Sydney  - Pope Benedict XVI is expected to meet sexual abuse victims Monday before leaving Australia at the close of a week-long youth festival that drew 350,000 to its closing mass.

The 81-year-old pontiff thanked 8,000 World Youth Day volunteers at a Sydney harbourside send off amid speculation that he has also met privately with people sexually abused by members of the clergy.

Sydney - Rice, cotton, daffodils and corn: if it's green and grows to the sky, it's lunch for the cotton bollworm, the world's worst plant pest and a destroyer of billions of dollars of crops. 

Scientists working round the globe to catalogue its 14,000 genes reckon they are not far off finding a weak spot. 

"We'll then be able to intelligently take on this No 1 pest of agriculture and go on the front foot, attacking it from the inside," Melbourne University geneticist Philip Batterham said. 

He told The Sydney Morning Herald that sequencing the genes would allow scientists to create an insecticide within the moth itself. 

Sydney  - International shopping centre magnate Frank Lowy, Australia's second-richest man, vowed to fight allegation aired in the United States that he used the European jurisdiction of Liechtenstein to hide millions of dollars from the taxman.

Australia's ABC Radio reported Sunday that Lowy, who ranks below only iron ore mogul Andrew Forrest on the wealthiest list, issued a statement rejecting the charges.

Sydney  - A helicopter-borne Pope Benedict XVI swooped over a Sydney racecourse where 235,000 pilgrims spent a chilly overnight vigil in readiness for the Sunday Mass that closes a week-long Catholic youth festival.

Organizers of World Youth Day say as many as 500,000 worshippers could flock to the venue, going into the record books as Australia's biggest-ever crowd.

It's certainly one of the most joyous. Youngsters from over 170 countries waved their national flags and cheered the 81-year-old pontiff.

Sydney - Up to 200,000 pilgrims were Saturday trudging Sydney's streets on their way to the papal mass that caps a youth festival stirring hearts in Australia's biggest city.

Sydney - Pope Benedict XVI said Saturday that he was "deeply sorry for the pain and suffering" of those who had been sexual abused by Catholic clergy. 

Speaking in Sydney on his first visit to Australia, the pope was responding to a chorus of calls that he offer the same condign apology in Australia that he tendered in April during his visit to the United States.