Archbishops across the Anglican Communion called on Christians to place their hope in Christ’s resur­rection this Easter, despite recent natural disasters and continuing injustice in the world.

In an ecumenical letter to heads of other Churches and communions, the Archbishop of Canterbury urged fel­low leaders to remember Christ’s ultimate victory, even though “violence and suffering seem to increase daily”.

Referring to the earthquake in Japan, the persecution of Christians across the globe, and wars and pandemics in Africa, Dr Williams said that there could be “no doubt about the final purpose of God in the world”: “However terrible the conflict in the present moment, the truth of God is not in danger of defeat.”

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The U.S. dollar fell Thursday to its lowest point since the summer of 2008, but officials aren’t showing signs that they are alarmed by the currency’s descent or acting to stem it.

In recent days, the nation’s top two economic policy makers””Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner””have publicly expressed their desire for a strong dollar. But there is little indication of a change in policy from either the Fed or Treasury””or in underlying economic conditions””that would alter the currency’s downward course.

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On a sunny afternoon this week, St. Peter’s Square was abuzz with life. Crowds lined up at the metal detectors. Tourists snapped photos. A workman was spraying down the travertine steps to the basilica. And inside, red cloth screens cordoned off a side chapel that will soon draw as many visitors as Michelangelo’s Pietà nearby.

Starting Sunday, that chapel is where the entombed remains of Pope John Paul II will be on view for public veneration ”” after Pope Benedict XVI presides over the biggest spectacle since his own installation in 2005: a beatification Mass that will move his adored predecessor a step closer to sainthood.

The beatification is widely seen as a way not just to honor John Paul but to energize the Roman Catholic Church. Yet, like John Paul’s 26-year papacy itself, it has become intensely polarizing….

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A group of the largest US banks and fund managers stepped up the pressure on Congress and the Obama administration to reach a deal to increase the country’s debt limit, saying that even a short default could be devastating for the financial markets and economy.

The warning over the debt limit is the strongest yet to come from Wall Street, highlighting growing nervousness among investors about the US political system’s ability to forge a consensus on fiscal policy.

The most pressing budgetary issue confronting Congress and the Obama administration is the need to raise the US debt ceiling, which stands at $14,300 billion.

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There are structural problems in the economy as growth slows and middle-class incomes stagnate. There are structural problems in the welfare state as baby boomers spend lavishly on themselves and impose horrendous costs on future generations. There are structural problems in energy markets as the rise of China and chronic instability in the Middle East leads to volatile gas prices. There are structural problems with immigration policy and tax policy and on and on.

As these problems have gone unaddressed, Americans have lost faith in the credibility of their political system, which is the one resource the entire regime is predicated upon. This loss of faith has contributed to a complex but dark national mood. The country is anxious, pessimistic, ashamed, helpless and defensive.

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China needs to guard against volatility in US Treasury prices should investors demand higher returns from US government debt, a researcher at the Chinese central bank said on Monday.

Zhang Jianhua, a head of research at the People’s Bank of China, said worries that the heavily indebted US government may not repay its debt could drive Treasury yields higher and cause US debt prices to fluctuate.

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The U.S. dollar’s downward slide is accelerating as low interest rates, inflation concerns and the massive federal budget deficit undermine the currency.

With no relief in sight for the dollar on any of those fronts, the downward pressure on the dollar is widely expected to continue.

The dollar fell nearly 1% against a broad basket of currencies this week, following a drop of similar size last week. The ICE U.S. Dollar Index closed at its lowest level since August 2008, before the financial crisis intensified.

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Wonderful stuff–look through it all.

I enjoy going through these year after year and am very thankful to the BBC for providing them.

Members of the International Monetary Fund emerged from their huddle in Washington last weekend resolved to keep every option open to slow the flood of dollars pouring into their countries, including capital controls. That’s a dangerous game, given the need for investment to drive economic development. But it’s also increasingly typical of the world’s reaction to America’s mismanagement of the dollar and its eroding financial leadership.

The dollar is the world’s reserve currency, and as such the Federal Reserve is the closest thing we have to a global central bank. Yet for at least a decade, and especially since late 2008, the Fed has operated as if its only concern is the U.S. domestic economy.

The Fed’s relentlessly easy monetary policy combined with Congress’s reckless spending have driven investors out of the United States and into Asia, South America and elsewhere in search of higher returns and more sustainable growth. The IMF estimates that between the third quarter of 2009 and second quarter of 2010, Turkey saw a 6.9% inflow in capital as a percentage of GDP, South Africa 6.6%, Thailand 5%, and so on….

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“More than two years after the beginning of the recent crisis, U.S. policymakers have still not agreed on how to reverse recent fiscal deterioration or address longer-term fiscal pressures….”

–S&P credit analyst Nikola Swann in a statement today explaining why S and P shifted its outlook on America’s credit to “negative”

S&P sees a “material risk that U.S. policymakers might not reach an agreement on how to address medium- and long-term budgetary challenges by 2013; if an agreement is not reached and meaningful implementation is not begun by then, this would in our view render the U.S. fiscal profile meaningfully weaker than that of peer ‘AAA’ sovereigns.”

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The president of the World Bank has warned that the world is “one shock away from a full-blown crisis”.

Robert Zoellick cited rising food prices as the main threat to poor nations who risk “losing a generation”.

He was speaking in Washington at the end of the spring meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

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[KIM] LAWTON: Carter has a new book called The Violence of Peace: America’s Wars in the Age of Obama. He claims the man many voters considered the “peace candidate” has turned into a “war president” with an expanding philosophy about the use of force. Carter says that philosophy was signaled in Obama’s 2009 acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize.

President Barack Obama (from 2009 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech): Inaction tears at our conscience and can lead to more costly intervention later. That’s why all responsible nations must embrace the role that militaries with a clear mandate can play to keep the peace.

{STEPHEN] CARTER: What’s striking about the war in Libya, whether one is for it or against it, is that it shows that President Obama was serious, that he actually meant what he said, that he actually believes that’s a justified use of American power.

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Keller did get his dander up after Assange said that watching the American news media cover international events is like watching a goldfish bowl where readers pay little attention to outside perspectives.

Keller seemed to take that as a slight against the prestigious New York Times overseas correspondents. “I have to object to the idea that we’re not interested in what happens outside the U.S.,” he said. “We have 40 correspondents and stringers overseas, and we have four people who have been killed covering the wars.”

Assange said he meant no disrespect to the work of Times correspondents living or dead. But he did get the last word on that topic.

“I say that 40 people covering the entire world in the New York Times, which is the opinion leader of the United States, is a state of desperation,” he said.

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The leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa also called for stronger regulation of commodity derivatives to dampen excessive volatility in food and energy prices, which they said posed new risks for the recovery of the world economy.

Meeting on the southern Chinese island of Hainan, they said the recent financial crisis had exposed the inadequacies of the current monetary order, which has the dollar as its linchpin.

What was needed, they said in a statement, was “a broad-based international reserve currency system providing stability and certainty” — thinly veiled criticism of what the BRICS see as Washington’s neglect of its global monetary responsibilities.

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The US lacks a “credible strategy” to stabilise its mounting public debt, posing a small but significant risk of a new global economic crisis, says the International Monetary Fund.

In an unusually stern rebuke to its largest shareholder, the IMF said the US was the only advanced economy to be increasing its underlying budget deficit in 2011, at a time when its economy was growing fast enough to reduce borrowing.

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In evidence to the US House of Representatives Subcommittee on Energy and Power’s hearing, April 4th, regarding the “The American Energy Initiative”, Douglas-Westwood LLP’s Managing Director, .Steve Kopits, gave dire warnings about the likely development of China’s future energy demand

“China’s oil demand will likely keep pressure on oil prices for the indefinite future,” said Kopits. “China consumes 10 million barrels of oil per day (mbpd) on global consumption of about 88 mbpd. …it is already the second biggest consumer of oil in the world …we see China surpassing US consumption levels around 2018.”

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Top Federal Reserve officials sent a clear signal that the Fed is unlikely to follow the European Central Bank in lifting interest rates from rock-bottom levels anytime soon, playing down the idea that soaring commodity prices will lead to broader U.S. inflation.

At the Economic Club of New York on Monday, Janet Yellen, the Fed’s vice chairwoman, said U.S. monetary policy “continues to be appropriate.”

Recent increases in prices of oil, grain and other commodities are “unlikely to have persistent effects on consumer inflation or to derail the economic recovery” and are “not likely to warrant any substantial shift in the stance of monetary policy,” she said. The key, Ms. Yellen added, is that households and businesses don’t expect inflation to take off in the long run.

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As uprisings challenge the old order in the Middle East and North Africa, one organisation which for many years claimed it was at the vanguard of toppling authoritarian regimes has so far played almost no part. So is al-Qaeda still relevant? Do the uprisings represent a threat or an opportunity to its role?

In the short term, al-Qaeda has proved slow to respond and is struggling to make any impact, its ideology of violence undermined, experts believe.

But out of the current chaos and instability in the region, they warn, it could still be able to find new opportunities.

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But there’s a catch. As shale-gas drilling has ramped up, it’s been met with a growing environmental backlash. There are complaints about spills and air pollution from closely clustered wells and fears of wastewater contamination from the hydraulic fracturing process ”” also known as fracking ”” that is used to tap shale-gas resources. In the U.S., the gas industry is exempt from many federal regulations, leaving most oversight to state governments that have sometimes been hard-pressed to keep up with the rapid growth of drilling. The investigative news site ProPublica has found over 1,000 reports of water contamination near drilling sites. New York State ”” spurred by fears about the possible impact of the industry on New York City’s watershed ”” has put hydraulic fracturing on hold for further study, while some members of Congress are looking to tighten regulation of drilling. “We were not ready for this,” says John Quigley, former head of Pennsylvania’s department of conservation and natural resources. “We weren’t ready for the technology or the scale or the pace.”

And that’s what makes this new energy revolution ”” because that’s what it is ”” so complex. The richest shale-gas play and potentially the second biggest natural gas field in the world is called the Marcellus, and its heart runs straight through parts of Pennsylvania and New York. This drilling isn’t taking place in the Gulf of Mexico, the Saudi deserts or lightly populated western Canada. It’s happening right in the backyard of the U.S. Northeast, a densely populated place accustomed to consuming fossil fuels, not producing them. But if the global appetite for gas and oil keeps growing, rural Pennsylvania won’t be the last unlikely place we’ll drill. Because for all our fears of running out of oil, we should be able to find more than enough fuel to keep the global economy humming ”” provided we’re willing to drill in deeper, darker, more dangerous or more crowded places. The Arctic, the ultra-deep ocean off Brazil and New York City’s watershed all could go under the drill as we enter what the writer Michael Klare has called the Era of Extreme Energy. The power will keep flowing ”” but with environmental and even social costs we can’t yet predict.

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Without using the word, we were acknowledging that in such a context, we are multi-faith. When people of different faiths are found together, in a conference, neighborhood, or nation, they are best described as multi-faith, representing different faiths.

Worldwide trends indicate that multi-faith is both a current reality and our future. The number of people who claim adherence to the major world religions is growing. German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche and other post-Enlightenment thinkers predicted the death of God and the decline of religious belief over 100 years ago, but their predictions were premature. In fact, secular thinking has long embraced the idea that religion was the socio-political problem, not so much the solution.

If anything, “God is dead” has been replaced with “God is back.” Economists John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, an atheist and a Roman Catholic, wrote a fascinating book in 2008 with that title. In it they noted that while statistics about religious observance are notoriously untrustworthy, most surveys seem to indicate that the global drift toward secularism has halted. Quite a few surveys show religious belief to be on the rise. They reference one source that says that “the proportion of people attached to the world’s four largest religions””Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism””rose from 67 percent in 1900 to 73 percent in 2005, and may reach 80 percent by 2025.”

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In light of recent food price spikes ”“ some of which exceed the peaks reached during the now notorious food crisis of 2008 ”“ and the continuing political instability in the Middle East, Dr. [Jeffrey] Sachs’s outlook was markedly darker than usual during a video talk he delivered Friday to a gathering on food scarcity and global security held at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto. Despite his trademark frankness in articulating global challenges, Dr. Sachs has traditionally been an optimist.

“Something very dramatic is happening,” he warned a rapt audience. “We’ve entered a new global scenario with respect to food, hunger and conflict ”¦ an era where things are likely to get tougher, not easier, in terms of production,” he said. “We’re hitting boundaries that are very important to understand and very important to counteract.”

Chief among those is the fact that global demand for food ”“ and the agricultural commodities used to produce it ”“ is outpacing the growth of supplies. The onset of climate change, which affects everything from the water supply to crop yields, is a ballooning wedge that will continue to force those trend lines in opposite directions, Dr. Sachs said.

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The Archbishop said:

“I am delighted that the Government has finally reached the right decision and will now opt in to the EU Directive on Human Trafficking. For some time I have been raising the matter with the Home Secretary calling on her to opt in to the EU Directive to ensure we have a united front across Europe tackling the evil of human trafficking.

“I am pleased the Government now acknowledges that ‘opting in would send a powerful message to traffickers that Britain is not a soft touch’. Our Government should be ensuring Britain leads the way on tackling slavery, just like it did in the days of William Wilberforce. Sex trafficking is nothing more than modern day slavery.

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The oil balance is back on precarious footing. The shift of events in Yemen — President Ali Abdullah Saleh seems to be spending his final hours or days in office (see defectors above) — returns instability to Saudi Arabia’s doorstep, and with it may push oil prices higher.

It’s not that Yemen itself produces much oil or natural gas – its production volumes are modest. But its northern border with Saudi is porous, and as we’ve discussed previously, any flow of Yemeni refugees, including armed ones, could destabilize Saudi Arabia. To the east of the kingdom, Saudi forces are helping to tamp down unrest in neighboring Bahrain, but meanwhile face new protests from sympathetic fellow Shias in the city of Qatif, in Saudi’s oil-rich Eastern Province. All of this will tempt the trigger fingers of intrepid traders in London and New York.

Oil prices have been relatively calm considering the upheavals in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain and Yemen, not to mention the nuclear crisis in Japan, moving up and down just a few dollars when traders decide they’d like to earn a little money. When prices have moved the most, it has been with an eye on Saudi Arabia, whose massive oil reserves and production underpin global price stability.

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The United Nations authorised military action to curb Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi on Thursday, hours after he threatened to storm the rebel bastion of Benghazi overnight, showing “no mercy, no pity.”

“We will come, zenga, zenga. House by house, room by room,” he said in a radio address to the eastern city.

Al Jazeera television showed thousands of Benghazi residents in a central square celebrating the U.N. vote, waving anti-Gaddafi tricolour flags and chanting defiance of the man who has ruled for four decades. Fireworks burst over the city.

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Possible interventions include not only a no-fly zone but also providing weapons to the rebels, offering inducements to Gaddafi loyalists to defect, jamming Libyan military radio transmissions or bombing Mr. Gaddafi’s tanks and artillery when they move east. Each option carries risks for the United States, and Mr. Obama’s caution is understandable.

On the other hand, Mr. Gaddafi’s military is weak, and many Libyans clearly are desperate for change. And a Gaddafi victory also carries risks for U.S. interests, as Mr. Obama himself has said. A sacking of Benghazi will be accompanied and followed by a horrific bloodbath. A revitalized dictator is likely to be distinctly unfriendly to Western interests. And other despots will conclude that Mr. Gaddafi’s brand of merciless revenge brings better results than the Tunisian and Egyptian models of accommodating people’s yearning for freedom ”” and that American threats to the contrary can be discounted.

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World leaders on Tuesday refused all forms of military intervention in Libya, abandoning Col Muammar Gaddafi’s fleeing opposition to its fate.

France and Britain failed to persuade other world powers meeting in Paris to impose a no-fly zone over the country, where pro-Gaddafi forces claimed to have taken the last major town before the rebel capital, Benghazi.

The no-fly proposal was absent from the G8 foreign ministers’ closing statement in Paris, following resistance from Russia, Germany and the US. China, a United Nations security council veto-holder, is also opposed.

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Consider the issues that most threaten humanity’s common future: global terrorism, climate change, overpopulation, and the political and social unrest caused by economic disparity. These problems transcend national boundaries and beg for international solutions. Yet political leaders have generally been unwilling or unable to find solutions.

So here’s where churches come in. Or should.

Religious leaders are the goad or conscience of a society. From the ancient Hebrew prophets to Jesus, Mohammed, Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., we count on our spiritual leaders and communities for moral guidance. Conversely, people have been known to engage in horrendously immoral behavior if their religious leaders tell them it’s OK. Witness the shameful role religion has played in propping up the Confederacy, Nazi Germany or global terrorism. Simply put, religion matters. If not to the so-called new atheists, at least to ordinary folk….

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We are in the midst of a fundamental sea change in Western culture: the battle lines have been drawn, and the outcome remains unclear.

The traditional strategy of liberal democracies has been to seek to regulate religious debate by treating faith as a private activity carried out by consenting adults behind closed doors.

Recent terrorist attacks carried out in the name of religion have forced politicians to recognise that for the vast majority of religious believers ”“ not just the religious extremists ”“ authentic faith must impact on every aspect of their lives and cannot be consigned to the private sphere.

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