  The southern Pierre Auger Observatory, presently under construction in
Malarg"ue, Argentina, is nearing completion. The instrument is designed to
measure extensive air-showers with energies ranging from $10^{18}$-$10^{20}$ eV
and beyond. It combines two complementary observation techniques; the detection
of particles at ground and the coincident observation of associated
fluorescence light generated in the atmosphere above the ground. This is being
realized by employing an array of 1600 water Cherenkov detectors, distributed
over an area of 3000 km$^{2}$, and operating 24 wide-angle Schmidt telescopes,
positioned at four sites at the border of the ground array. The Observatory
will reach its full size only in 2007 but data are routinely recorded already
and have started to provide relevant science results. This talk will focus on
the detector characterizations and presents first results on the arrival
direction of extremely-high energy cosmic rays, their energy spectrum, and on
the upper limit of the photon fraction.
