This weekend I will be joining Andy Walton for the Sunday Breakfast Show at Premier Christian Radio, on 2 October 2011, between 9am and 10am.

The new statement from the Rev Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, the Geneva-based WCC General Secretary, commenting on the Palestinian bid for statehood - as well as the news that 1,100 new housing units will be built in the illegal Gilo settlement - makes interesting reading (http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/15457).

In the the buildup toward the submission of the Palestinian bid for statehood at the UN by Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas there was much speculation as to what would happen.

Palestinian authorities are bidding to gain international recognition of Statehood at the United Nations in New York. The US favours direct negotiations between Israel and Palestine and has already expressed serious reservations with Secretary of State Clinton saying "the route [to peace] lies in Jerusalem and Ramallah not in New York".

All eyes are now on National Transition Council (NTC) in Libya, following the demise of the Gaddafi regime. A week ago I recorded another Middle East Analysis podcast that seeks to examine the challenges it faces.

In the light of Eid Al-Fitr at the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, the continuing bloodshed in Syria comes into focus in my latest Middle East Analysis podcast with the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales - as we discuss the current situation and also look at the plight of the country's Christians.

Every now and then, a person enters our lives and leaves a strong imprint. The high-profile global evangelical leader John Stott has been much commented on since his recent death. But there are other figures, less immediately identifiable in media terms, who help change the world for the better.

The Middle East and North Africa area remains a vast and heterogeneous region of turbulence, confusion, hope, dread, reform, stand-off, contradiction, expectation, frustration, life and death.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, and the Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols, are jointly hosting a conference on Christians in the Holy Land next week.

Ahead of my upcoming travels in Europe concerning the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, I have recorded another podcast for the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales, and for sharing on Ekklesia and beyond.