The church should take a lead in providing a vision of a better world for today’s children and young people, according to a youth work expert writing on the cover of the Baptist Times today. She says change is needed in individuals and communities.

Churches, voluntary organisations and the local council in Sheffield have come together to declare the city a place of welcome for asylum seekers and refugees. They aim to improve policy coordination and to challenge public misperceptions.

Top United Methodist leaders in the USA are among the church and community leaders are calling on the Congress to override a presidential veto of a bill that would expand a poor children's health insurance programme to be funded by a tax on cigarettes.

Clergy who usually wear dog collars in public are being advised by a safety group to take them off when they are on their own, to reduce the risk of being attacked. But others believe security consciousness should not undermine the character of Christian service.

The Ecumenical Coalition on Tourism has called for an end to the exploitation of women by the tourist industry, and criticised a decision by the United Nations to hold World Tourism Day on the theme, 'Tourism Opens Doors For Women'.

Vietnam's national Religious Affairs Committee has announced that it will present a 'Certificate for Religious Activities' to the Vietnam Mennonite Church in early October 2007, following concerted attempts by the church to gain recognition.

Even as the African country of Zimbabwe falters under a staggering inflation rate of 7,500 percent, "there is life," a Zimbabwean development workers has told United Methodists and others at a meeting in the USA.

The European Christian Environmental Network has published a statement agreed at the recent Third European Ecumenical Assembly held in Romania. It calls on Christians to take serious and sustained action to combat the ecological crisis threatening the world.

Metropolitan Daniel of Moldavia and Bucovina, who studied in the West and taught at an ecumenical institute near Geneva while his country was under communist rule, has been elected Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church.