Government ministers, civil servants and senior military figures will be expected to give evidence to the Iraq war inquiry in public and only "genuine" issues of national or personal security should prevent them doing so, its chair has said.

The Archbishop of Canterbury has suggested that those who decided for the Iraq war may have failed to consider its true implications in terms of justice and "long-term building and healing."

The government has sparked heavy criticism by announcing that an official inquiry into the Iraq war will be held in private and not report until after the general election.

Though Foreign Secretary David Miliband has said the UK government "opposes toture", Ministers have now admitted that they handed over terror suspects in Iraq to US authorities.

Freedom of information campaigners have reacted angrily to UK Justice Secretary Jack Straw's decision to veto publication of key Cabinet meeting minutes in the run-up to the Iraq war in 2003.

US police have staged preemptive armed raids targeting protesters and alternative media around the Republican National Convention - including thousands of people demonstrating about war world poverty throughout the week.

Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, has accepted a one-year position at Yale University in which he will participate in a course examining issues related to religious faith and globalisation.

In the run up to the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, churches are reiterating their call for British troops to withdraw from the country and will join in a 'Christian Peace Witness for Iraq'

War is hellish and so are its consequences, says Andrew Weaver. As the next anniversary of the Iraq war looms, the pastoral and psychological needs of veterans must not be forgotten.