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The hometown of China's great philosopher, Confucius, in east China's Shandong Province, is scheduled to build its first large Christian church.

Holy Trinity Church, covering 2667 square meters, will be located in Yuzhuang Village of Qufu City, 3 km from Confucius' Temple. The Gothic style church will be 41.7 meters high, as shown on its blueprint.

"It will be the first 'real' church in Qufu, since the one we have now is a makeshift building. It can only hold seven or eight hundred people and is not big enough," said Feng Zongjie, head of the Qufu Municipal Committee of Three-Self Patriotic Movement of the Protestant Churches in China.

Qufu has nearly 10,000 Christians, said Feng.

Although building a church in China is nothing new, it means a lot since the Christian church is to be built in Confucius' hometown, a symbol of Chinese civilization, said pastor Kong Xiangling, a 75th generation of Confucius.

An exchange center for Christianity and Confucianism will also be built here as a venue to hold forums for the exchange and dialogue between the two civilizations, said pastor Gao Ming, head of the Committee of the Three-Self Patriotic Movement of the Protestant Churches and the Christian Council of Jijing City, which administers Qufu.

"The building of the church shows the spread of Christianity, while the exchange center will facilitate Christianity to blend in China and have an impact on China," said Gao.

Yang Guoqing, a Christian, said: "To build a church here means it will be a place where two different civilizations meet and mix."

The church is expected to cost 20 million yuan (3 million U.S. dollars) and one third of the investment has been raised. The land use has been approved by the local authorities and the blueprint is under review, said Feng.

"The new church will be able to hold 3,000 people. And the church construction is expected to be completed in two years," said Kong Wei, head of Qufu Municipal Ethnic and Religious Affairs Bureau.

Christianity has spread rapidly in China with over 55,000 churches and 23 million Christians now in the country.

Confucius, of the Spring and Autumn Period (770 BC to 476 BC), advocated morality, honesty and good manners. His teachings were found in the "Analects of Confucius", compiled by his students many years after his death.

At the Nishan Forum on World Civilizations, which were held in Qufu on September 26 and 27, 2010, domestic and overseas scholars drew upon the wisdom of the ancient sages, Confucius and Jesus, to broaden the possibilities for peaceful solutions of life' s daily issues.

BAGHDAD, July 23 (Xinhua) -- A new wave of suicide attacks and car bombings across Iraq killed at least 24 people and wounded some 60 others on Monday, while Baghdad is preparing to host a second round of talks between the U.S. and Iran on Iraqi security.

A series of car bombings rocked Baghdad in the day, killing at least 17 Iraqis and wounding 57 others, shaping a setback in the five-month U.S. and Iraqi security plan which aimed at curbing insurgency and sectarian violence.

Two car bomb explosions ripped through Baghdad's central neighborhood of Karradah in a quick succession, killing at least 10 people and wounding 38 others.

One of the car bombs was parking near a police headquarters in Karradah neighborhood and the other was near a market in the same neighborhood.

Around midday, a third car bomb struck a police patrol near the Sahat al-Wathiq square in the same neighborhood on the east side of the Tigris River, killing two people and wounding six others, including three policemen.

The explosion damaged several nearby civilian cars and buildings.

Another car bomb went off in the afternoon near an office affiliated to the Iraqi Ministry of Housing in Karradat Mariam district, killing four people and wounding six others.

The explosion occurred just about 400 meters away from an entrance to the Green Zone, a vast area on the west bank of the Tigris River which houses the Iraqi government offices and foreign embassies, including the U.S. embassy.

Earlier in the day, an explosive charge inside a minivan detonated in the morning in the Kifah Street in Baghdad's neighborhood of Fadhel, killing a passenger and wounding seven more.

The Kifah thoroughfare in the Sunni enclave of Fadhel surrounded with Shiite neighborhoods has been the scene of sectarian violence.

In Ramadi, a woman wearing an explosive-belt blew herself up in the al-Shaheed Nawfal police checkpoint in the city of Ramadi and killed all the seven policemen in the site.

The same checkpoint was the target of another suicide attack on Sunday night when a suicide bomber drove his explosive-laden car into the checkpoint and blew it up, wounding three policemen.

In addition, the Iraqi police said that its patrols picked up 24 unidentified bodies from Baghdad's streets during the past 24 hours.

The bullet-riddled bodies were bound, blindfolded, showing signs of torture, they said.

Also on Monday, the U.S. military said that three of its soldiers were killed and two others wounded in separate roadside bomb attacks across the country in the past few days.

The latest deaths bring the number of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq to more than 3,630 since the outbreak of Iraq war in 2003,according to media count based on Pentagon figures.

The latest wave of violence came as the Iraqi capital prepared to host a second round of talks on Tuesday to discuss the deteriorating security situation in Iraq.

"Iraq will host the second round of U.S.-Iranian talks on the24th of this month," Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari told reporters on Sunday.

Zebari also expected that the upcoming talks between the two rivals, following up on the first meeting in May, could achieve "tangible results".

U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker met his Iranian counterpart Hassan Kazemi Qomi on May 28 in Baghdad in an effort to find solutions for Iraqi security problems. However, the landmark meeting ended without substantial achievements.

The U.S. army has frequently accused Iran of arming and training Shiite militia in Iraq, including providing materials of sophisticated armored-piercing bombs. Iran has denied the claims.

Long-term weight loss may release into the blood industrial pollutants linked to illnesses like diabetes, hypertension and rheumatoid arthritis, researchers said on Tuesday.

These compounds are normally stored in fatty tissues, but when fat breaks down during weight loss, they get into the blood stream, said lead researcher Duk-Hee Lee at the Kyungpook National University in Daegu in South Korea.

"We are living under the strong dogma that weight loss is always beneficial, but weight gain is always harmful...but we think that increased (pollutant) levels (in the blood) due to weight loss can affect human health in a variety of ways," she wrote in an email to Reuters.

Lee and an international team of colleagues studied 1,099 participants in the United States and concentrations of seven such compounds in their blood, they said in a paper published in the International Journal of Obesity.

"Once released into the bloodstream, these pollutants are able to reach vital organs," the researchers said in a statement.

Those who lost most weight over 10 years had the highest concentrations of the compounds, called persistent organic pollutants (POPs), compared to those who gained or maintained a steady weight.

"There is emerging evidence that POPs ... are not safe. POPs (are) linked to type 2 diabetes, hypertension, coronary heart disease, rheumatoid arthritis, periodontal disease," Lee said.

The researchers factored in age, gender and race to explain the differences in concentrations of these pollutants but weight history remained a statistically significant factor.

More studies were needed to establish if such harm outweighed the benefits to be gained from weight loss, Lee said.