The Trades Union Congress (TUC), along with Guy Atkins of Goldsmiths University, has launched a best banner or placard competition for the 20 October 'A Future That Works' anti-austerity march and rally in central London, with parallel events in Glasgow and Belfast.

US presidential candidates Barack Obama and Mitt Romney tackled some important issues - including jobs, immigration, energy, and pay equity for women - in their recent TV debate. But they missed a whole lot more, says the progressive evangelical 'Sojourners' magazine and movement.

Agricultural cooperatives are the key to feeding the world and have therefore been the focus of World Food Day 2012 - on 16 October.

As we have reported in our News Briefs, fresh and updated data from the Pew Research Center in the US shows that the number of Americans who do not identify with any religion is growing at a rapid pace (http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/17168).

The European Christian Environmental Network is an effort of joint churches’ action in taking care for the planet, closely linked with three European Ecumenical Assemblies in Basel (1989), Graz (1997) and Sibiu (2007).

The Joint Public Issues Team of the Baptist Union of Great Britain, the Methodist Church in Britain and the United Reformed Church has issued a statement about the Government's new poverty measures and tax avoidance.

A reminder that Church Urban Fund and Frontier Youth Trust are running a workshop to inspire and equip churches and faith-based groups in England to support young people struggling with unemployment.

The Rev Dr Giles Fraser, Priest-in-Charge at St Mary Newington in London, and formerly Canon at St Paul’s Cathedral, is taking part in a chaired discussion on the future of capitalism in the aftermath of Occupy at St Paul's.

Our valued associate Dr Harry Hagopian, among other things Ecumenical consultant to the Primate of the Armenian Church in the UK and Ireland, has drawn our attention to the pioneering work of Fr Vazken Movsesian - whose areas of pastoral concern include the media (he is a consummate blogger!) and youth ministry.

Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams, former Oxford don and outspoken atheist Dr Richard Dawkins and philosopher Professor Anthony Kenny engaged in a public discussion of the origin of human life in Oxford today.