Former Ambassador and US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Warren Clark has been named Executive Director of Churches for Middle East Peace. Clark will succeed Corinne Whitlatch, who has led CMEP for 21 years, at the end of 2007.

The Israeli government is no longer granting routine re-entry visas to Arab Christian religious leaders who wish to travel in and out of occupied Palestinian territories - making their pastoral activities much more difficult to carry out.

The US United Methodist Church's social action agency wants the denomination to divest from companies providing products or services used for "illegal destruction" in Palestinian areas or that are doing business with the government of Sudan.

Peace and human rights campaigners have welcomed the decision by Israel's Supreme Court to redraw a small portion of the route of the partition wall around the West Bank, where villagers had argued that the barrier prevented them from reaching 50% of their agricultural land.