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...credit cards, and often pile up more bills than they can handle. Argentina, Russia, Mexico and others have stiffed their bankers over the past 30 years. In fact, the sovereign-debt crisis goes back as far as the concept of the sovereign state. The first recorded government default took place in the 4th century B.C., when Greek municipalities failed to pay back loans granted by a temple. (Read "The Party's Over for Spendthrift Greeks...
...Nowhere is the urgency to deal with debt greater than in Europe, where it has become the most serious test of the 11-year-old euro-based monetary system. While euro-zone nations use the same currency, there is no mechanism in place to financially aid wayward members. That's how a crisis in Greece, which represents a mere 2.8% of the zone's GDP, can have such an outsized impact. The ultimate fear is that Greece will default, dragging down the euro with it. "A lot of the euro's problems today are rooted in those members having failed...
...warning, but a Western intelligence officer in Africa told TIME the alarm was raised after a phone call from an al-Qaeda operative to a number in Cape Town was intercepted - a call in which an attack on U.S. government buildings in South Africa was discussed. No attack took place, and after three days, the embassy in Pretoria and three consulates reopened. But with South Africa expecting half a million fans for the soccer World Cup this June and July, security officials are understandably jittery. Especially because of the origin of the phone call. It came, TIME was told, from...
...coast. But they attempted nothing on the scale of Sept. 11. Now there is a fear that their ambitions may be rising. The worry over Somalia also has a regional dimension: just across the Gulf of Aden is Yemen, long a staging ground for al-Qaeda attacks and the place where Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian who tried to blow up a flight to Detroit on Christmas Day, is thought to have been trained. (See pictures of a jihadist's journey...
...best-selling single ever--spawned a wave of imitators too lazy to even think up new lyrics. "Do They Know It's Christmas?" was rerecorded and released in 2004 to benefit Darfur. And the new "We Are the World," featuring an Auto-Tuned Lil Wayne in place of Bob Dylan, may be raising money atop the iTunes charts, but it does so at the expense of botching a sentimental classic. At least its heart is in the right place...