Premier Wen Jiabao said his country and will play its part to “prevent the further spread of the sovereign debt crisis,” but warned that China will not sign a blank cheque for states that have failed to carry out full reform.
“Countries must first put their own houses in order,” he told the World Economic Forum in Dalian.
On Friday the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, visited St Christopher’s Hospice in Sydenham, London.
St Christopher’s, founded in 1967 by Dame Cicely Saunders, offers medical, nursing and support services for people coping with life-limiting illnesses, and their carers. It was, and is, a pioneer in the field of palliative medicine….
Just weeks ago, economists and financial analysts were dismissing Washington as largely irrelevant to the economy’s course in coming months, if only because it chose to be. They are not dismissing it anymore.
The possibility of major parts of President Obama’s $447 billion jobs bill becoming law, and of further steps next week by the Federal Reserve, have forecasters saying that the decisions Washington makes in the weeks ahead could have a substantial effect on economic growth and unemployment. At a minimum, the stimulus could be insurance against the headwinds blowing from Europe’s debt crisis and the impact of the recent government spending cuts in this country.
The jobs package of tax cuts and spending initiatives could add 100,000 to 150,000 jobs a month over the next year, according to estimates from several of the country’s best-known forecasting firms; the potential Fed actions could add 15,000 more jobs a month over two years.
But the euphoria surrounding the plunging arrow sector may be short-lived, as some analysts caution that that investors’ mania for downward arrow stocks may be a bubble, with others warning that downward arrows are increasingly being manufactured in China, where the arrows are mass-produced using far cheaper labor.
For his part, though, Morgan Stanley’s Dorinson sees a silver lining in such gloomy forecasts: “Even if people wind up losing billions of dollars investing in downward arrows, you know what? There’s only one way to show that.”
You can read about the event here. The description begins this way:
On behalf of the Restore Hope Latimer trustees, our team and all of our partner churches, a very warm welcome to On Earth As In Heaven 2011. Many hours of prayer, planning and hard work by a huge team of volunteers have enabled us to host this event once again.
On Earth As In Heaven 2008 was staged in the midst of one of the worst financial crashes of our lifetime. It was the banks, financial institutions and corporate world which felt the full blast of that initial storm; three years on and the shock waves are still affecting countries, communities and families.
Each one of us has a pilot light of hope within us. A flame which rises and falls with the situations or circumstances we are facing. At different times in our lives, the flame can be strong. Sometimes our flame of hope is weak. But each of us needs that flame ”“ without it we are without hope; life loses meaning and purpose, people fall into despair and anger breaks out. Depression rests on those who are struggling with life and anarchy breaks out on our streets.
You may also find the full schedule over there.
The ranks of America’s poor swelled to almost 1 in 6 people last year, reaching a new high as long-term unemployment left millions of Americans struggling and out of work. The number of uninsured edged up to 49.9 million, the biggest in more than two decades.
The Census Bureau’s annual report released Tuesday offers a snapshot of the economic well-being of U.S. households for 2010, when joblessness hovered above 9 percent for a second year. It comes at a politically sensitive time for President Barack Obama, who has acknowledged in the midst of a re-election fight that the unemployment rate could persist at high levels through next year.
A man recently told me about his faith life, as people are wont to do with ministers. He said, “I’m spiritual but not religious. I want to give you my testimony about why I do not attend church….”
After marrying he joined the church in which his wife was brought up, a liberal Protestant church. He described that experience as the equivalent of getting a big warm hug. This church did not frown on dancing and drinking nor on his theological questions. He was encouraged to think critically about scripture. His questions, even his doubts, did not shock anybody. In fact, he was told that his questions made him a very good mainline Protestant.
But his marriage ended, and he began to feel that the church was more his former wife’s than his. He found himself spending Sunday mornings sleeping in, reading the New York Times or putting on his running shoes and taking off through the woods. This was his religion today, he explained. “I worship nature. I see myself in the trees and in the cicadas. I am one with the great outdoors. I find God there. And I realized that I am deeply spiritual but no longer religious.”
Mrs. [Angela] Merkel, 57, faces far-reaching decisions about how to deal definitively with the debt crisis in Europe and, more immediately, whether to allow Greece to default or even to leave the currency union. American officials fear that if she does not act more decisively, bank lending could freeze up and the result would be another sharp financial downturn on both sides of the Atlantic.
Fears of a worsening debt crisis slammed European stocks on Monday, especially shares of French banks, forcing the French government to declare its support for its three largest financial institutions. The turmoil added to worries that the Greek crisis would prove difficult to contain without more robust action from Germany and, ultimately, its taxpayers.
The project of European integration, which began in the difficult years after World War II, is also on the line. If Greece were forced to abandon the euro, as more and more voices on the German right are demanding, it would be a jarring setback for solidarity on the Continent.
O God, who by the passion of thy blessed Son didst make an instrument of shameful death to be unto us the means of life and peace: Grant us so to glory in the cross of Christ, that we may gladly suffer shame and loss for the sake of thy Son our Savior Jesus Christ; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
O thou in whom we live and move and have our being, awaken us to thy presence that we may walk in thy world as thy children. Grant us reverence for all thy creation, that we may treat our fellow men with courtesy, and all living things with gentleness; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
When I came to you, brethren, I did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God in lofty words or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.
–1 Corinthians 2:1-2
At All Saints Roman Catholic Church Cathedral in Nairobi, African workers were recently singing lively Christian worship songs as they broke ground for the construction of a new office block for the Nairobi Archdiocese.
However, they were not working for an African or British construction company. China Zhongxing Construction is building Maurice Cardinal Otunga Plaza, one of many church contracts Chinese construction companies have won in recent years as China has expanded its influence in Africa. Now, Chinese firms build many bridges, roads and stadiums across the continent.
Muslim extremists have sent text messages to at least 10 church leaders in Khartoum saying they are planning to target Christian leaders, buildings and institutions, Christian sources in Khartoum said.
“We want this country to be purely an Islamic state, so we must kill the infidels and destroy their churches all over Sudan,” said one text message circulating in Khartoum last month. The text messages were sent in July and August.
[Marine Sgt. Craig] Santos, an Air Control Squadron 2 aviation supply specialist at the base in Beaufort, had tried Twitter and Craigslist and gotten nothing. He was running out of time. Angela was getting weaker.
Santos put an ad for a kidney donor on a website called beaufortyardsales.com.
Cpl. Stephanie St. Laurent, a Fighter Attack Squadron 533 jet mechanic, saw the ad and stepped forward.
“A Marine was helpless,” she said after the operation. “His wife was dying and he needed help.”
More people are living with family amid high unemployment rates and a slow economy, but while the phenomenon is keeping the poverty rate lower, it has wider negative economic consequences.
In a presentation as part of its wider report on income, poverty and health insurance, the Census Bureau noted a big jump in the number of individuals and families doubling up. Census says 69.2 million, or 30%, were doubled-up in 2011, up from 61.7 million adults, or 27.7%, in 2007. “Doubled-up” households include at least one person 18 or older who isn’t enrolled in school and isn’t the householder, spouse or cohabiting partner of the householder.
Researchers at the quiz show Q.I. in the UK hosted by Stephen Fry claim to have calculated length of Goldman Sachs defense sent to the SEC.
They say would take 11 ½ years to read.
Per: The Telegraph