The 1,600 year old site near Suez City re-opened to visitors this week after a five year renovation project costing $14 million (£9 million).

Two main churches, the monk’s quarters, an ancient wall and a tower have been newly restored.

The monastery has long been a site of pilgrimage for Coptic Christians, and the Egyptian government’s restoration of the site forms part of an ongoing attempt to improve relations between Christians and Muslims in the Muslim-majority country.

Egypt’s chief archaeologist, Zahi Hawass, said much of the restoration work at the site was carried out my Muslims.

“The second and final stage of the restoration of this monastery is concluded,” Hawass said.

“The announcement we are making today shows to the world how we are keen to restore the monuments of our past, whether Coptic, Jewish or Muslim,” he added.

Saint Anthony, who lived in the 3rd century, withdrew from public life and lived in a cave in remote mountains near to the Red Sea.

After his death his followers built the monastery and named it after him.

BibleFresh, a coalition of more than 50 Christian organisations including the Evangelical Alliance, Scripture Union, and the Bible Society, aims to spread the message that the Bible remains as relevant and transformation as it has been for hundreds of years.

BibleFresh, which aims to restore confidence in the Bible ahead of the 400th anniversary of the King James Version in 2011, will tour 13 cities in the UK, including Belfast, Manchester, London, Exeter, Bournemouth and Liverpool.

The tour will ask Christians to consider whether the Bible is “tedious, taboo and toxic” or “transforming, treasured and true”.

Ann Holt, executive director of the Bible Society, said: “The Bible has become toxic for many in British Society and the confidence of Christians to rely on their Scriptures publicly has consequently been knocked.”

The campaign is supported by Tom Wright, Bishop of Durham.

Wright said: “The Bible is there to enable us to be the people of God for the world, the people through whom God’s story becomes the world’s story.

“Bible readers, Bible prayers and Bible understanders are world transformers.”

The Community Security Trust (CST), which works with Britain’s 300,000 Jews on safety issues, said it had been notified of 924 anti-Semitic incidents in 2009.

This is the highest figure since records began in 1984, and represents an increase of 55% on the previous highest figure recorded in 2006.

CST said the rise in attacks was linked to Israel’s offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip in December 2008, with nearly a quarter of the incidents including some reference to the conflict.

Of the incidents, 124 were rated violent, also a record high.

“These record figures show that anti-Semitism is an increasingly significant problem for British Jews,” said Mark Gardner, CST spokesperson.

“The trend must be reversed and we call upon decent people to speak out against anti-Semitism in all its forms.”

Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the rise in incidents against Jews is “deeply troubling”.

According to speculation, the President is due to meet the Tibetan spiritual leader later this month, though no date has been confirmed.

Zhu Weiqun, spokesperson for China’s Communist Party, said if the meeting goes ahead it will “threaten trust and co-operation” between China and the US.

Ma Zhaoxu, spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said his government “resolutely opposes” any contact between Obama and the Dalai Lama.

“We urge the U.S. to fully grasp the high sensitivity of the Tibetan issues, to prudently and appropriately deal with related matters, and avoid bringing further damage to China-U.S. relations,” Ma said.

The White House has shrugged off the warning and said the meeting will go ahead regardless of China’s comments.

“The president told China’s leaders during his trip last year that he would meet with the Dalai Lama and he intends to do so,” said White House spokesperson Bill Burton.

The Council, which oversees the running of the British Methodist Church, is urging church representatives to use new media creatively, and is publishing guidelines on the best ways to use social networking websites.

“How we relate to one another and to those outside the church is central to our calling as individual Christians and as a Church,” said Toby Scott, director of communications and campaigns at the Methodist Church.

“New media presents exciting opportunities for Christians, but it also challenges us to behave with integrity and respect as in all other spheres of engagement.”

The Council will develop its guidelines for using new media before putting them before the Methodist Conference, the church’s governing body, in June.

During 2008, the number of divorces in England and Wales dropped to 11.5 divorcing people per 1,000 married people, a drop a 2.5% from 11.8 in 2007.

This is the lowest level since 1978, when there were 11.2 divorcing people per 1,000 married people.

In Scotland, the number of married couples getting divorced dropped 10% in 2008, while in Northern Ireland the divorce rate decreased 4.8%.

Divorce lawyer Ayesha Vardag said the falling divorce rate is due to a change in social attitudes towards marriage.

“Our experience is that fewer couples are divorcing because fewer are marrying,” Vardag told BBC News.

“This comes partly from the increased social acceptability of living together and having children outside marriage, and partly from anxiety about the unpredictable financial consequences of marriage, which have in recent times often been seen as unfair.”

Claire Tyler, chief executive of Relate, said: “Politicians have recently been hotly discussing what makes people get married.

“These figures show that it isn’t just about getting couples up the aisle – what’s really important is that relationships last.”

The group, which is mostly made up of Baptist Christians from Idaho, were arrested after it was discovered they didn’t have the proper documents to take the children out of Haiti.

The team travelled from the US to Haiti after the quake on a “Haitian orphan rescue mission”.

The orphans they were attempting to take to an orphanage in the Dominican Republic were aged between two months and 12 years.

A statement from two Baptist Churches in Idaho who organised the mission, reads: “The children were being taken to an orphanage in the Dominican Republic where they could be cared for and have their medical and emotional needs attended to.

“Our team was falsely arrested and we are doing everything we can from this end to clear up the misunderstanding that has occurred in Port-au-Prince.”

A spokesperson for the group said they were “trying to do the right thing” in a devastated country.

Haitian Prime Minister Max Bellerive said he was “outraged” by the actions of the group, which he denounced as the “illegal trafficking of children”.

The case of nineteen-year-old Sura al-Shawk, a Swiss citizen, went to court after the basketball association (ProBasket) told her she could not wear a headscarf while she was playing.

A local court in Lucerne upheld ProBasket’s decision on safety grounds, ruling that ProBasket’s safety guidelines should take precedence over the religious obligations of players.

ProBasket argued in court that it was upholding the rules of FIBA, the international governing body for basketball, by enforcing the headscarf ban.

It also said that the sport needs to remain religiously neutral.

The court noted that by ruling in favour of ProBasket it was placing limits on al-Shawk’s personal freedom.

She has ten days to decide whether she will appeal the decision.

Rt Rev Bill Hewitt, Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, joined Scottish Clergy Against Nuclear Armaments (SCANA) this week in launching a new campaign to make Trident and nuclear weapons a key issue for this year’s general election.

SCANA is urging church members from all denominations to pressure MPs and candidates to put nuclear weapons at the forefront of election campaigns.

“There is a real chance that the renewal of the Trident system, which is due very soon, could be overturned if enough political pressure is applied,” Hewitt said.

“Especially, at a time when voters are asking hard questions about how we best use our tax revenues for the benefit of the maximum number of citizens.”

Churches in Scotland have long campaigned against the renewal of Trident, arguing that nuclear weapons are immoral and violate international law.

Scottish churches believe that instead of renewing Trident the government should take the international lead in nuclear disarmament.

The committee’s report, the summary of six months of hearings running to almost 200 pages, also recommends that anyone showing signs of “radical religious practice” should be denied residence cards and French citizenship.

Women who cover their faces challenge the values of the French Republic, the committee ruled.

Under the committee’s recommendations, anyone who refused to show their face in a public building would be refused access to public services.

A women wearing a full veil would not be able to ride the bus, be treated in hospital, or collect social welfare payments.

“The wearing of the full veil is a challenge to our republic,” the report states.

“This is unacceptable. We must condemn this excess.”

Bernard Accoyer, president of the French National Assembly, said the report’s recommendations have “full support”.

“We’d like to extend the ban to all public spaces, but we need to take the time to get the law right,” he said.

“The full veil represents in an extraordinary way everything that France spontaneously rejects.”

The London-based Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) condemned the report as “racist”.

The report will “simply legitimise further acts of racism and discrimination,” the IHRC said.