VATICAN CITY - Negotiations over the Vatican’s adherence to international banking standards were reaching a delicate point. During a lunch, a European official later recalled, discussion turned to the need for more openness from an institution steeped in centuries of secrecy.
EUROPE - Fascism had its roots in Europe, during the 1920s and 1930s, in massive economic failures in which the financial elites failed to recognize the political consequences of unemployment.
VATICAN - St Peter's Square has become a kind of Coliseum. On every vantage point are the TV tents waiting for the games to begin. Even non-Catholic countries cannot resist "lo spettacolo", the secret ritual of choosing a new Pope. Meanwhile - based on very little - the betting agencies run their books on who will be the winner.
UK - A terrible future could be on the horizon, a future which rips one of the greatest tools of medicine out of the hands of doctors. A simple cut to your finger could leave you fighting for your life. Luck will play a bigger role in your future than any doctor could.
USA - America's biggest banks would face losses of almost half a trillion dollars should a deep financial crisis and recession hit the US again, regulators said. Next week, the Fed will release the results of a second stress test that regulators will use to decide whether to approve plans banks may have for paying dividends or buying back shares. Since the financial crisis, lenders have required the approval of the Fed as the US tries to guard against the prospect of another taxpayer bail-out should another financial crisis erupt.
UK - The pound’s recent slide could be the start of “a new sterling crisis” sparked by concerns about the state of the public finances, according to the Euro Group’s new president.
NARAHA, JAPAN - Two years after the triple calamities of earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster ravaged Japan's northeastern Pacific coast, debris containing asbestos, lead, PCBs — and perhaps most worrying — radioactive waste due to the crippled Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant looms as a threat for the region.
GREECE - Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras on Saturday promised his recession-weary nation that there would be "no more austerity measures" as international creditors prolonged an audit of crisis reforms. "There will be no more austerity measures," Samaras said in a televised speech to his conservative party's political committee. "And as soon as growth sets in, relief measures will slowly begin," Samaras said. But he noted that Greece's ailing economy was "out of intensive care, not out of the hospital."
GREECE - Greece remains the biggest risk for the euro zone despite a calming of its economic and political crisis and may still have to leave the common currency, a senior conservative ally of German Chancellor Angela Merkel said. Alexander Dobrindt, general secretary of the Christian Social Union (CSU), the Bavaria-based sister party of Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU), has long argued that Greece would be better off outside the euro zone. With Athens now enjoying relative political stability, German lawmakers have recently been more focused on how to rescue Cyprus, which is negotiating a bailout after its banks suffered big losses due to their heavy exposure to Greece.
UK - The Queen will tomorrow back an historic pledge to promote gay rights and ‘gender equality’ in one of the most controversial acts of her reign.
USA - The New York Stock Exchange is readying plans to be able to operate without human traders in case another disaster, such as Superstorm Sandy, forces the shutdown of its historic trading floor in downtown Manhattan, The Wall Street Journal reported.
NYSE Euronext is preparing to submit details of the plan to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, according to the report, which cited people involved in the preparations. If activated, the plan would represent the first time the 221-year-old exchange would rely entirely on computer systems, without the oversight of floor-based traders, the paper said. A NYSE spokesman declined to comment on the report.
ROME, ITALY - The leader has resigned. There are scandals over sex and corruption. Finances are in disarray. And no one knows who will step in to try to clean up the mess. The Vatican? The Italian government? At the moment, it is both.
SCOTLAND - Roman Catholic priests in Scotland were “out of control sexually” under the leadership of the disgraced Cardinal Keith O’Brien, the Church's former adviser on child abuse claims. Alan Draper has accused the Church leadership, of being “unwilling” to expose supposedly celibate priests who were leading “double lives” in the 1980s and 1990s.
Mr Draper, a lecturer in ethics from Dundee University, was brought in to advise Scottish bishops on abuse allegations but was removed after a disagreement. He has disclosed that bishops were aware of 20 separate cases in the Church between 1985 and 1995 but he alleges that they were “reluctant” to take matters further and rejected his call for independent experts to be brought in.
FUKUSHIMA, Japan - Groundwater flooding has become a major problem for Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco), with hundreds of tons of water seeping daily into the damaged reactor buildings. Experts predict overall clean-up works at the site could take up to 40 years.
GERMANY - Anti-euro political parties in Europe in recent years have so far tended to be either well to the right of center or, as evidenced by the recent vote in Italy, anything but staid. But in Germany, change may be afoot.