The protesters have different aims in different countries. Higher taxes for the rich and a loathing of financiers is the closest thing to a common denominator, though in America polls show that popular rage against government eclipses that against Wall Street.

Yet even if the protests are small and muddled, it is dangerous to dismiss the broader rage that exists across the West. There are legitimate deep-seated grievances. Young people””and not just those on the streets””are likely to face higher taxes, less generous benefits and longer working lives than their parents. More immediately, houses are expensive, credit hard to get and jobs scarce””not just in old manufacturing industries but in the ritzier services that attract increasingly debt-laden graduates. In America 17.1% of those below 25 are out of work. Across the European Union, youth unemployment averages 20.9%. In Spain it is a staggering 46.2%. Only in Germany, the Netherlands and Austria is the rate in single digits.

It is not just the young who feel squeezed. The middle-aged face falling real wages and diminished pension rights….

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The American phoenix is slowly rising again. Within five years or so, the US will be well on its way to self-sufficiency in fuel and energy. Manufacturing will have closed the labour gap with China in a clutch of key industries. The current account might even be in surplus.

Assumptions that the Great Republic must inevitably spiral into economic and strategic decline – so like the chatter of the late 1980s, when Japan was in vogue – will seem wildly off the mark by then.
Telegraph readers already know about the “shale gas revolution” that has turned America into the world’s number one producer of natural gas, ahead of Russia….

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Four education administrators from across the Communion will start a fellowship scheme in London next year following the success of the Anglican Alliance bid for Commonwealth funding.

The four the Caribbean, Nigeria, Ghana and the Solomon Islands will be the first fellows in the scheme set up by the Anglican Alliance and funded by the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission.

They will spend eight weeks visiting UK education services and specialist education institutions to see what lessons they can learn for delivering education services at home.

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The theme chosen for the Day: “Food Prices: From Crisis to Stability,” invites us to reflect on the importance of the different factors that can give people and communities essential resources, beginning with agricultural work, which must not be considered as a secondary activity, but as the objective of every strategy of growth and integral development. This is still more important if we keep in mind that the availability of foods is increasingly conditioned by the volatility of prices and sudden climatic changes. We observe at the same time a continuous abandonment of rural areas with a global decline in agricultural production and, hence, in food reserves. Moreover, spreading everywhere, unfortunately, is the idea that food is just one more merchandise and, hence, also subject to speculative movements.

It cannot be ignored that — despite the progress achieved up to now and the hopes based on an economy that increasingly respects the dignity of every person — the future of the human family is in need of a new impulse to overcome present fragilities and uncertainties. Although we live in a global dimension, there are evident signs of the profound division between those who lack daily sustenance and those who have many resources, using them often for ends other than food and even destroying them. Confirmed thus is that globalization makes us feel closer but not brothers (cf. Caritas in Veritate, 19). Because of this, those Christian values inscribed in the heart of every person and which have always inspired his action must be rediscovered: the feeling of compassion and humanity toward others and the duty of solidarity and commitment to justice, must again be the basis of every activity, including those carried out by the international community.

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Slowly and carefully, the Vatican is setting the stage for the third edition of the interreligious “prayer for peace” encounter in the Italian pilgrimage town of Assisi.

The Oct. 27 event marks the 25th anniversary of the first such gathering. As in 1986, it is expected to draw representatives from many Christian denominations and more than a dozen other faiths.

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HMany foreign investors are not reassured by the increasingly explicit US government guarantee, and are wary of the debt that the two housing agencies issue. The political fallout over the US debt ceiling this summer and the consequent Standard & Poor’s downgrade of US sovereign debt intensified fears that politics might derail the US government promise to guarantee the debt.

“We have become hostage to the irresponsible behaviour of politicians,” said Bader al-Saad, head of the KIA, in a New York speech last month. “What happened during the debt negotiations will make many countries think twice about the investment environment of the US.”

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If it has been obvious for some time that we are caught up in an extreme financial crisis, the extent of its severity has acquired greater clarity in being described by the Governor of the Bank of England. Never before has the global financial system been so interlinked and integrated, which means that problems in one part of the world are capable of causing severe stress almost everywhere else. We once more face a perfect storm of cascading default, contracting credit and collapsing economic activity.

Yet, despite the parallels, the current situation need not end in the same catastrophe of economic, political and social meltdown as occurred in the 1930s. For most advanced economies, these outcomes are still avoidable. But escaping them is going to require leadership, nerve and collective resolve ”“ things that have so far been in short supply.

The problem is not in Britain ”“ which, despite the appalling legacy of debt left by the last government, is doing most of the right things ”“ but in mainland Europe, where lack of foresight, unwillingness to act, confusion of counsel and lack of clear thinking are indeed everywhere to behold.

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Police said on Friday they eavesdropped on thieves speaking Russian, Mandarin and Arabic to make the biggest identity theft bust of its kind in U.S. history against a $13 million crime ring specializing mainly in selling Apple electronics overseas.

Authorities said “Operation Swiper” indicted 111 people from five criminal enterprises in Queens, New York, the nation’s most ethnically diverse county, where 138 languages are spoken and more than half the population is foreign born.

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China and Russia have vetoed a UN Security Council resolution condemning Syria over its crackdown on anti-government protesters.

The European-drafted resolution had been watered down to try to avoid the vetoes, dropping a direct reference to sanctions against Damascus.

But Moscow and Beijing said the draft contained no provision against outside military intervention in Syria.

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Money flows are even more out of kilter. Cross-border liabilities have jumped from $15 trillion to $100 trillion in fifteen years, or 150pc of global GDP. This creates a very big risk.

“Gross financial flows can stop suddenly, or even reverse. They can overwhelm weak or weakly regulated financial systems,” said Mr [Stephen] Cecchetti.

Well, yes, this is now happening. Did anybody think about this when they unleashed globalisation with its elemental deformity, free trade without free currencies?

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We’re just stuck?

If we don’t deal with it ”“ if we don’t proactively say we’re going to get our deficit under control ”“let me put it this way: My personal belief is that if we do proactively get our long-term budget issues under control, the bond market will say, “Okay, you’re credible and we will buy your bonds, because you have put yourself on a credible path ”“ whether it’s through cuts, whether it’s through tax increases, however you want to do it ”“ but you have to do it. But you have shown us a credible way to get to the place where the growth rate of your deficit is below the growth rate of nominal GDP.”

But if we don’t do that, my wine bottle of pain becomes a jeroboam and we end up downing it all at once.

That sounds ugly.

It is. It will force budget cuts; it will force tax increases of the magnitude that no one is ready to contemplate. We’re talking cuts in Medicare, cuts in education, in defense, in spending of all kinds. That would create a depression, a true depression that would last 4-5 years, push unemployment to 20%-25%….

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…Hopes are likely to fade, for three reasons. First, for all the breathless headlines from the IMF/World Bank meetings in Washington, DC, Europe’s leaders are a long way from a deal on how to save the euro. The best that can be said is that they now have a plan to have a plan, probably by early November. Second, even if a catastrophe in Europe is avoided, the prospects for the world economy are darkening, as the rich world’s fiscal austerity intensifies and slowing emerging economies provide less of a cushion for global growth. Third, America’s politicians are, once again, threatening to wreck the recovery with irresponsible fiscal brinkmanship. Together, these developments point to a perilous period ahead.

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Christians are the number one target of persecution around the world, the Vatican’s foreign minister told the UN summit on Tuesday.

“The lack of respect for religious freedom represents a threat to security and peace,” Dominique Mamberti, Vatican secretary for external relations, told the UN General Assembly.

“We are seeing an increase in intolerance for religious reasons and unfortunately we note that Christians are the religious group which suffer the most persecution because of their faith,” said the cardinal.

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There is an optimistic scenario for the U.S. economy: Europe gets its act together. The pace of world growth quickens, igniting demand for U.S. exports. American politicians agree to a credible compromise that gives the economy a fiscal boost now and restrains deficits later. The housing market turns up. Relieved businesses hire. Relieved consumers spend.

But there are at least two unpleasant scenarios: One is that Europe becomes the epicenter of a financial earthquake on the scale of the crash of 1929 or Lehman Brothers 2008. The other is that Europe muddles through, but the U.S. stagnates for another five years, mired in slow growth, high unemployment and ugly politics.

No one would intentionally choose the second or third, yet policy makers look more likely to stumble into one of those holes than find a path to the happier ending.

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Boeing Co. handed over the key for its first 787 wide-body jet to All Nippon Airways on Monday after years of delays, marking a long-awaited milestone in the history of commercial flight.

Thousands of workers gathered for the ceremony at Paine Field, outside the building where the planes are assembled, with many finding shelter from the rain under the wings of two yet-to-be-delivered 787s. The actual first ANA 787 was nearby at the Future of Flight aviation center, where it was being prepared for a reception Monday night and its flight to Japan today. The plane goes into service in November.

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Christianity is booming not just in China, but worldwide ”“ with a singular exception, that I will come to in due course. Christianity is doing especially well in Africa where, thanks be to God, it seems to have escaped the influence of the Archbishop of Canterbury. The faith is doing well particularly in places where it is under the most cruel persecution ”“ as Our Lord promised it would: Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Coptic Christians in Egypt and indeed across the whole of North Africa.

My friend Professor David Martin has written a gigantic study of Christianity in Central and South America where he sees the rise of Pentecostal Christianity as a great force for good. Individual men and women’s direct experience of the Holy Spirit in their personal lives and public worship have turned many away from drugs, crime and prostitution and returned them to responsible lives of work and thrift, personal pride and family belonging ”“ the very virtues which, of course, are despised by our atheistic intelligentsia (headquarters, the BBC) as “Victorian” ”“ or, worst of all, “Thatcherite”

The only region, in fact, where Christianity is in decline is Europe, controlled as the continent is by an atheistic bureaucracy and the satanic creed of political correctness.

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In the end, Stuxnet may have set back Iran’s nuclear ambitions by years. But it also could prove a Pyrrhic victory for its still-unknown creator ”“ a sophisticated cyberweapons nation state that [ Ralph] Langner argues could be the US or Israel. Like the Hiroshima bomb, Stuxnet demonstrated for the first time a dangerous capability ”“ in this case to hackers, cybercrime gangs, and new cyberweapons states, he says in an interview.

With Stuxnet as a “blueprint” downloadable from the Internet, he says, “any dumb hacker” can now figure out how to build and sell cyberweapons to any hacktivist or terrorist who wants “to put the lights out” in a US city or “release a toxic gas cloud.”

What follows are excerpts of Langner’s comments from an extended interview:

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The reserve powers would be well advised to pull out all the stops to save Europe and its banking system. Together they hold $10 trillion in foreign bonds. If they agreed to rotate just 4pc of these holdings ($400bn) into Spanish, Italian, and Belgian debt over the next two years, they could offer a soothing balm. None has yet risen to the challenge. It is `sauve qui peut’, with no evidence of G20 leadership in sight.

Once again, the US has had to take charge. The multi-trillion package now taking shape for Euroland was largely concocted in Washington, in cahoots with the European Commission, and is being imposed on Germany by the full force of American diplomacy.

It is an ugly and twisted set of proposals, devised to accomodate Berlin’s refusal to accept fiscal union, Eurobonds, and an EU treasury. But at least it is big.

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On the surface, economists at the International Monetary Fund and most banks are still estimating China’s growth rate to be over 9 percent this year. China continues to run very large trade surpluses. New construction starts have soared with a government campaign to provide more affordable housing.

And yet, the country’s huge manufacturing sector is starting to slow and orders are weakening, especially for exports. The real estate bubble is starting to spring leaks, even as inflation remains stubbornly high for consumers ”” despite a series of interest rate increases and ever-tighter limits on bank lending.

Because China’s mighty growth engine has been one of the few drivers of the global economy since the financial crisis of 2008, signs of deceleration could add to worries about the global outlook.

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Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin says he has accepted a proposal to stand for president in March 2012.

Addressing the ruling United Russia party’s annual congress, Mr Putin and current President Dmitry Medvedev backed one another to switch roles.

The announcements end speculation over which man should run for the top job.

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A former employee of American Superconductor Corp. was convicted in Austria on criminal charges in a corporate espionage case linked to China’s biggest manufacturer of wind turbines.

The conviction on charges of fraud and industrial espionage may buttress American Superconductor’s allegations against its once-biggest customer, Sinovel Wind Group Co. Ltd.

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The latest blow came in a statement released after Aug 30 to Sept 10 Global South meeting in China. While the primates said they were “wholeheartedly committed to the unity of Anglican Communion and recognize the importance of the historic See of Canterbury,” they were not pleased with what Dr. Williams’ subordinates were doing.

The instruments of communion: the Lambeth Conference, the Primates Meeting, the Anglican Consultative Council, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, “have become dysfunctional and no longer have the ecclesial and moral authority to hold the Communion together.”

The Global South primates stated it was “regrettable” that the 2008 Lambeth Conference had been “designed [so as] not to make any resolutions that would have helped to resolve the crisis facing the Communion.”

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Global investment strategy was planned by representatives of 40 churches from North America, Europe, Australasia and Africa in a historic meeting in Paris on 14 September.

The event was hosted by the Church Investors Group (CIG) of Britain and Ireland, which commands £12.6 billion of assets. By working together, the churches not only increase their influence by combining their assets, but their investment arms can share local expertise that can ensure that the global strategy adopted allows all the churches to enforce Christian attitudes.

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There are many more reasons for concern. The continuing inability of Europe to cope with the euro troubles, the political impasse over economic policy in the United States, and the deer-in-the-headlights immobility of Japan do not inspire confidence. The emerging economies ”” China, India, Turkey and Brazil ”” face increased difficulties of their own and will not pull the global economy out of the dumps. That large corporations are sitting on cash hoards or buying back stock rather than making new investments is bad news; that consumers are cutting down debt and doing what they can to increase their savings is good news for the long term, but bad news now. And it seems clear that two years of frantic efforts in Washington have failed to breathe new life into the nation’s housing market….

Global economic events are moving so rapidly that we have no way of foreseeing the economic environment for next year. It will probably not be very good, but how bad it will be and how it will look to voters cannot yet be foretold.

More to the point, we need policy discussions more than we need political ones. This is not just about how big the deficit should be; it is about whether the international financial system will survive the next six months in the form we now know it. It is about whether the foundations of the postwar order are cracking in Europe.

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Key indicators of credit stress have reached the danger levels seen before the Lehman Brothers failure three years ago, with Markit’s iTraxx Crossover index ”“ or “fear gauge” ”“ of corporate bonds surging 56 basis points to 857 on Thursday….

The yield spread between Italian 10-year bonds and Bunds reached a fresh record of 408 basis points before the European Central Bank (ECB) intervened in late trading. It is near the level at which LCH.Clearnet raises margin requirements, the trigger that forced Greece, Portugal and Ireland to request bail-outs.

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This year, volatility has soared and share prices have fallen sharply, in part because few believe there is a Bernanke put, or, for that matter, a Trichet put. It is far from clear that the authorities could stem a new panic, and even less clear that many would be willing to try.

In other words, the slogan for markets as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank meet this week in Washington could well be, “You’re on your own. Don’t count on anybody to bail you out.”

The situation is thus drastically different from that of three years ago, when I.M.F.-World Bank meetings served as a forum to find joint strategies to ameliorate the financial crisis that had followed the collapse of Lehman Brothers.

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The agency said the country’s net general government debt is the highest among A-rated sovereigns, and now expects it to peak later and at a higher level than it previously anticipated.

“In our view, Italy’s economic growth prospects are weakening and we expect that Italy’s fragile governing coalition and policy differences within parliament will continue to limit the government’s ability to respond decisively to domestic and external macroeconomic challenges,” S&P said in a statement.

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It is apparent not only that US banks have lost confidence in their European counterparts and have started shutting them out of inter-bank funding markets, but also that US officials are busy making matters worse by seeking to shift blame for America’s dire domestic performance on to influences from this side of the Atlantic. “Seventy-five per cent of the dark things happening in the world economy are because of the eurozone,” one of Geithner’s team said at Marseille….

Markets are convinced of several things: that Greece is politically incapable of meeting the austerity demands imposed by the EU and the IMF, and is now locked into a spiral in which its debt position can only become worse as its economy deteriorates; that a default on Greek sovereign debt is therefore inevitable sooner rather than later, and will impose losses on European banks, including the likes of Société Générale and Crédit Agricole of France, which may in turn need to be bailed out by their governments; and that the eviction of a bankrupt and incorrigibly irresponsible eurozone member is not only a technical possibility but an economic necessity if the single currency is to survive at all.

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…China itself must ultimately be a victim of this warped structure as well, and that is where we are in late 2011. Act III of the global denouement is unfolding. The world will have to lance the debt boils of Asia as well before clearing the way for another cycle of global growth.

The facts are simple. China dodged the Great Contraction of 2008-2009 by unleashing credit on a massive scale.

Zhu Min, the IMF’s deupty chief and a former Chinese official, said loans had jumped from 100pc of GDP before the crisis to around 200pc today — if you include off-books financing from letters of credits, trusts, and such like.
To put this in perspective, a study by Fitch Ratings found that credit in America rose by just 42pc of GDP in the five-year period before the housing bubble popped. It rose by 45pc of GDP in Japan from before the Nikkei cracked in 1990, and 47pc before the Korean crisis in 1998.

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Religious leaders of all stripes, gowns and headgear gathered in Jerusalem’s Mishkenot Sha’ananim neighborhood Wednesday to attend the third annual Interfaith Ethics and Tolerance conference.

Bringing together Jewish and Muslim clerics, as well as clergy from numerous Christian denominations and those of the Bahai and Hindu faiths, the conference this year focused on the role of spiritual leaders in promoting peace and tolerance as well as the challenges of religious leadership in today’s globalized world.

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