PANETTA WARNS AGAINST MILITARY BUDGET CUTS
WASHINGTON, D.C.: Defense Secretary Leon Panetta warned that the United States needed to press efforts on the diplomatic and development fronts to put an end to the Al-Qaeda terror network.

Despite blows dealt to Al-Qaeda, including the killing of its leader Osama bin Laden, “this is not a time for retrenchment and isolation. It is a time for renewed engagement and partnership,” Panetta said at the Center for a New American Security, a Washington think tank. Threats of massive US government budget cuts, especially to the Pentagon, are major concern, Panetta added.

CHURCH OF ENGLAND REJECTS WOMEN BISHOPS
LONDON: Church of England narrowly rejected the appointment of women bishops, triggering turmoil and setting back efforts to modernize the mother church of millions of Anglicans worldwide. In its biggest decision since backing the introduction of women priests 20 years ago, just enough lay members of England’s state church voted against the measure to bring it down, following years of wrangling between traditionalists and liberals. Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams , the church’s spiritual leader, said the result plunged him into “deep personal sadness”, whilst other bishops worried that the national church risked becoming a “national embarrassment. AFP