A new, comprehensive study of over 200 countries finds that there are 1.57 billion Muslims of all ages living in the world today - 23% of an estimated 2009 world population of 6.8 billion.

Senior representatives of the Vatican have used the annual Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue message to Muslims for the end of the month of Ramadan to urge the two faiths to work together in promoting family life.

With tensions running high on blasphemy and other issues, church leaders in Denmark say they will seek further conversations with their Muslim counterparts following the open letter by 138 prominent Islamic scholars.

Muslim lawyers say they are puzzled that Archbishop Rowan Williams raised the Sharia issue before they have had a chance to tackle some key concerns. But Evangelicals and a progressive interfaith group are calling for wider debate.

Organisers of events to commemorate International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Sunday 27 January 2008 say that a large number of civic and faith groups across Europe are due to take part, including British Muslims.

The second meeting of an Evangelical Christian-Muslim Dialogue took place in Tripoli last week, and is seen by participants as an important step forward in understanding between two faith traditions that have often been at loggerheads.

Several thousand people marched in Sudan's capital Khartoum yesterday, calling for a tougher sentence for a British teacher imprisoned for insulting religion. But many other Muslims have called for her immediate release.

As schoolteacher Gillian Gibbons' lawyers prepare an appeal against a 15-day jail sentence imposed in Sudan over the naming of a teddy bear, Muslims in Britain have joined in condemning the decision and calling for clemency.