Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW), which works for religious freedom through advocacy and human rights, has received reports that an official campaign to convert Christian prisoners to Islam is underway.

Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani, who was imprisoned for apostasy and evangelising Muslims in October last year, is believed to have been given religious Islamic literature by prison officials.

Prisoners who respond to interrogation about the literature can leave themselves open to charges of blasphemy.

It is feared that one prisoner, Mehdi Furutan, a member of the Church of Iran, was transferred to an underground cell at the notorious Adelabad Security Prison, after commenting on Islamic religious texts.

Adelabad Security Prison is believed to be involved in torture.

The US expressed concern today over the activities of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps.

This was established after the 1979 Iranian revolution to defend the Islamic system in the country.

It has developed into a major military force with an estimated 125,000 troops and links to the country’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Speaking to BBC Persia, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton said: “We’re not quite sure who makes decisions anymore inside of Iran”.

She expressed concern that the country was becoming a military dictatorship.

However, the United Nations has warned that we are heading for a world population of 15 billion by the end of the century, even though population growth has slowed since the 1960s.

This far outstrips earlier estimates of a world population of 10 billion by 2100.

While the birth rate has dropped in developed countries, it is still rising in 58 countries, including 39 countries in Africa, nine in Asia, six in Oceania and four in Latin America.

It has also grown because medical advances mean people are living longer and the mortality rate for infants has fallen.

If it continues to grow we are heading for an unsustainable future in terms of food and water, according to environmentalists.

The figures form part of a new study – The State of World Population 2011 – published by the United Nations Population Fund.

While controlling the population should not be a problem with simple family planning measures available, governments worldwide need the political will and economic ability to ensure that education and health programmes are in place.

However, cultural and religious factors can make this difficult.

The United Nations Population Fund said that the Catholic Church’s ban on the use of contraception is not related to the massive growth in population.

It claims that many of the church’s members ignore the ban and population growth is greatest in non-Catholic countries.

The episode, which poked fun at the Scientology belief system and lampooned its most prominent member, Tom Cruise, was aired in the USA in 2006 but was banned in the UK for several years.

Marty Rathbun, a former member of the Church of Scientology, now claims that South Park creators, Matt Stone and Trey Parker, were targeted by investigators working for the religion after the episode aired in the USA.

On his blog, Rathbun posted a document which he claims was written by the commanding officer from the Church of Scientology’s office of special affairs.

He claims that Stone and Parker were investigated by private detectives in an attempt by the church to discredit their reputations.

Last year South Park was criticised after an episode featured the prophet Muhammed.

Any physical representation of the prophet is considered blasphemous by Muslims and the episode sparked warnings of violent retribution from Islamic groups.

The Church of Scientology is expected to open The Super Power Building in Clearwater, Florida, shortly.

The building houses a museum dedicated to the Church’s founder, L Ron Hubbard, and is said to contain high-tech equipment to help the church’s members unleash “superhuman powers”.

He was talked down by Vatican officials while Pope Benedict XVI continued the Sunday Mass seemingly unperturbed by the incident which occurred towards the end of the two-hour service.

During the Mass, which took place on World Mission Sunday, the Pope canonized Monsignor Guido Maria Conforti, the Reverend Luigi Guanella and Sister Bonifacia Rodriguez de Castro.

Taking Matthew 22:34-40 as his Gospel message, regarding Jesus’s teaching to ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind’ and to ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’, the Pope said the new saints were an “eloquent sign” of “a passionate love for God…and neighbour.”

Monsignor Guido Maria Conforti (1865-1931), archbishop-bishop of Parma, founded the Xaverian Missionaries; the Reverend Louis Guanella (1842-1915), founded the Congregation of the Servants of Charity and the Institute of the Daughters of St. Mary of Providence; and Sister Bonifacia Rodriguez de Castro (1837-1905), founded of the Congregation of the Servants of St. Joseph.

World Mission Sunday is a day when Catholics are encouraged to renew their commitment to the Church’s missionary activity through prayer and sacrifice.

In a speech at the annual conference of Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) tomorrow, Miss Widdecombe is expected to claim that hedgehogs stand a better chance of ‘earnest representation’ than persecuted Christians.

According to International Christian Concern an estimated 200 million Christians have been murdered for their faith in the last century, making it the in human history for Christian persecution.

The organisation lists the top 11 persecutors of Christians last year as: Eritrea, Pakistan, Iran, North Korea, Somalia, India, Iraq, Vietnam, Nigeria, China and Egypt.

Earlier this month David Cameron said he would slash aid to poor African countries that persecute gay people, an act which Miss Widdecombe claims shows the government’s double-standards.

UK aid to Malawi has already been cut after two gay men were sentenced to 14 years hard labour.

Miss Widdecombe is expected to call on the general public to lobby Parliament to prioritise religious freedom in its foreign policy.

Meanwhile the EU has confirmed that a €500 million food aid programme will be cut by three-quarters.

The programme helps to feed 18 million of the world’s poorest citizens.

Thousands of protesters, angry at the way the global economic crisis is being handled, marched on the London Stock Exchange on Saturday.

When police cordoned off the building, the protesters set up camp outside St Paul’s and the number of tents is now estimated to have grown to 180.

The size of the protest is making it difficult for worshippers and tourists to access the cathedral, its restaurant has been forced to close and donations from visitors has halved.

Although the protesters are sympathetic to the loss of income they are planning to raise money to compensate the cathedral, rather than packing up and going home.

The anti-capitalist protests started in New York but have now spread across major cities worldwide.

Separately, an enormous model of the Taj Mahal made entirely from food has been unveiled outside St Paul’s.

The model is made from rice, poppadoms, mango chutney, chillies and chapattis.

It was made by artist Prudence Staite for Food Network UK, to mark the launch of ‘Reza, Spice Prince of India’ which chronicles the journey of restauranteur Reza Mahammad around Rajasthan’s regal residences.

If the protesters feel a bit peckish at least they won’t have far to go for a tasty snack.

Figures obtained by Radio 4′s ‘File on 4’ programme show that in the last three years more than 400 allegations of physical abuse against pupils at madrassas were made, but just 10 cases came to court and there were only two convictions.

Although corporal punishment is outlawed in UK schools it is still legal in part-time education settings in England if pupils attend lessons for fewer than 12.5 hours per week.

The alarming figures uncovered by the BBC have led to calls for this anomaly in the law to be addressed urgently.

A report by the Independent Safeguarding Authority’s chief adviser on child safety, Sir Roger Singleton, is being considered by the government.

Published last year, it recommended that corporal punishment should be banned.

Muslim children attend madrassas in the UK for around 10 hours each week learning to recite the Koran in Arabic.

The Mosques and Imams National Advisory Board, which is responsible for improving standards in mosques, called the figures ‘very, very alarming and shocking’ and said it would address the issue urgently.

Earlier this month scientist Richard Dawkins attacked Muslim schools for teaching creationism.

He said the schools were filling pupils’ heads with ‘alien rubbish’.

2009 was the first year in which over a billion people were officially
classified as living in hunger and this wasn’t caused by natural disasters but by a food system which is under the control of multinational companies.

The report, ‘Food Sovereignty: Reclaiming the Food System’, focuses in on the UK’s food policy which prioritises food security through free markets and aid, and compares it with the concept of food sovereignty, which gives farmers control of the food system.

War on Want claims that new technologies, developed with the help of funding from the Department for International Development (DFID), have increased reliance on highly priced seeds and agrochemicals, leading to an unprecedented level of hunger.

The charity is calling for a new food system which puts small producers back in control of production and which encourages local communities to develop their own seed banks, reducing reliance on seeds developed by big business.

In the report, John Hilary, Executive Director of War on Want, says: “The scandal of global hunger is testament to the failure of the capitalist food system.

“The time for food sovereignty has come.”

Sheriff Bull Totten said he wanted to out “a clear message to deter others”.

Birrell’s sectarian comments were posted earlier this year, shortly after he was released early from a 12-month custodial sentence.

Shortly before a Celtic and Rangers match on 3 March he posted “Hope they (Celtic fans) all die. Simple. Catholic scumbags ha ha.”

On 4 March he posted: “Proud to hate Fenian tattie farmers. Simple ha ha.”

A few days later he wrote: “They’re all ploughing the fields the dirty scumbags.”

His anti-Catholic campaign continued with abusive comments against the Pope.

As well as a jail sentence, Birrell was banned from attending football matches for five years.

Sentencing Birrell, the judge made it clear that using Facebook and other communications technology to spread abuse would not be tolerated.

Earlier this month Celtic manager Neil Lennon said he would consider his position as Celtic manager unless he turns the club’s results around.

However, despite lagging 3-0 behind to Kilmarnock on Saturday, Celtic fought back and the game ended in a draw with Celtic scoring three goals in just six minutes.

The performances, today and on 28 October, mark the opening of London’s new Bush theatre which has relocated from above O’Neills pub, to the Shepherd’s Bush Library building just a short distance away.

Sixty-sixty writers have each written a response to each book of the Bible and the impressive list includes Sir Andrew Motion, Carol Ann Duffy, Wole Soyinka, Billy Bragg and the Archbishop of Canterbury.

The cast of the play is just as exciting, with Catherine Tate as God heading a cast of 130 actors including Juliet Stevenson, Arthur Darvill and Rafe Spall.

Ms Tate makes a dramatic entrance as God, wearing high heels and accompanied by an angel bearing a laptop so that God can communicate via Twitter.

Churches across the UK will also be celebrating the Bible’s anniversary this weekend, with coffee mornings, exhibitions and other, more adventurous events.

Bromham Baptist church and St Owen’s church are jointly holding an eight-day Bible-reading marathon, in which they plan to read the entire book from start to finish.

Around 150 readers will share 365 slots of around 15 minutes each.

Dewsbury Minster is holding a multi-media ‘Rock Mass’ tomorrow, complete with spotlights, smoke generators and electric guitars.

The mass is part of the Biblefresh project which aims to show how the King James Bible is just as relevant today as it was when it was writte in 1611.