The City of God is one of the poorest districts of Rio de Janeiro and also has one of the largest black populations in the city.

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But there is still a long way to go: the only time Barack Obama saw a sizeable number of Afro-Brazilians was on his visit to the Cidade de Deus slum, made famous by the movie City of God.

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She describes the Byzantine empire's appropriation of the Mother of God as protectress of the city of Constantinople and its rulers and the intricate metaphysical groundwork which made that change possible.

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He later revisited that stark childhood with his performance as Knockout Ned in the acclaimed film City of God.

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They argue that the Koranic authority for this is the story of God's destruction of the city of Sodom because of its citizens' sins.

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Outside the building we're staying in, the non-stop, looped recordings of "God is great" continue to sing plaintively across the city from half a dozen mosques.

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And the people of our city stood in the dark each night, waving flags, and calling out, "God bless you, " as the trucks hurtled by.

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Raging below are the roiling contours of the fierce seas God has created to punish the prophet for defying a divine order to preach in the sinful city of Nineveh.

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In 2000 he moved to Rio de Janeiro to prepare to make City of God, having been drawn to the project after reading the book Cidade de Deus, written by Paulo Lins.

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We can only target certain sections of the city and form a perimeter around them and hope to God that we're not overrun.

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