Religion and culture are abused when they are employed illegitimately to justify the suppression of women and the denial of their equal humanity, human rights lawyer Chrie Booth argued yesterday in a lecture at Chatham House in London.

The question of when the pursuit of economic well being turns into greed is one of the key issues to be discussed at a 5-9 November inter-Christian consultation in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, looking at poverty, wealth and ecology.

Church and development organisations across Africa say the extreme rainfall experienced by the continent this summer is the worst in decades and is having a devastating impact on the food supply. They are warning that immediate action is needed.

Anglican churches will soon return to their mission to alleviate poverty, disease and injustice and abandon a "fixation" with homosexuality, says Anglican Bishop Trevor Mwamba, the recently-appointed dean of the Anglican Church of the Province of Central Africa.

Gene Robinson, an openly gay US Anglican bishop whose 2003 consecration has deeply divided worldwide Anglican Communion, says African critics who describe homosexuals as "worse than beasts" are using the kind of language once employed in the United States to justify slavery.

African religious leaders have heard that gender-based violence is increasingly becoming a weapon of war in the continent's trouble spots, with some saying sacred scriptures are being used to justify violence in general.

The general secretary of the All Africa Conference of Churches, the Rev Mvume Dandala, says the release of six Bulgarian medical workers has not answered the question of how 56 children died after being infected with the HIV virus.

In order to fight poverty, Africa needs to mobilize similar efforts to those rallied against colonialism, World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Dr Samuel Kobia has told Tanzanian church leaders.

Billions of dollars are flooding out of Africa through ilicit means which have little to do with internal corruption, and which dwarf efforts at development assistance, says leading churches' agency Christian Aid.

Integrated solutions are needed to the problems of water supply, sanitation and protection of the environment, according to the 'Churches for Water in Africa' conference.