The world at a glance . . . Europe

Reykjavik, Iceland

Russia to the rescue: Iceland was forced to take a $5.4 billion loan from Russia this week to avoid defaulting on its sovereign debt. “We have not received the kind of support that we were requesting from our friends,” said Icelandic Prime Minister Geir Haarde. “So in a situation like that one has to look for new friends.” Earlier this week, Iceland nationalized its second largest bank, Landsbanki. The financial crisis engulfing Europe has hit Iceland especially hard, because the Icelandic economy had already been in trouble for the past few years. High inflation and the 2006 closure of a U.S. military base, a large employer in the southwest of the country, have taken a toll.

Rome

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Pope denounces greed: Pope Benedict XVI said this week that the global economic crisis should lead the nations of the world back to religion. “We are now seeing, in the collapse of major banks, that money vanishes, it is nothing,” Benedict said, opening a monthlong meeting of Roman Catholic bishops from around the globe. “He who builds only on visible and tangible things like success, career, and money, builds the house of his life on sand,” he said. “Only God’s words are a solid reality.” The Vatican has also been running articles in its official newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, that criticize the free-market model for having “grown too much and badly in the past two decades.”