BRUSSELS (AFP) – The markets have given Europe some respite in its struggle against debt but the EU faces a moment of truth this week with tests that will show whether banks can survive a new economic cataclysm.

European Union governments hope the results of “stress tests” on the banking industry, which will be released on Friday, will reassure investors worried about the banks’ exposure to the continent’s sovereign debt crisis.

“It is clear to my mind that the stress test exercise is of paramount importance to restore confidence in the European economy,” European Economic Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn said this week.

The markets have turned their attention to the health of banks after an explosion of public deficits and debts in the 16-nation eurozone weakened the single currency.

The debt drama forced European governments to bail out Greece and set up a 750-billion-euro (950-billion-dollar) safety net with the IMF for other countries to tap into if they get into trouble.

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NEW HAVEN, Conn. – The Rev. Kevin J. Gray was a popular priest who appeared to live humbly, forgoing a car and walking to Mass from another parish where he lived so that a Catholic charity could use his space at the rectory. Parishioners thought he had cancer and admired how he helped immigrants in his largely poor parish in Connecticut.

But after a routine audit of the church’s finances turned up discrepancies, authorities began a criminal investigation that they say unraveled a secret double life of male escorts, strip bars and lavish spending on the finest restaurants, luxury hotels and expensive clothing, financed with money stolen from the parish.

“About a million,” Gray told authorities without hesitation when asked how much he took from the church account, according to his arrest affidavit.

Gray, former pastor at Sacred Heart/Sagrado Corazon Parish in Waterbury, was arrested and charged with first-degree larceny, accused of stealing $1.3 million over seven years from the church, police said. He was arraigned Tuesday in Waterbury Superior Court and was being held on $750,000 bond, court officials said.

“Up until this investigation he had an excellent reputation,” police Capt. Christopher Corbett said. “The life he was leading in New York City was much different than the life he was leading in Waterbury as a priest. He’s certainly an example of someone who was leading a double life.”

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LAGOS, Nigeria – Pirates kidnapped 12 foreign sailors off the coast of Nigeria’s restive and oil-rich southern delta during an attack that left one crew member injured, a naval spokesman said Saturday.

Commodore David Nabaida told The Associated Press that pirates boarded the German-flagged cargo ship BBC Palonia Friday night off the coast of the Niger Delta. A struggle broke out during the attack and pirates shot one crew member in the leg during the fight, Nabaida said.

Nabaida said the Nigerian navy escorted the ship to safe waters and got medical aid for the wounded sailor.

“All efforts are being made to … rescue the kidnapped crew,” the commodore said.

Nabaida said the navy had suspects in mind for the attack, but declined to offer further details. He did not know the nationality of those taken during the attack.

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ATLANTA – How much money would it take to get you to lose some serious weight? $100? $500?

Many employers are betting they can find your price. At least a third of U.S. companies offer financial incentives, or are planning to introduce them, to get their employees to lose weight or get healthier in other ways.

“There’s been an explosion of interest in this,” said Dr. Kevin Volpp, director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Health Incentives.

Take OhioHealth, a hospital chain whose workforce is mostly overweight. The company last year embarked on a program that paid employees to wear pedometers and get paid for walking. The more they walk, the more they win — up to $500 a year.

Anecdotal success stories are everywhere. Half of the 9,000 employees at the chain’s five main hospitals signed up, more than $377,000 in rewards have already been paid out, and many workers tell of weight loss and a sudden need for slimmer clothes.

But does will this kind of effort really put a permanent dent in American’s seemingly intractable obesity problem? Not likely.

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India’s lofty aviation ambitions hit major turbulence last week when 159 Indians died in an accident that engineers and safety advocates believe could have been prevented.

Less than three months ago, at a trade show in the southern city of Hyderabad, civil aviation minister Praful Patel told an eager gathering of global businesses that India would have 400 airports in 10 years – up from 85 at present – and Indian airlines would need as many as 3,000 new aircraft to keep the pace. The previous month, Patel had inaugurated new terminals at two airports, laid the foundation of a third, and kicked off modernization projects at five others. With the sector growing at 18% a year, billions of rupees were being spent on new terminals, runways, aprons, escalators, baggage conveyors and parking lots. But not enough, critics say, on air safety – with the case in point being the May 22 crash at Bajpe airport in Mangalore, where an Air India Express flight careened off a runway. (See India’s unfriendly skies.)

Just a week before the crash, Patel had visited Bajpe to inaugurate a spanking new terminal built at a cost of $34 million. Addressing a delighted local business community that hoped the airport would soon get an “international” status – boosting the local tourism and export sectors – the minister announced a further stash of $21 million for further expansion. Despite the huge funds spent on the project, the airport did not have a precision approach radar even though it was located on a hilltop surrounded by valleys on three sides. Approach radars, while not mandatory, provide lateral and vertical guidance on the approach of an aircraft for landing and are useful in tricky landing conditions. In the case of Flight IX-812, air traffic control could have warned the pilot that he was high on approach and not aligned properly to the glide path, as initial investigations have found. (Has India’s airline industry grown too fast to be profitable?)

That was not the only red flag. Bajpe’s overrun area (the section that extends beyond the runway as a cushion for planes that may overshoot upon landing) was 90 meters (295 feet), already much shorter than the 240 meters (787 feet) recommended internationally – and ended in a drop off a cliff. It also did not have EMAS, a decade-old technology, basically a bed of soft concrete placed at the end of a runway to arrest a speeding plane. There may have been a bed of soft sand in its place, but it did not prevent the tragedy. “It is not about the money not being there; it is a question of wrong priority,” says A. Ranganathan, a Chennai-based analyst. “Airlines have been expanding faster and infrastructure is not ready. There is large deficiency on the part of the regulator, and then there’s political interference.”

In fact, local activist groups say if safety had been the priority at Bajpe, the airport’s second runway, where last week’s crash took place, would not have existed in the first place. Local residents have objected to the newer runway since plans for it were first proposed in the late 1980s, warning that due to the area’s mountainous topography, the proposed runway could not conform to basic national and international standards of airport design. Safety requirements would be severely compromised as the runway would be surrounded by deep valleys on three sides and would not provide for emergency approach roads as required in case of a crash. In 1997, the group filed a petition to the state’s high court to stop construction of the runway. “Even though alternative sites existed, the authorities proceeded obstinately to expand the airport due to pressure from the business, real estate and hotel lobbies,” says Leo Saldanha of Environment Support Group, one of the activists who drafted the petition. He claims “politicians were keen to make the expansion a part of their legacy and overlooked all concerns raised.”

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