The preliminary report, ordered by Mr Hunt, found Christians to be the most persecuted religious group in the world and likened their mistreatment to genocide.

Commissioned in 2018, the review was triggered by the plight of Asia Bibi – a Christian woman who spent nine years on death row for blasphemy charges in Pakistan.

 Speaking to Premier, ADF International’s Executive Director Paul Coleman said: “We’d like to see the UK Government and other Western leaders not only talk about it, but actually put this report in to action and consider these countries where Christian persecution is taking place and consider what can be done.”

He added “We’d like to see real efforts being made at a political level and an international level to hold these countries to account where Christian persecution is reaching these extreme levels and to use the influence that countries like the UK and other Western countries have to effect positive change in those regions.”

Mr Coleman says the report is helpful in establishing the extreme dangers Christians face across the globe and an encouraging first step in bringing about change.

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Although self-reported good health remains the biggest contributing factor to well-being, the importance of having a lifelong partner to contentment has increased.

Compared with six years ago, those asked in this survery done between October 2017 and September 2018, marital status mattered more to people. 

Those who are separated from their partner or widowed were, expectedly, more likely to report lower life satisfaction, compared with people who are single.

Being married made the average person 9.9% happier than those who are widowed and 8.8% higher than those separated from a partner.

Harry Benson from the Marriage Foundation told Premier Christian Radio’s News Hour the marriage’s link to happiness was because of the security it provides: “It’s blindingly obvious that if people are secure and content at home and they’ve got someone who they know is going to stick around till their dying days, then they’re more likely to have to be content in terms of life satisfaction or happiness”.

“That act of making a commitment to one another produces real clarity, it removes ambiguity about the future, it puts you both on the same page and it does it in a way that you can do in cohabitation but fewer couples do it this way.

“It’s so much more of a deliberate, intentional act where you you both know exactly what direction you’re going and the result is that people are very, very much more likely to stay together. Most marriages work, we’ve just produced some…

They also acquitted two others. 

Thursday’s ruling comes five years after Christians Shahzad Masih and his wife Shama Bibi (whose memorial is pictured above) were beaten to death and thrown into a brick kiln in the eastern town of Kod Radha Krishan in Punjab province.

Shortly after the incident, police arrested scores of people and five of them were charged and sentenced to death in 2016.

Under Pakistan’s harsh blasphemy laws, anyone accused of insulting God, Islam or other religious figures can be sentenced to death.

However, domestic and international human rights groups say these laws are often misused to settle personal scores.

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Meanwhile, vulture funds (the name given to funds which seek to profit by buying up high risk, high yield debt) in the UK and the US continue to profit from developing countries that are trapped in debt.

Three of the biggest root causes of debt crisis are lack of transparency, exploitative private sector actors, and ineffective, undemocratic global institutions responsible for managing debt.

These roots reach deep into the global financial centres, particularly the City of London, and the IMF and World Bank.

The UK is responsible for regulating much of the lending boom in impoverished countries, with 90% of publicly traded loans to the majority of African governments being given using English law.

Overall, while 20% of African debt is owed to China, 30% is owed to the private sector – mainly owed under UK law but due to lack of transparency we do not know the share of this held by UK-based banks.

The lack of transparency in UK law means there is not enough accountability of lending.

Christian Aid is calling for the UK to step up and meet what it say is its ‘moral responsibility to avert debt crises in developing countries that are often struggling to recover in the wake of humanitarian emergencies’.

 The early 2000s saw a major round of debt relief for countries caught in a trap of debt repayments, in response to the Jubilee 2000 campaigns.

Since the western…