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...Labour says the recovery is due to the government's lead in global efforts to stabilize the banking system and its $30 billion of fiscal stimulus and argues that stimulus spending must continue. Conservatives, however, propose swifter action to reduce Britain's borrowing. That view has been bolstered over recent weeks with the world's three biggest credit-rating agencies raising concerns that the scale of debt puts Britain at significant risk of default. That might seem to raise the mortifying prospect of another British Prime Minister going cap in hand to the IMF. Ironically, the IMF backs Labour...
Secrecy is a luxury no longer available to Benedict. The recent revelations of sex-abuse scandals in Europe have smashed the perception that predatory priests are an American anomaly. Hundreds of accusations, from Ireland and now mainland Europe, have thrust the Vatican into the grip of its greatest crisis since the 2002 revelations of abuse in the U.S. The church's standing is falling to new lows among believers in its European heartland. Sensing the growing public alarm, some within the clergy are pushing for profound institutional and ecclesiastical changes, including an end to the priesthood's fundamental tenet...
...Pope was not part of what happened back then, and he shouldn't be part of it now," says a Vatican insider. Indeed, the Vatican has mounted an aggressive campaign to portray the scandals as an attempt to besmirch the Pope and discredit the church as a whole. "Over recent days some people have sought, with considerable persistence ... [to] personally involve the Holy Father in questions of abuse," Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said in a written commentary. Another senior official goes further. "They want to involve the Pope at all costs," he tells TIME. "It's a desire to destroy...
...scandals have multiplied, so too have calls for profound change in the priesthood. One perennial proposal dusted off in recent weeks is the abolition of 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...
Obama's trip will offer a challenge to the new top dog in Asia. China is now a larger trading partner of both Japan and ASEAN than the U.S. is, and the pace of U.S. investment in Southeast Asia has slowed in recent years. "If we are closer to China now, it is only because the U.S. has neglected us," says Kavi Chongkittavorn, a columnist for the Nation, a Thai newspaper. The rivals for the region's affections are not getting along. In recent weeks, China has attacked Obama for approving arms sales to Taiwan and meeting with the Dalai...