One parent reported on Monday that four or five posters promoting 40 Days for Life had been placed close to Our Lady of the Annunciation Primary School in the south of the city.

The Back Off campaign, which supports the right of women to terminate their pregnancies, said the leaflets “smack of desperation”.

A spokesperson told the Daily Record: “If the aim is to target the parents of young children on the basis that they will oppose abortion it is also misjudged.

“Those who campaign against abortion often do not understand that the women who have abortions are already mothers, or will often go on to have children later in life.”

The Back Off initiative is managed by the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, one of the country’s largest abortion providers.

The posters encouraged people to support vigils held by 40 Days for Life and to “help save lives in Glasgow”.

Glasgow City Council told the newspaper the posters, which were fixed to lampposts along an alleyway, were unauthorised and would be removed.

Last week, 40 Days for Life demonstrators were accused by hospital bosses of being “incredibly intimidating” during a vigil outside the Queen’s Medical Centre in Nottingham.

An initiative which emerged in the US state of Texas in 2008, 40 Days of Life has arranged pro-life…

Alistair Burt said the increasing use risked going against “a century of a united response by the world against them”.

The Commons exchanges also saw Labour backbencher John Woodcock say shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry was “not fit to stand at that despatch box” after she warned many foreign parties were now acting like the Assad regime.

Responding to a question from Mr Woodcock, Foreign Office minister Mr Burt said: “He is right to express concern and anger about not only the use of chemical weapons but the increasing use.

“We think there’s been, perhaps, four occasions since the turn of this year.

“And if chemical weapons come back into the norm of use in war, it goes against a century of a united response by the world against them.”

He told MPs at Foreign Office questions the Government would continue to work at the United Nations “in order to ensure that the international convention on chemical weapons once again becomes properly effective”.

Earlier, Ms Thornberry condemned Turkey for its “disgraceful assault on Afrin”, later adding: “The truth is that the Turkish assault is part of a broader pattern where too many foreign parties engaged in the Syrian civil war are now acting just like the Assad regime itself without any regard for international law.”

Labour’s Mr Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) could be heard saying: “You can’t say that.”

Ms Thornberry…

The Bishop of Chelmsford, the Rt Rev Stephen Cottrell, also questioned whether people felt safe with “Donald Trump’s finger upon the button”.

Highlighting the ban on cluster bombs, he argued the case for outlawing nuclear arsenals was even more compelling.

The bishop made his comments as peers debated the UN treaty to ban nuclear weapons, supported by 122 states last year.

The meeting in New York was boycotted by all nuclear-armed nations, including the UK.

However, former Navy chief Lord West of Spithead, who had responsibility for the UK’s submarine-based deterrent, felt the treaty was a mistake and “virtue signalling on a grand scale”.

The Lords debate on the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons came ahead of a UN high-level conference on nuclear disarmament, due to be held in May.

The bishop told peers: “The truth is that these weapons of mass destruction are also weapons of mass deception.

“They provide the illusion of security while actually making the world less secure than ever.

“North Korea now joins the nuclear club, who will be next?

“Do we really feel safe with Donald Trump’s finger upon the button?”

He added: “We all patted ourselves on the back a few years ago when we banned cluster bombs. Well the moral arguments about nuclear weapons are just as compelling if not more so.

“For to use a nuclear weapon is suicide as well as genocide.”

He urged the…

Local church leader, Bishop Emmanuel Masih told World Watch Monitor – an organisation which reports on cases of Christians facing pressure for their faith – that 800 families have left Lahore since Monday when an angry mob burned tyres and partially blocked a major road.

The unrest broke out after local Christian man, Patras Masih, was accused of posting offensive material on Facebook last month.

His uncle, Arif Masih told World Watch Monitor: “People had started gathering around 7am, while I heard about what was happening around 11.30am, when things had started getting worse.

“I live only few streets away and rushed to the place where people were gathering, while Patras and his father had already fled from home.”

Relatives of the 20-year-old bank cleaner say they are unaware of what has happened to Mr Masih since they turned him in to police.

During a press conference at the police in Shahdara district on Tuesday evening, Muslim and Christian church leaders urged families to return to the city and to live in peace with Muslim neighbours.

Police sub-inspector Haji Munir, who is leading the investigation in Mr Masih told World Watch Monitor: “Patras is still under investigation but soon will be sent to jail.”

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