Germany's two largest churches are shrinking, but the Evangelical Church in Germany, the country's biggest Protestant grouping, has dropped below 25 million members for the first time since the unification of Germany in 1990

Christian leaders and organizations worldwide have welcomed the announcement of an agreement to form a unity government in Zimbabwe, while also saying that many challenges lie ahead for the southern African nation.

The southwest of England has seen an increased spate of thefts of church bells and equipment, irrigation pipes from schools and other scrap metal from business and domestic property in recent weeks.

Christian leaders in Zimbabwe have called on parties to continuing power-sharing talks to shun partisan interests and urgently break the impasse that is holding back the conclusion of negotiations aimed at resolving the country's political and economic crisis.

While some African national leaders continued to court Robert Mugabe at an African Union meeting in Egypt, despite their own observers saying that the presidential election was unacceptable, South African churches have spoken candidly.

Church leaders in Canada want action to follow a public apology by Prime Minister Stephen Harper to victims of a situation where aboriginal children were placed in residential schools run by churches in a policy of enforced assimilation.

Christian communities in mainland China and Hong Kong, both Protestant and Catholic, have been offering practical support and prayers to victims in Sichuan, who have suffered a devastating earthquake, China's worst in 30 years,

Chinese churches and Christian agencies, as well as the government and army, have begun responding to the recent earthquake. The quake, measuring 7.9 on the Richter scale, has devastated a region west of the provincial capital Chengdu.

The National Council of Churches in India has joined the battle to turn green by calling for Christians to mobilise in the world's second most populous nation, and to join in the fight against global warming.