Gordon Brown's ministerial team. Left to right: Women's Issues, Patriotism & Jingoism, Religious Observance, Fun & Recreation, Men's Issues

The Mail on Sunday have been surveying cabinet ministers about their religious belief.

8 out of 22 Ministers are prepared to say they are Christians, while two admit to being atheists.

The Mail on Sunday also asked David Cameron and his Shadow Cabinet whether they believed in God. The Conservatives emerged as a more devout group, with 20 of the 30 frontbenchers professing to have faith.

Foreign Secretary David Miliband and Health Secretary Alan Johnson said categorically that they did not believe in God.

Peter Hain, the Work and Pensions Secretary, was prepared to admit he did not know whether God existed. His spokesman said: "He had a Christian upbringing but is now agnostic."

Business and Enterprise Secretary John Hutton appeared slightly unsure of his faith. When asked if he believed in God, his special adviser said: "Yes, I think so."

Alistair Darling, Geoff Hoon and Ed Miliband ducked the question, insisting religion was a "private matter", while the rest declined to comment.

The believers include Gordon Brown, son of a Presbyterian preacher, who has often spoken of how his church upbringing gave him a "moral compass".

The other seven confirmed believers are Jack Straw, Douglas Alexander, Ruth Kelly, Des Browne, Hazel Blears, Shaun Woodward and Andy Burnham.

Ruth Kelly, the Transport Secretary, who is a member of the hardline Catholic sect Opus Dei, confirmed she did believe in God but chose not to elaborate.

Communities Secretary Hazel Blears was the most outspoken in professing her Christian faith: "Yes, I do believe in God. I was brought up in the Methodist Sunday school and now attend church.

Andy Burnham, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, said: Yes, I do go to church. I am a Catholic. It's a bit like being an Everton supporter – once a Blue always a Blue.

The Tory believers include Cameron – who plans to send his two younger children to Anglican primary schools – and one Muslim, Baroness Warsi, spokeswoman on Community Cohesion. She said: I am a Muslim by faith and part of that faith is a belief in God.

Intellectual David Willetts, the Universities spokesman, professed to believe in God but not as a conventional Christian deity: I am not a practising Christian. I believe in lots that we cannot understand. God is a symbol of those things that give life its meaning. It is about realising how small mankind is."

Two gave answers best described as agnostic. Housing spokesman Grant Shapps, who is Jewish, said: There may have been a catalyst to the Big Bang. I just do not know. If there is a God, I am quite certain that He does not require people to adhere to one particular church.

Andrew Mitchell, International Development spokesman, said: I am an agnostic, not an atheist. I do go to church, but only on high days and holidays.

Cheryl Gillan, the Shadow Welsh Secretary, said: Of course I believe in God. My father was a good Scottish Presbyterian although I was brought up in Cardiff. I have been to more churches than you've had hot dinners. But I am very low key. I have on occasion held on to my faith by my fingertips. Sometimes you ask if there really is a God.

Michael Gove, the Schools spokesman, said: I was brought up in the Church of Scotland and I attend an Anglican church. I am a believer in mainstream Christianity.

Patrick McLoughlin, the Tory Chief Whip, said: I am a Christian – perhaps not a very good one. Do I believe in a single being called God? That is a slightly different question.

Francis Maude, Shadow Cabinet Office Minister, said: I am a regular attender at church but I do not claim to be a saint.

Hardline clerics are using Pakistan's blasphemy laws to persecute members of a small Islamic splinter group they say are not proper Muslims.

The two million-strong Ahmadiyya community, based in Rabwah in the Punjab, risks charges of "impersonating Muslims" under the country's controversial religious laws.

Shameen Ahmad Khalid, a community leader, said: We have people serving long jail sentences for blasphemy or for 'posing as Muslims'.

The laws mandate three years' imprisonment for Ahmadis who dare to call themselves Muslims, call their places of worship mosques, recite the Koran or announce the azan, the call to prayer.

Twenty years ago, the people of Rabwah were charged with impersonating Muslims. Since the charges are still outstanding, the town's 50,000 inhabitants have to hide their Islamic habits, keep their beards trimmed and avoid using Muslim invocations.

Rabwah is surrounded by mosques whose clerics host prominent annual anti-Ahmadi rallies and bellow hateful slogans from their minarets' loudspeakers. In 2005 gunmen burst into an Ahmadi village mosque at prayer time and killed eight people and wounded most of the 30-strong congregation.

The Ahmadis' reverence for a prophet who lived in the 19th century offends the principle orthodox Muslim tenet that the Prophet Mohammed was the final prophet.

An amendment to Pakistan's constitution in 1974 declared Ahmadis as non-Muslims. The anti-Ahmadi laws, which allow Ahmadis to be charged with impersonating Muslims, were promulgated by late dictator Gen Zia ul-Haq in the 1980s.

A church and Christian newspaper in Malaysia are suing the government after it decreed that the word "Allah" can only be used by Muslims.

In the Malay language "Allah" is used to mean any god, and Christians say they have used the term for centuries.

A spokesman for the Herald, the newspaper of the Catholic Church in Malaysia, said a legal suit was filed after they received repeated official warnings that the newspaper could have its licence revoked if it continued to use the word.

We are of the view that we have the right to use the word 'Allah', said editor Rev Lawrence Andrew.

The Sabah Evangelical Church of Borneo has also taken legal action after a government ministry moved to ban the import of religious children's books containing the word.

In a statement given to Reuters news agency, the church said the translation of the bible in which the word Allah appears has been used by Christians since the earliest days of the church.

There has been no official government comment but parliamentary opposition leader Lim Kit Siang said the decision to ban the word for non-Muslims on security grounds was "unlawful": The term 'Allah' was used to refer to God by Arabic-speaking Christians before Arabic-speaking Muslims existed.

One of Germany's most popular television series drew loud protests from a Muslim group over what they consider an unfavourable portrayal in the show's most recent episode.

The Alevi Muslim Community AABF called on its members to hold peaceful protests against the "slander and disparagement" contained in the Dec. 23 broadcast of Tatort, the German word for crime scene.

A criminal complaint has been filed by the group against NDR, the network that produced the program, accusing it of incitement to racial hatred.

It is appalling to us that a public and legitimate broadcaster would revive these centuries' old prejudices, said Ali Ertan Toprak, the secretary general of the Alevi community in Germany.

Members of the Alevi community in Berlin tried to stop the broadcast of the episode but were unsuccessful.

To answer the complaints, the network reiterated in the opening credits that the program was a work of fiction and in no way intended to harm religious feelings or rekindle prejudices against the Alevi community.

About 300 people protested outside the studios of Germany's public broadcaster ARD on Thursday, Dec. 27.

The episode in question is entitled To Whom Honor is Due and dealt with incest and murder within an Alevi family living in Germany.

During the course of the program, investigators discover that a young Alevi girl was murdered by her father after she confronted him about impregnating her sister.

The Archbishop of Wales, Dr Barry Morgan, has described a rise in "fundamentalism" as one of the great problems facing the world.

He focused on what he described as "atheistic fundamentalism". He said it led to situations such as councils calling Christmas "Winterval", schools refusing to put on nativity plays and crosses removed from chapels.

In his Christmas message, he said: Any kind of fundamentalism, be it Biblical, atheistic or Islamic, is dangerous.

The archbishop said "atheistic fundamentalism" was a new phenomenon. He said it advocated that religion in general and Christianity in particular have no substance, and that some view the faith as "superstitious nonsense".

Morgan said: All of this is what I would call the new "fundamentalism" of our age. It allows no room for disagreement, for doubt, for debate, for discussion. It leads to the language of expulsion and exclusivity, of extremism and polarisation, and the claim that because God is on our side, he is not on yours.

He said the nativity story in St Luke's Gospel, in contrast, had a message of joy and good news for everyone: God is not exclusive, he is on the side of the whole of humanity with all its variety.

An Egyptian man has been charged with fatally stabbing his wife on their wedding night when he decided she was not a virgin.

Ibrahim Ali and Hoda Salem were married in the village of Al-Quba in the Nile Delta. On their wedding night, residents heard Salem screaming and found her on the floor, al-Arabiya reported.

Salem said that her husband had stabbed her. She died at the hospital.

Ali, after his arrest, said that he was unable to break his wife's hymen on the wedding night, leading him to conclude that she was sexually experienced.

Gynecologist Naglaa Ahmed said that in many cases new husbands are unable to break the hymen on the wedding night because of nervousness. In other cases, women have unusually tough hymens, requiring surgical intervention.

The Iranian Embassy in Bucharest criticized the translation into Romanian of the book Satanic Verses, by Salman Rushdie. The Iranian diplomats condemned the publishing as a 'blasphemy' and even demanded the banning of the volume in Romania.

Romanian Patriarchy earlier criticized the publishing of the volume, considering that it wrongs the spiritual values and religious symbols, regardless the official religion that uses it.

A group of nutter MPs has tabled an amendment designed to ensure that homophobic Christians can continue to express their views on gay people.

Devout Roman Catholics Ann Widdecombe and Jim Dobbin are among the MPs attempting to amend the government's proposal to make incitement to hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation a criminal offence.

Christian Concern for our Nation, a pressure group which attempts to stand up against a tide of unChristian legal and political changes in the United Kingdom, is urging its supporters to pressure MPs into supporting the new amendment.

Stonewall, the gay equality organisation, have been giving evidence to parliament's  scrutinising committee about the sort of incitement to homophobic murder and hatred that goes unchallenged. Chief executive Ben Summerskill quoted extensively from the homophobic lyrics of dancehall star Beenie Man and others to demonstrate the nature of their comments about gay men and lesbians.

Summerskill rejected concerns that a law banning incitement to religious hatred would be used to silence the voices of religious people who regard homosexuality as a sin: We are crystal clear that people are perfectly entitled to express their religious views. We are also crystal clear that the temperate expression of religious views should not be covered by the legislation. One might also want to look at the context in which any expression is made that people should be killed or put to death because they are homosexual.

The homophobic incitement provisions were later passed by the whole committee, and none of the Tory MPs voted against them.

The new amendment from Christian MPs reads:

Nothing in this part shall be read or given effect in a way which prohibits or restricts discussion of, criticism of or expressions of antipathy towards, conduct relating to a particular sexual orientation, or urging persons of a particular sexual orientation to refrain from or modify conduct relating to that orientation.

Among the MPs asking for the right to show antipathy towards their gay constituents are: Lib Dems Colin Breed (South East Cornwall) and Alan Beith (Berwick Upon Tweed); Conservatives Philip Hollobone (Kettering) and Ann Widdecombe (Maidstone and the Weald); and Labour MPs David Taylor (North West Leicestershire) and Jim Dobbin (Heywood and Middleton).

Egypt officials arrested 13 Christians earlier this week for collecting donations to rebuild a church without a permit, their lawyer said.

The group of believers, who work in a church in the southern city of Assiut, had been collecting money to rebuild a church in another southern town called Saqulta.

Security authorities had arrested eight men and five women and deployed troops to surround local churches. After hours of interrogation, the group was cleared of any terror related charges but continued to be imprisoned because they collected donations without a valid permit, according to their lawyer.

Christians in Egypt remain a small and largely powerless minority that often complains about discrimination – which ranges from social to economic to religious oppression – in the Muslim-dominated society. One of their main complaints is about the requirement to obtain a license to build or rebuild churches when Muslims can build mosques anywhere and without requesting a permit.

Muslim leaders in Kenya have denied reports that the presidential candidate for the opposition has promised to introduce Sharia law if he is elected.

The National Muslim Leaders Forum (Namlef) said that it had signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Raila Odinga of the Orange Democratic Movement in order to end existing discrimination against Muslims, and not to implement Sharia law.

Christian leaders called for the pact between frontrunner Odinga and Namlef to be made public. The MOU was originally signed on 29 August 2007.

Namlef responded by making the MOU public in late November following concerns aroused by a document on the internet claiming that Odinga had promised to introduce Sharia law in Muslim majority areas.

Sheikh Abdullahi Abdi of Namlef said: There was a fear that Muslims will force their faith on other people, Islam does not allow suppression of other religions and we will be the last to advocate for this.

The MOU which has now been made public says that Odinga in fact promised only to defend Muslims against harassment and victimisation by the state security forces who claim they are fighting terrorism.

Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen said she was ordered to go into hiding in India to avoid renewed protests over her "anti-Islamic" writings.

Nasreen said that she would not be allowed to return to Kolkata for now.

Nasreen, speaking from an undisclosed safe house in New Delhi, said she protested against the restrictions allegedly imposed on her by unspecified Indian agencies.

I told the government officials that I am not a criminal that I will not be allowed to return to Kolkata. I told the officials that I be allowed to lead a normal life at least in New Delhi, she said.

Nasreen alleged she was being held against her will: I have been put into solitary confinement.... I have not done anything wrong. Why should I not be able to meet my friends and relatives and I have to live in Kolkata.

A senior official from India's home ministry, which is in charge of her security, rejected the purported charges. The entire exercise is to keep Ms. Nasreen safe, very, very safe, even in New Delhi, the officer told AFP on the condition that she was not identified by name or rank.

The “Religion of Peace” has been sounding off again – with the language of violence.

Atop Muslim cleric in Iran, Hojatolislam Gholam Reza Hassani, declared this week that women in Iran who do cover themselves up should die. And not only them, but their husbands and fathers too!

Hassani said: I do not understand how these women who do not respect the hijab, 28 years after the birth of the Islamic Republic, are still alive. These women and their husbands and their fathers must die.

Hassani is the representative of the Iranian Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, in eastern Azerbaijan.

Police in Azerbaijan's second city Gyanja have threatened Adventist pastor Elshan Samedov with prison, if he refuses to ban children from attending worship services and does not halt worship in two church-owned properties.

People don't have the right to meet for religious purposes just where they want, Major Alovset Mamedov told Forum 18 News Service, they need to have permission.

Major Mamedov demanded that Pastor Samedov sign a statement that he would prevent children from attending services in future, but he refused to do this. Following a separate raid in the capital Baku, police tried to pressure eight Adventists into giving up their faith and fined them under the Administrative Code for holding meetings not connected with the conducting of religious rituals with the aim of attracting young people and youth.  

Dutch government firework safety ads featuring a spoof Islamist terrorist group have been criticised as insensitive and depicting a negative stereotype of the Muslim community.

The online ads, made for the Dutch government's consumer safety institute, have been made to look like a video message filmed by an Islamist military organisation called the Liberation Army Against Freedom.

Featuring a group led by an Osama bin Laden lookalike figure at their camp, the viral ads are dubbed into Iraqi-accented Arabic and have versions with subtitles in Dutch and English.

The tone is intended to be humorous, with the terrorist group seen receiving a shipment of fireworks like an arms cache, wearing suicide vests made of firecrackers, and bungling efforts to demonstrate to you our true power by blowing themselves up.

However, the light treatment of such a serious issue has angered some industry insiders.

What is the campaign hoping to achieve by depicting a negative stereotype of the Muslim community in a fireworks advert? said Saad Saraf, the chief executive of multicultural marketing specialists Media Reach Advertising.

Saraf, an Iraqi, was particularly offended by images in one ad that show one person strap fireworks around him in a style similar to a suicide belt, which later explodes.

This is insensitive to society as a whole. Suicide bombings have destroyed many thousands of lives - using them in a humorous way is totally inappropriate. Are these adverts then for people who have not been affected by terrorism, suicide bombings and the invasion of Iraq in some way? said Saraf.

However, Inayat Bunglawala, the assistant secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, did not think the ads were particularly offensive: I thought they were very humorous public safety films, he responded by email after being sent several links to the ads: Obviously there will always be some who find it to be in bad taste, but I thought it was done light-heartedly and funny and with clear educational value.

A discussion about censorship of a children’s book on community forum Qatar Living has been censored by Qtel, an online news portal

The blocked webpage details a parent’s visit to a local bookshop, where he finds that a copy of a Winnie the Pooh encyclopaedia has been edited to remove images of Disney’s Piglet character.

The description is illustrated with photos of the censored book, following which there is a discussion by readers about whether looking at a cartoon piglet is forbidden.

Iran has charged women's rights activists Ronak Safarzadeh and Hana Abdi with acting "against national security" by allegedly participating in terrorist acts.

The two women were arrested in October and are accused of having connections to Kurdish leftist group Party for Free Life in Kurdistan (PJAK) and of using their feminist advocacy as a front for terror activity.

Iranian officials denied that their arrest was related to their opposition to "discriminatory" laws against women.

Safarzadeh and Abdi were arrested following their involvement with a campaign to help collect one million signatures protesting Iran's interpretation of Sharia law, under which women must obtain their male guardian's permission to work or travel, are prohibited from serving as judges, and their testimony is given only half the value of a man's.

Amnesty International has called for action against their detention, saying that they were detained solely for the peaceful exercise of their rights to freedom of expression and association.

Authorities in Malaysia have threatened not to renew the publishing license of a Catholic weekly newspaper if it continues to use the word "Allah" in its Malay language section, Catholic and government officials said.

The Herald, the organ of Malaysia's Catholic Church, has translated the word God as "Allah" but it is erroneous because Allah refers to the Muslim god, said Che Din Yusoff, a senior official at the Internal Security Ministry's publications control department, in remarks monitored by BosNewsLife. Christians cannot use the word Allah. It is only applicable to Muslims. Allah is only for the Muslim god. This is a design to confuse the Muslim people, Che Din added.

However church sources say the Malay-language Bible uses Allah for God. We follow the Bible. The Malay-language Bible uses Allah for God and Tuhan for Lord. In our prayers and in
church during Malay mass, we use the word Allah, Reverend Lawrence Andrew, editor of the Herald, told reporters.

Yet, Che Din said there are four Malay words that must not be used by other religions, he said: Allah for God, "solat" for prayers, "kaabah" for the place of Muslim worship in Mecca and "baitula" the house of Allah. The weekly should instead, use the word "Tuhan" which is the general term for God, he reportedly said.

The Herald's permit will only be renewed in two weeks if they stop using Allah in their publication.

A Khartoum court has sentenced two Egyptians to six months in prison for marketing a book that is deemed offensive to Aisha, one of Prophet Mohammed’s wives.

Abdel Fattah Abdel Raouf and Mahrous Mohammed Abdel Aziz were sentenced under article 125 of Sudan’s penal code, the same section under which U.K. teacher Gillian Gibbons was convicted after allowing her class to name a teddy bear Mohammed.

Justice Minister Mohammed Ali al-Mardhi said Dec. 11 following the pair’s arrest that they were guilty of bringing over the book entitled Aisha, mother of believers, devoured her sons from bookseller and publisher Madbouli in Egypt and selling it in Sudan.

The book contains blasphemous passages and particularly despicable offenses to the prophet and to the mother of believers, as Aisha is often called, Mardhi said at the time.

The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (HRinfo) said the book was titled Aisha: The Wife of Prophet Mohamed and that: The arrest is a flagrant violation of freedom of opinion and expression.

HRinfo said the Egyptians found themselves in danger when a radical islamist had bought the book and in turn informed the authorities about its contents.

Madbouly had already received permission from the Sudanese censorship authoritie s to distribute the book, written by London-based Syrian writer Nabil Fayyad, before arriving in Khartoum for the festival.

Another book confiscated at the book fair was about the Shiites, a book called Darfur, the history of war and genocide, published by Horizons House.

Egypt requested an explanation from the Sudanese authorities.

Iranian police have closed down 24 Internet cafes and other coffee shops in as many hours, detaining 23 people, as part of a broad crackdown on immoral behavior in the Islamic state.

The action in Tehran province was the latest move in a campaign against fashion and other practices deemed incompatible with Islamic values, including women wearing high boots and barber shops offering men Western hair styles.

Using immoral computer games, storing obscene photos ... and the presence of women wearing improper hijab were among the reasons why they have been closed down, Colonel Nader Sarkari, a provincial police commander, said.

Sarkari told the official IRNA news agency that police had inspected 435 coffee shops in the past 24 hours, and 170 had been warned.

Many young Iranians are avid users of the Internet, some using chat rooms to socialise with the opposite sex. Mingling between sexes outside marriage is banned and many Web sites considered unIslamic are blocked by the authorities.

In a separate campaign, IRNA said police had inspected 275 restaurants in the capital to check compliance with a new ban on smoking in public places. The ban includes water pipes, known in Iran as qalyan, offered in some outlets. Of those, 138 received a warning and 17 were shut down, police official Mohammad Reza Alipour said.

A Christmas card reading O come all ye faithless has been strongly criticised by Christians as an ill judged and insensitive joke.

Borders bookshop began giving away the card free for everyone who bought Richard Dawkins’ well known atheist work, The God Delusion this Christmas.

Rev Jonathan Edwards, general secretary of the Baptist Union of Great Britain said the idea was “crass”: I am quite sure that Borders intended their Christmas card as a joke. However, I personally find it an ill-judged and insensitive joke. Christians have always been used to being punch bags but I would have hoped that, in a society in which we are seeking to show respect to all people and beliefs, we might have grown out of this kind of nonsense.

He was supported by Justin Thacker, head of theology at the Evangelical Alliance, who said: It won't surprise me if this spectacularly fails. Christmas still holds a high place in people's hearts - I think a lot of people will be offended by it. Borders wouldn't do this to any other religious festival. Borders have made a strategic mistake and Christians will boycott it.

Borders have responded to the criticism by issuing a statement which said it did not intend it as anti-Christian or a swipe at the Christian faith, and said that it apologises to any of our customers who feel it was that, reports Baptist Times.

Australian nutters have branded a television commercial depicting the baby Jesus tossing gifts back at the three wise men as tacky and offensive.

The ad for electronic goods retailers Betta Electrical recreates the Christian nativity scene, showing three wise men offering gifts to baby Jesus as he lies in the manger.

The commercial, which has angered Anglican and Catholic leaders, shows Jesus throwing gifts out of the manger as the words Give a better gift flash on the TV screen.

Christian leaders criticised the ad, calling it a tacky and offensive exploitation of religious imagery which perverts the true meaning of Christmas.

This ad comes within the orbit of tacky Christmas things, senior Sydney Anglican bishop Glenn Davies told The Daily Telegraph: The gifts that the wise men were giving were appropriate for a king, so the notion that Jesus would reject them is absurd.

A spokesman for Catholic Archbishop of Sydney Cardinal George Pell said the use of Christ was inappropriate: The advertisement is interesting because it shows how commercialised Christmas has become.

But Julieanne Worchurst, marketing manager at BSR Group which operates more than 170 Betta Electrical stores, said the ad was intended to be a tongue-in-cheek and humorous approach to the gift giving season. We accept that this could have been seen as offensive, but that was not the intention at all. The ad was never intended to upset or disrupt people's Christmas.

Worchurst said while the company had received just two complaints from viewers.

The BBC has provoked controversy over a Christmas Day Doctor Who special that uses religious imagery to depict the Time Lord as a “messiah”. Voyage of the Damned, starring Kylie Minogue, is expected to be the holiday viewing highlight.

However, Christian groups expressed concern that the imagery employed was inappropriate for a BBC One Christmas evening show.

The Doctor (David Tennant) must save a group of passengers after the Titanic, now a futuristic space vessel, is holed by a meteorite storm.

He convinces the despairing survivors to believe in his powers after ascending through the ship’s decks, carried by a pair of robotic angels. Russell T. Davies, the writer and executive producer of the revived series, said: The series lends itself to religious iconography because the Doctor is a proper saviour. He saves the world through the power of his mind and his passion.

Stephen Green, of the evangelical group Christian Voice, said: The Doctor would have to do a lot more than the usual prancing around to be a messiah. He has to save people from their sins.

But Malcolm Brown, director of mission and public affairs for the Church of England, said: Science fiction at its best helps to illuminate eternal themes, and that’s something the Church can happily work with.

Police arrested at least seven Egyptian Muslims after a riot in the southern city of Isna on Sunday that left at least 13 Christian-owned shops smashed up or burned and a church front damaged.

They said a car and a motorcycle owned by Christians were also burned and it appeared the rioters had attempted to burn the church.

Tensions have been high in the city for several days with a number of incidents threatening to escalate into sectarian clashes. Police have upgraded their presence.

The tensions appear to have started when an angry crowd of Muslims surrounded and smashed up a Christian-owned store on Wednesday, where they suspected a Muslim girl was having sex with two Christian boys.

Sunday's riot comes after an altercation last night that saw a Christian shop-owner accuse a Muslim woman of stealing a mobile phone from his shop. The woman was cleared by authorities and released.

Update: Compensation

4th January 2008

The Egyptian Government has given 1,265,000 Egyptian pounds (US$230,000) in compensation to 17 Coptic Christians whose property was damaged by a mob of angry Muslims.

The Vatican has condemned the film The Golden Compass, which some have called anti-Christian, saying it promotes a cold and hopeless world without God.

In a long editorial, the Vatican newspaper l'Osservatore Romano, also slammed Philip Pullman, the bestselling author of the book on which the family fantasy movie is based.

It was the Vatican's most stinging broadside against an author and a film since it roundly condemned The Da Vinci Code in 2005 and 2006.

In Pullman's world, hope simply does not exist, because there is no salvation but only personal, individualistic capacity to control the situation and dominate events, the editorial said.

In the fantasy world created by Pullman's trilogy, His Dark Materials, the Church and its governing body the Magisterium, are linked to cruel experiments on children aimed at discovering the nature of sin and attempts to suppress facts that would undermine the Church's legitimacy and power.

In the film version all references to the Church have been stripped out, with director Chris Weitz keen to avoid offending religious cinema goers.

Still, some Catholic groups in the United States have called for a boycott, fearing even a diluted version of the book might draw people to read the bestselling trilogy.

Prosecutors in Russia say they are studying a complaint accusing Coca-Cola of insulting Orthodox Christian beliefs in an advertising campaign.

They say the complaint was lodged by 440 residents of the Russian city of Nizhny Novgorod earlier this month.

It accuses Coca-Cola of blasphemy through using adverts with images of Orthodox churches and crosses, some of which were even put upside down.

"Coca-Cola uses all these Orthodox symbols in a blasphemous way by placing images of Coca-Cola bottles inside the pictures," the complaint said: Some images are deliberately turned upside down, including the crosses.

Coca-Cola officials have defended the company's marketing approach, saying it was promoting Russia's cultural heritage.

Lack of work phone numbers for the founders of the Jehovah's Witness community in the Caspian Sea port of Atyrau on its registration application was enough for the regional Justice Department to deny legal status.

Jehovah's Witness lawyer Yuri Toporov complained to Forum 18 News Service of "ridiculous excuses" in rejecting this and all the community's previous applications since 2001. Law professor Roman Podoprigora told Forum 18 that state bodies sometimes use "just any excuse", even an insignificant one, to reject religious communities' registration applications.

Atyrau Region officials have denied legal status to at least two local Protestant churches, and this summer pressured an independent Muslim community to hand over its mosque to the state-backed Muftiate.

Unregistered religious activity in Kazakhstan is illegal and punishable. Local Jehovah's Witnesses and Protestants have been fined for unregistered worship.

Celebrated author Mark Steyn has been summoned to appear before two Canadian judicial panels on charges linked to his book America Alone.

The book, a No. 1 bestseller in Canada, argues that Western nations are succumbing to an Islamist imperialist threat. The fact that charges based on it are proceeding apace proves his point.

After the Canadian general-interest magazine Maclean's reprinted a chapter from the book, five Muslim law-school students, acting through the auspices of the Canadian Islamic Congress, demanded that the magazine be punished for spreading “hatred and contempt" for Muslims.

The plaintiffs allege that Maclean's advocated, among other things, the notion that Islamic culture is incompatible with Canada's liberalized, Western civilization. They insist such a notion is untrue and, in effect, want opinions like that banned from publication.

Two separate panels, the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal and the Canadian Human Rights Commission, have agreed to hear the case. These bodies are empowered to hear and rule on cases of purported “hate speech."

Neighbourhood police officer Elhan Sokhbetov, who took part in an 8 December raid on a Baku Adventist congregation's worship service, denied that it was a raid. Asked why 13 police officers had raided the service, why eight church members had been held for five hours, insulted, threatened and fined he responded: No-one was threatened.

Pastor Rasim Bakhshiyev told Forum 18 he was warned they would be imprisoned if they meet again for worship. They tried to make us sign statements that we had been led astray in coming to services and that we were renouncing our faith. This was a crude violation of the law.

Indonesian security forces have prevented an attack by about 50 Muslim militants on the troubled Pasundan Christian Church in West Java Province, the second act of violence against the Protestant congregation in two weeks.

Netherlands-based Open Doors, which supports Christians allegedly persecuted for their faith, said two trucks of police officers arrived December 2, just several hours earlier than the planned attack to protect the building against suspected members of the Anti Apostasy Movement Alliance' (AAMA).

The latest incident came after some 250 radical Muslims of AAMA forced their way into the Pasundan Christian Church on November 18.

Although the church already exists over five decades, the municipality authorities have refused to give official permission to use the building for worship services apparently under pressure of Islamic leaders and militants, several sources have said.

A Roman Catholic Cardinal has suggested that gay people should be banned from political office.

Latvia's Prime Minister Aigars Kalvitis resigned last week and the Archbishop of Riga Janis Pujats warned new candidates not to support LGBT related issues.

He asked that all candidates running for the post of Prime Minister state whether they intended to defend the Latvian nation against the invasion of homosexuality in public life. Anyone who is not a stern advocate of the people's moral values, must neither run nor be nominated for prime minister, he said, urging candidates to give a public answer on the issue, as he said people were entitled to it.

A Canadian man has appeared in court in Toronto accused of killing his 16-year-old daughter, reportedly over her refusal to wear a traditional Islamic head scarf.

Police received an emergency call from Muhammad Parvez who said that he had just killed his daughter.

The girl, who was allegedly choked, later died in hospital. Her father was arrested at the scene, and appeared in court on murder charges on Wednesday.

The girl's friends told local media that Aqsa, an eleventh grade student, had had trouble at home over recent months: She wanted to go different ways than her family wanted her to go, and she wanted to take her own path, but he [her father] wouldn't let her, a classmate said.

The daily Toronto Star cited another girl as saying, she loved clothes... she just wanted to show her beauty ... She just wanted to dress like us, just like a normal person.

However, some Muslim groups have urged the media not to sensationalize the story, saying that the head scarf, or hijab, may have just been "one of many issues."

Several clerics sitting as MPs in the Iranian parliament have criticised the Tehran police chief for showing excessive zeal by ordering a crackdown on women's high boots, a newspaper said on Wednesday.

No officials have the right to mix religion with emotions and issue decrees and implement them on behalf of clerics, clerical MP Seyed Hadi Tabatabai said: Such behaviour tarnishes Islam.

The police last week launched what was termed a "winter" crackdown on unIslamic dressing, to follow an unusually vigorous summer drive against women whose clothing was deemed overly flimsy.

Tehran police chief Ahmad Reza Radan said women who wear high boots with their trousers tucked-in would be targeted by the moral police, as well as those who sport hats instead of headscarves and short tight winter coats.

A Saudi woman sentenced to 200 lashes after she was gang-raped has been pardoned by the country’s leader, King Abdullah.

The woman, known only as Qatif Girl after the area where the crime occurred, had also been sentenced to six months in prison as punishment for being alone in a car with a man who was not a relative.

However Saudi Arabia's al-Jazira newspaper reported today that King Abdullah had pardoned the woman.

Saudi Justice Minister, Abdullah bin Muhammed, told the newspaper that the pardon did not mean the king doubted the country's judges, but instead acted in the "interests of the people."

There was an international outcry when a Saudi court handed down the flogging sentence last month. Her offence was in meeting a former boyfriend, whom she had asked to return pictures he had of her because she was about to marry another man, in 2006. The couple was sitting in a car when a group of seven Sunni men kidnapped them and raped them both.

Egyptian authorities have arrested 22 men including three Lebanese and a Kazakh national on charges of membership in an illegal organisation and contempt for religion.

The source said the men belong to the al-Ahbash sect, considered heterodox by many Islamic clerics, and said they possessed literature outlining their beliefs.

Among the group's unorthodox beliefs cited by the judicial source are permitting Muslims to pray without ablutions, contrary to established Muslim practice, and seeking blessings from graves.

The men had suppsoedly been attempting to spread their beliefs on the campuses of al-Azhar University, Egypt's prestigious centre of Sunni Islamic learning, and had managed to recruit a number of followers.

The Egyptian constitution 'guarantees' freedom of religion...BUT...the Egyptian penal code contains penalties for broad offences such as contempt for religion, and these are sometimes used for closing down unorthodox religious groups.

A  Catholic priest in Indonesia has been prevented from celebrating mass by the authorities after a group of Muslims challenged the legal status of Christ’s Peace Church in South Duri, West Jakarta.

The pressure by Muslim extremists led the officials of Tambura Sub-district to ban the activities of the church in a bid to avoid supposed “social tensions”.

A few weeks ago a Muslim group called the Cooperation Forum for Mosque, Prayer Rooms and Koranic Group of Duri Selatan, challenged the legal status of the church, saying that they do not have the correct permits needed for places of worship.

The Orthodox Church in the Ukraine is unhappy. Ukraine’s Orthodox believers held a prayer manifestation in protest against an exhibition of the local businessmen and arts patron, Viktor Pinchuk, in a Kiev art-center, which they considered blasphemous.
They demanded that the organizers should remove a blasphemous exposition named Jesus and twelve apostles. It is a horrific exposition, where ‘the holy apostles’ are presented as 12 cows and bulls heads placed in 12 aquariums with formalin’, the statement of the action organizers’ reads.

Orthodox believers consider mocking at our Lord Jesus Christ and the holy apostles unacceptable. It insults the feelings of all Orthodox believers and all Christians, the statement says.

The name of the artist is not given, but this is obviously Damien Hirst’s Romance in the Age o Uncertainty.

An opinion piece has been posted on Canada's National Post website yesterday from a Roman Catholic priest, The crack cocaine of the electronic world reads the strap line. Father Raymond J. De Souza - the author of the piece - is, of course, talking about games.

The nutter goes beyond simple criticism, however, openly agitating against free choice at this time of spending by stating: This Christmas, do the poor kids of all economic levels a favour: Don't buy them video games.

He then goes on ...assuaged my conscience with the fact that video games are not intrinsically evil. But they are close.

Apparently, the classic puzzler , Tetris, contributed to De Souza's struggles with further education. My capacity to waste time with Tetris was prodigious; how many hours were lost is unknown, he says. There was only one way out. He went cold turkey and deleted the game.

So Tetris was gone. Life improved immediately. Since that hard-disk-deleting day back in 1991", he waxes fondly, I have never played another video game. It's too dangerous. Video games take what is most precious -- time and thought. And they are making kids fat.

Video games are like a black hole into which time disappear. Students today often confess to wasting a couple of hours a day on them. Corporate Canada likely loses whole weeks of productive work to those who are playing games at work. Video games have some kind of addictive allure that means any number of hours is not enough. It is always possible to play again -- to rise to that 'next level' which somehow acquires near-mystical importance. They are the crack cocaine of the electronic world.

Evangelical pastors are helping to create a terrible new campaign of violence against young Nigerians. Children and babies branded as evil are being abused, abandoned and even murdered while the preachers make money out of the fear of their parents and their communities

Poverty has delivered an opportunity for a new and terrible phenomenon that is leading to the abuse and the murder of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of children. And it is being done in the name of Christianity.

Behind the smartly painted church doors pastors make a living by 'deliverances' - exorcisms - for people beset by witchcraft, something seen to cause anything from divorce, disease, accidents or job losses. With so many churches it's a competitive market, but by local standards a lucrative one.

But an exploitative situation has now grown into something much more sinister as preachers are turning their attentions to children - naming them as witches. In a maddened state of terror, parents and whole villages turn on the child. They are burnt, poisoned, slashed, chained to trees, buried alive or simply beaten and chased off into the bush.

Some parents scrape together sums needed to pay for a deliverance - sometimes as much as three or four months' salary for the average working man - although the pastor will explain that the witch might return and a second deliverance will be needed. Even if the parent wants to keep the child, their neighbours may attack it in the street.

This is not just a few cases. This is becoming commonplace.

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A football strip worn by Italian team Inter Milan is at the centre of a legal row after a lawyer claimed it offended "Muslim sensibilities".

Players wore the new strip – a white shirt with large red cross on it – in a Champions League match last month against Turkish team Fenerbahçe to celebrate the club’s centenary.

But a Turkish lawyer, Baris K