It's too easy too blame the vulnerable for the failings of public services and the economy, says Savi Hensman. We need a new culture, and both faith groups and secular ones like trades unions can contribute.

A new report commissioned by the Church of England says that university and college chaplains are making an important contribution to educational life and calls on Higher Education Institutions and the government to back them.

Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim has said multi-racial harmony in his country is under threat by State-sponsored Islamic puritanism that has damaged the constitutional rights of other faiths in the Muslim-majority nation

Pakistan's elections, originally scheduled for 8 January, will now take place on 18 February, the authorities have announced amid widespread scepticism. Campaigners for Christian and other minorities fear for the future.

Officials in the Indian state of Orissa have imposed a curfew in the Kandhamal district and appealed for calm after clashes involving Hindu nationalists and the minority Christian community.

Whether we love or hate Christmas, we know all about it. But the same may not be true of the coming of Jesus, says Simon Barrow. In Christ, God radically disrupts religious 'business as usual'.

The Anglican bishop of London says in a Christmas letter that the return of religious issues to centre stage in the public sphere is welcome, but he claims it has provoked a dangerous reaction from what he calls "secular fundamentalists".

Journalists writing stories on religion that are then put into other languages face constant pitfalls of being 'lost in translation', says the editor who has won the John Templeton Award for the European Religion Writer of the Year.

Proposed public service reforms by the UK government risk discrimination against employees and service users, together with negative effects on social cohesion, says a new report today - focussing on the role of faith-based providers.