The head of the multinational arms company BAE Systems has provoked criticism with a dismissive comment about the Haddon-Cave Report into the deaths of 14 members of the UK armed forces in a Nimrod aircraft.

The resignation of an advisor who accused the Ministry of Defence of “ignoring its own advisory group” has called into question the future of a project aimed at dismantling nuclear submarines in central Plymouth.

The close relationship between arms companies and the UK government is again under scrutiny following a damning report into the crash of a Nimrod aircraft in Afghanistan in 2006 , which caused the deaths of 14 people.

The government is facing yet another criticism over the war in Afghanistan after the Ministry of Defence (MoD) admitted that a girl in the country's Helmand province died due to a leaflet drop by the Royal Air Force (RAF).

On a visit to the German Federal Defence Ministry in Berlin, members of a delegation from the World Council of Churches have posed tough questions about German arms sales and about the efficacy of war as a tool of policy.

Church leaders are to call on the Ministry of Defence to support the struggling farming industry by buying British food for its soldiers, rather than cheaper, intensively farmed, foreign food, following a debate held this weekend at Ripon Cathedral.

Christian activists will make symbolic acts of commitment at the Ministry of Defence in London and at other venues in Scotland and the north of England tomorrow, urging a shift from waging war to waging peace in a divided world.

A Christian campaigner has been sent to prison for refusing to pay a fine arising from a demonstration against the invasion of Iraq.