Hardline lobbyists in the USA have launched a campaign to try to stop one of the country's leading Catholic universities from having President Barack Obama as a campus speaker.

Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu has urged new US President Barack Obama to signal a real change of heart on Middle East policy by apologizing for the Iraq war.

Talking with some and not to others while sealing off Gaza has been tried for a number of years, says Cecilie Surasky. This has brought immeasurable suffering to the besieged Palestinians in Gaza and great trauma to the citizens of Sderot in Israel. We need change.

In his speech to the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington DC, President Barack Obama sets out a vision for religion and belief in modern America, arising from his own commitments.

Black church leaders in the United Kingdom believe that the ethos of hope and positivity generated by the 'Obama generation' in the USA, with the advent of the new president, can benefit people here.

Barack Obama spoke in his inauguration of "being on the wrong side of history", says Uri Avnery. For the USA and Israel the Gaza tragedy shows what this means. But there is 'another Israel'.

If the Obama presidency is going to make good on its promise of hope, says Giles Fraser, it will have to do so in places like the unloved west side of Baltimore.

Churches for Middle East Peace have called on President Barack Obama to fulfill his recent statements to engage in Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts from day one of his administration.

A senior black Anglican says the Church of England and the Anglican Communion should grasp the climate of change signalled by Barack Obama's ascendancy, using it to transform their own culture.