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...only exacerbate the economic turbulence that has contributed to the recent roller-coaster ride of the British pound. After a recent poll showed Labour and Conservatives running neck and neck, the pound plunged 2% against the dollar in a few hours. Britain clings to a nostalgic sense of its place in the world as a top-tier global economic power. It's still the world's sixth largest economy, but other numbers are not so flattering. Britain's budget deficit - ?178 billion, according to the Treasury - is the largest as a proportion of GDP among G-7 nations. Unemployment stands...
...pissed off." Her own grouse: she has three children, and thus her one-bedroom public-housing apartment is too small. Her companion, who has turned his back, growling that he doesn't wish to discuss politics, suddenly interrupts. "She's been trying to get a decent place for 12 years, but they're giving the houses to them," he says, jabbing his finger in the direction of a black passerby...
...celibacy among priests: commentators in Germany and Italy have suggested it may help prevent abuse. Vienna's Cardinal Christoph Schönborn has called for a thoroughgoing review of the causes of abuse, writing, "Part of it is the question of celibacy." That sort of questioning is now taking place even in Benedict's former archdiocese. "Married priests should be accepted in the Catholic Church," says Rainer Schiessler, a priest at Munich's St. Maximilian Church. (See 10 surprising facts about the world's oldest Bible...
William Silvert, São Brás de Alportel, Portugal One line really struck me - "Washington, which knows that the world remains a dangerous place ..." - and its implication that Europe doesn't know this. Washington didn't even know that the world beyond its borders existed before 9/11. Then it suddenly discovered terrorism and leaped into the lead in fighting this threat. And who happily signed on? Britain, which had been fighting the IRA for ages and who had seen U.S. support for terrorism dry up (some Irish pubs in the U.S. even had IRA collection boxes); Spain, whose...
...largest democracy, demonstrating that Islam and political freedom are not incompatible. Back when Obama lived in Jakarta, Indonesia was ruled by a dictator and mired in poverty. Today it is a member of the G-20 club of the wealthiest economies. "Foreigners used to think of Indonesia as a place of natural disasters," says Gita Wirjawan, the head of the nation's investment board. "But now they realize that this is a $550 billion economy that's on an upward trajectory...