Irish President Mary McAleese has signed into law the Defamation Act, which includes clauses that create the offence of "blasphemous libel". Civil rights campaigners are dismayed.

The Chinese government has given permission for special distribution of booklets of the Gospels, copies of the New Testament and full Bibles during the Olympic Games, but other concerns about freedom of speech and expression remain.

In a new crackdown on Protestant churches across Uzbekistan, Sharofat Allamova was given a suspended prison sentence of six months in the central city of Bukhara [Bukhoro] in late August.

Theo Hobson argues for a faith that welcomes freedom from religion