The 17th Hillsong Project

Hillsong Music and Integrity Music will release Hillsong Live! This is Our God, the unprecedented 17th annual live worship CD on August 5, 2008, featuring Hillsong Church’s Reuben Morgan, Joel Houston, Darlene Zschech and Marty Sampson. A companion DVD will also be released that day. Every year since 1992, the Sydney, Australia mega-church has produced a live contemporary/modern worship CD during its annual Hillsong Conference, the dynamic worship event which draws up to 30 000 attendees each year. From the first release, The Power of Your Love, which was produced on cassette, up until this year’s This is Our God, the Hillsong worship team has created these albums based on its commitment to perpetually offering new songs for the church.

Hillsong’s high-energy worship is evident once again on two-disc This is Our God, which was recorded live in March at Acer Arena, the largest indoor stadium in Sydney. A number of new songwriters, worship leaders and musicians including Matthew Crocker, Joel Davies, Jonathon Douglass (JD), Brooke Fraser, Annie Garratt, Jad Gillies, Sam Knock, Mike Guglielmucci and Jill McCloghry joined Morgan, Houston, Zschech and Sampson on the platform, introducing new music and bringing new energy to all the music presented at the event.

Obama, Clinton To Campaign Together

Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama’s campaign announced Friday that he will campaign with former rival Hillary Rodham Clinton next week, a step toward unifying a fractured Democratic Party after a bruising primary fight.

Obama’s campaign said in a brief e-mail that said the two senators and former opponents will campaign together for the first time on Friday, June 27, and more details would be forthcoming.

A day earlier, Obama and Clinton also plan to meet in Washington with some of her top contributors in an effort to calm donors who remain frustrated with Obama’s presidential campaign. The former first lady will introduce Obama to her financial backers.

Seven Dead In Tokyo Knife Attack

A man armed with a knife has killed seven people and injured 10 others in central Tokyo, Japanese media say.

The incident occurred in the Akihabara district, a busy shopping area known as Electric Town that is popular with young people and tourists.

A suspect, said to be 25-year-old Tomohiro Kato, has been arrested.

Police spokesman Jiro Akaogi told reporters: “The suspect said he came to Akihabara to kill people. He said he was tired of life”.

The dead include six men, ranging in age from 19 to 74, and a 21-year-old woman, Kyodo News said.

Chinese Quake Lake On The Rise

The water level in an earthquake-formed lake in China is still rising, despite the creation of a drainage channel.

By early Monday, the water level was more than 6 feet (2m) higher than the man-made channel created to ease the problem, Xinhua news agency said.

Soldiers are using anti-tank weapons to blast away rocks and mud preventing the water from getting to the channel.

Experts warn that the lake could burst at any time, flooding the homes of more than one million people.

About 250,000 people have already been evacuated from the area since the devastating 12 May earthquake, which caused Tangjiashan quake lake to form.