US National Council of Churches' General Secretary Michael Kinnamon has welcomed a call by World Council of Churches chief the Rev Dr Samuel Kobia "to quell the violence" against the hard-pressed Christian minority in Iraq.

A Chaldean Catholic archbishop kidnapped in Iraq has been found dead, the news agency of Italian bishops' conference has reported. The SIR news agency says Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho was found dead near the Iraqi city of Mosul, where he had been abducted.

Church leaders in Britain, including Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams, have continued to make private and public appeals for the release of Chaldean Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahno, who was kidnapped recently in Baghdad.