After giving a lecture on the meaning of heresy throughout history, Dr Williams was asked whether there was a future for the Anglican Communion, which is estimated to have around 80 million members in 44 regional and national member churches.

Addressing an audience at Telford’s International Centre in Shropshire, Dr Williams replied: “I do see the Communion as worth working for because I believe that a model of real international unity by consent is a very precious gift to the Christian world at large.

“That’s what I want to work for.”

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Pope Benedict XVI has summoned cardinals from around the world to a day-long summit in Rome next week on the clerical sex abuse scandal and other issues facing the Catholic Church, the Vatican said Monday.

The Vatican called the session “a day of reflection and prayer” that also will include discussions on threats to religious freedom, relations with other religions and procedures for disaffected Anglicans to join the Catholic Church. Five Church of England bishops announced Monday they were converting to Catholicism following Benedict’s invitation to disaffected Anglicans.

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Yes.

Taken together, the mortgage and non-mortgage series reported here indicate a change in consumer behavior other than delinquency and default. While borrowing contributed an annual average of about $330 billion to consumers’ cash flow between 2000 and 2007, by 2009 consumers reduced their cash flow by $150 billion to reduce these debts. This represents a $500 billion change in cash flow in just two years.

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…a new analysis of Census data being released Monday by the Commerce Department…found that the percentage of households that connect to the Internet using broadband grew to 63.5 percent in 2009 from 9.2 percent in 2001, reflecting increases across nearly all demographics.

The report ”” prepared by the Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration and the Economics and Statistics Administration ”” is based on a Census survey of about 54,000 households conducted in October 2009….

Among the major findings:
Ӣ 94.1 percent of households with income exceeding $100,000 subscribed to broadband in 2009, compared with 35.8 percent of households with income of less than $25,000.
Ӣ 84.5 percent of households with at least one college degree subscribed to broadband last year, compared with 28.8 percent of households without a high school degree.

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Washington and Delhi’s relationship will be one of the century’s defining partnerships, President Barack Obama and Indian PM Manmohan Singh have said.

On a visit to Delhi, Mr Obama said India was a world power, and both countries would work together to promote stability and prosperity.

In a speech to parliament later, he said he would address Delhi’s bid for a permanent UN Security Council seat.

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As news of his retirement made headlines around the globe, Bishop V. Gene Robinson paid a quiet visit to a small parish in Wolfeboro, N.H., yesterday, leading services for a vacationing rector and meeting with the church board, but only briefly mentioning that he was stepping down as leader of the state’s Episcopal Diocese.

Friends and parishioners say it was typical Robinson, who remained the approachable, empathetic, and motivated spiritual leader that many in the state know simply as Gene, even as he became an international figure at the center of a rift in the Anglican Communion and a target for death threats which, he acknowledged in a speech Saturday, have exacted a price.

“The fact is, the last seven years have taken their toll on me, my family, and you,’’ Robinson, 63, told the annual convention of his diocese, disclosing that he will step down in January 2013 after nearly a decade as bishop, nearly seven years shy of the mandatory 72-year-old retirement age. “Death threats, and the now-worldwide controversy surrounding your election of me as bishop, have been a constant strain, not just on me, but on my beloved husband, Mark, who has faithfully stood with me every minute of the last seven years.’’

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Unlike some Episcopal meetings, the Toledo gathering should slip under the media radar with no controversial issues on the agenda.

A group of about 30 clergy and lay delegates from northwest Ohio, bearing 93-page handbooks filled with pie charts and proposals, met last week in the basement cafeteria of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in West Toledo to discuss plans for the convention on Friday and Saturday.

“We’re beginning the process to get ready for convention. I’m not going to pretend to get you ready in an hour,” said the Rev. Bradford Purdom III, the Cleveland-based canon for congregations.

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[Brian] Wilson has created some controversy with the cross-armed salute he offers up at the rear of the mound after every save. The gesture has been taken by some opposing players as a sign of disrespect, and Casey Blake of the Los Angeles Dodgers even went so far as to mimic it on the bench last year after hitting a home run off him.

Wilson said the gesture is a salute to his religious faith ”” he became a devout Christian four years ago ”” and to his father, Mike, who made his career in the Air Force and who died when Wilson was 17 and attending high school in Londonderry, N.H.

“He taught me that you don’t get anything for free,” Wilson said of his father. “You have to work for it. Nothing ever comes easy. That’s the way I’ve been, and that’s the way this team has been. We had to fly back to Philly” for the clinching game of the N.L.C.S. “We had to win in Atlanta in Game 4. It had to come down to the last day of the season. That’s our baseball team. That’s me.”

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The head of the Anglican Church has made an outspoken intervention in the debate on welfare reform, criticising plans to force the long-term unemployed into four-week work placements.

Rowan Williams, archbishop of Canterbury, said on Sunday that ministers, by putting such pressure on those out of work, could accentuate “a sort of downward spiral of uncertainty, even despair”.

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Enlarge our hearts, O God, that we may love thee more and more; kindle our souls that we may praise thee aright; and so order our thoughts, words, and deeds that we may serve thee and glorify thee for evermore; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Turn again, O God of hosts! Look down from heaven, and see; have regard for this vine, the stock which thy right hand planted.

–Psalm 80:14-15

The Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams said today that the provision of mental health services in the countryside must not be cut under the current Government Comprehensive Spending Review. He said this was his greatest concern when looking at the possible shrinkage of services in the rural communities.

He described mental health problems in rural areas as “a huge problem”, where the isolation and hidden depravation are significant problems. Describing the burden placed on voluntary support services as already extreme, he said this provision must remain.

Dr Williams also spoke of the ‘opportunity and challenge’ for the Church to get across to those driving the Big Society what is already happening in the countryside through the rural church and community groups.

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The mid-term elections on November 2nd saw the biggest swing to the Republicans for 72 years…With a few results still to come, they have picked up over 60 seats in the House of Representatives, for a solid majority of at least 50. In the Senate they gained at least six seats, though they will fall short of control there.

For Mr Obama, the lesson is simple enough: sharpen up, and prepare for a tough two years. Yes, this was hardly an enthusiastic vote for his opponents, more a howl of rage against incumbents from citizens struggling after the worst slowdown since the 1930s. And he has a string of legislative achievements to his name. But plenty of centrists plainly fear that he has drifted too far to the left, that he dislikes business and that he does not understand middle America. He looks a far less competent figure than he did two years ago. With a hostile House and a gridlocked Senate, the chances of passing any big new laws are remote; and Republican victories in crucial swing states such as Florida, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania will make the president’s re-election battle in 2012 a lot harder. If Mr Obama is to win again, he needs to move back to the pragmatic centre of what is still a pretty conservative country.

But so do the Republicans….

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BOB ABERNETHY, host: And now we look at the election results and what they mean with David Gibson, religion writer for PoliticsDaily.com, and with Kim Lawton, our managing editor. Kim, you’ve looked at the patterns. What did you see?

KIM LAWTON, managing editor: Well, not surprisingly Republicans made gains among all religious groups, but there were some pretty significant gains. White Protestants voted Republican overwhelmingly. They’ve done that, they usually do that in elections, but even more so this time. The interesting thing for me was around Catholics. In the last two congressional elections, overall Catholics have favored the Democratic candidates. But this time around they went Republican and by significant margins. Catholics have really become in some ways a swing voting bloc. Obviously there are some who always vote Republican, some who always vote Democratic, but there’s this group who keeps swinging, and this time around they really swung Republican.

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U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner refrained from pushing for current-account targets while China softened its stance on the Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing days before a summit of the Group of 20.

The Fed’s move to buy $600 billion of Treasuries could contribute “tremendously” to global growth, Vice Finance Minister Wang Jun said after Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum finance chiefs met in Kyoto, Japan, Nov. 6. At the same gathering, Geithner said current-account deficits or surpluses aren’t “something that is amenable to limits or targets.”

Policy makers from Asia to South America have warned that the Fed’s decision to pump liquidity into the U.S. will depress the dollar and spark flows of capital to emerging markets that threaten asset-price bubbles. China’s Vice Foreign Minister Cui Tiankai said Nov. 5 the U.S. step may hurt global confidence, while rejecting state-planning style targets for trade deficits.

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As the sun rose over the mountains circling Los Reyes, a town in the Mexican state of Michoacán, one morning in March 2009, a caravan of more than 300 heavily armed law enforcement agents set out on a raid.

All but the lead vehicle turned off their headlights to evade lookouts, called “falcons,” who work for La Familia Michoacana, the brutal Mexican cartel that controls the drug trade. This time, the police weren’t hunting for a secret stash of drugs, guns or money. Instead, they looked to crack down on La Familia’s growing counterfeit software ring.

The police reached the house undetected, barreled in and found rooms crammed with about 50 machines used to copy CDs and make counterfeit versions of software like Microsoft Office and Xbox video games. They arrested three men on the spot, who were later released while the authorities investigate the case. “The entire operation was very complicated and risky,” says a person close to the investigation, who demanded anonymity out of fear for his life.

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