asteroid that has any chance of impacting Earth any time in the next hundred years."

"We're going to demonstrate one technology to cause that deflection that someday, if we need to, we might use that technology to prevent an asteroid from hitting the Earth," he said. "The hazard is not from the asteroids we know, and the asteroid we are going to with DART is not a hazardous asteroid."/agencies

US gasoline prices soared to their highest level in seven years, according to figures released Wednesday by the American Automobile Association (AAA).

The national average stood at $3.221 per gallon for regular gasoline -- its highest since October 2014.

That marked a 47.6% increase from a year ago when it was $2.182.

The highest gasoline price was recorded in the state of California where it stood at $4.422.

Relative cheap rates were in the oil-rich state of Texas and Mississippi, located near the Gulf of Mexico that has offshore oil drilling sites, with $2.851 and $2.850 per gallon reported, respectively.

Although crude oil prices plummeted during the initial months of the coronavirus pandemic, they recently climbed to their highest level in three years as normalization from the pandemic tremendously increased global oil demand, but supply has remained limited.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its allies, known as OPEC+, agreed Monday they would not pump more oil despite rising demand.

The group said it would implement a previously agreed production rise in November, sticking to the existing plan./agencies

For years, Belgium has reigned supreme at European pumpkin championships, but an Italian won a title last month.

Stefano Cutrupi, a Tuscan farmer, won Italy's Lo Zuccone championship with his fruit weighing 1,226kg (2,703 pounds) on Sept. 26.

Speaking to Anadolu Agency, Mario Vangeel, who grew a giant pumpkin in the Belgian town of Kasterlee this year, expects to bring the title back to Belgium.

He will compete in the world pumpkin championship in Ludwigsburg, Germany, on Oct. 10.

He is hoping to add more weight to his 1,020kg pumpkin before the competition begins. He also won the championship with a pumpkin weighing 1,013kg in 2019.

Vangeel said the secret of pumpkin's growth is heat, and he covers the growing fruits with a layer of blankets, along with heaters such that they stay warm at night.

Kasterlee is home to pumpkin porridge eaters, and every year pumpkin fever strikes in October. There are pumpkins and pumpkin events everywhere for the entire month, attracting local as well as international tourists./agencies