Celebrated novelist and essayist Andrew O’Hagan has agreed to be the patron of this year’s Christian Aid Book Sale in Edinburgh, one of the global development agency's big annual fundraisers.

As world leaders gather for make or break talks about halving extreme global poverty, development agencies, including Britain's Christian Aid, warn that progress is being hampered by the activities of rich countries and big business.

While worldwide attention is focused on discord and divisions within the Anglican Communion, Anglican women and girls are uniting to make their voices heard on issues of poverty and women's empowerment through a new book of prayers.

Christian Aid, which works with people of all faiths and none, has welcomed being chosen as a key partner in a new government-backed global volunteering scheme for disadvantaged 18- to 25-year-olds.

The UK-based churches' international development agency Christian Aid has launched a new website - which it hopes will resource the struggle for global justice and engage more people with its work and that of its partners.

Governments must act immediately to reduce the effect of disasters particularly in poor countries before climate change dramatically increases the number of floods, droughts and windstorms, says Christian Aid.

Staff and critics of the World Bank have reacted with fury to the news that controversial chief Paul Wolfowitz, accused of corruption, will leave at the end of June 2007 with the official blessing of the Bank's Board.

The small Chinese city of Macau has become the new East Asian Las Vegas, say church leaders and labour activists, claiming that gambling and corruption are leading to social ruin.