Harnessing the power of the market to help solve the problems of global poverty, hunger and inequality is both possible and necessary, a Nobel Peace Prize winner told an invited audience of specialists in London on Thursday night.

Oikocredit, the leading private international microfinancier, which gives support to poor communities and social enterprise, has announced a significant growth in activity and impact in its preliminary results for 2007.

News that the director of the Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies will receive a regional United Nations Environment Programme’s Champions of the Earth Award 2008 has been welcomed by Christian Aid, which works with BCAS.

Two British development workers are establishing a project to support the growing number of street children in war-torn Congo, cooperating with the Anglican Church. It will be based in Lubumbashi, the country's second city.

Three Christian traditions have prepared a joint statement saying that their shared Eucharistic vision is an ethical one through which "our churches may seek to transform the dehumanizing effects of economic, social, and cultural globalization."

In marking their annual visit to Rome, Pope Benedict XVI, leader of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics, has told the diplomatic corps accredited to the Vatican that peace is an integral way of life, not merely the absence of conflict.

Christian Aid has called on the government to impose a moratorium on the building of any new, conventional coal-fired power stations following council approval for the first such station for almost quarter of a century.

The time is fast approaching for the UK and its European partners to name and shame the United States for its blatant attempts to derail any meaningful international agreement on climate change, says the agency Christian Aid.

The fight against climate change has been marked by broken promises and missed opportunities, say three European bishops in a letter to political leaders gathered at the United Nations-led talks on the Indonesian island of Bali.