The Malawi Council of Churches is reviewing its opposition to the use of condoms in the country's anti-AIDS fight, and has said it may support the use of condoms by married couples where one or both partners are HIV positive.

The Geneva-based global network the Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance has released a new guide entitled: "Exploring Solutions: How to talk about HIV Prevention in the Church", recognising the need to challenge silence and prejudice.

Kay Warren, Executive Director of the HIV initiative at Saddleback Church, California, USA, is adding her support to a Tearfund programme raising the awareness of HIV-AIDS with UK churches. She says the church has a key role to play.

Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu has joined members of the Working Group on Orphans and Vulnerable Children calling on the UK government to put children at the heart of its new strategy for tackling HIV/AIDS throughout the world.

The Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance, a partnership involving major Christian development and church agencies, including several in the UK, is encouraging people of faith to take individual and collective responsibility for combatting HIV/AIDS.

Faith-based campaigners and religious leaders say churches should not relax their efforts to deal with the HIV/AIDS pandemic despite UN figures showing a drop in the number of people worldwide living with the virus, says Desmond Tutu.

An NGO in Mali has won the International Service Human Rights Award for the Defence of Human Rights of People Living with HIV/AIDS. The awards highlight the role development workers play in defending the human rights of vulnerable people.

On World AIDS Day, people should focus on names and faces rather than just numbers and facts, the Rev Donald Messer told worshippers during a special service at the Upper Room Chapel of The United Methodist Church, Tennessee, USA.

The spread of HIV and AIDS in the Caribbean is one of the major issues now facing churches in the region, says Gerard Granado, general secretary of the Caribbean Conference of Churches.