World News: U.K.'s Recovery Slows Amid Sluggish Spending
A suggestion that the U.K. economy was making a speedy recovery has fizzled, with recent numbers showing that banks still aren't helping businesses invest, and consumers still aren't spending enough to spur faster growth.</br></br>Data including retail sales, house prices and manufacturing orders had suggested that the recession-plagued U.K. might be moving faster in the right direction. The numbers helped trigger rallies earlier this month in stocks, bonds and sterling.</br></br>More recent figures, however, were a reminder of the recession's reality.</br></br>The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development predicted Wednesday that weak lending will contribute to a 4.3% fall in U.K. gross domestic product this year -- more pessimistic than a U.K.-based economists' consensus forecast for a 3.7% decline, or the 2.8% fall the OECD predicts for the U.S.</br></br>Conditions are fragile elsewhere in Europe. This week, European Union statistics agency Eurostat said new industrial orders in the euro zone posted their sharpest year-to-year drop on record in April -- a sign that the currency area's recovery could be painfully slow.