Francis addressed Nobel peace laureates, UN and Nato officials and diplomats from countries with the bomb during a Vatican conference aimed at galvanising support for a global shift from the Cold War-era policy of nuclear deterrence to one of disarmament.

Speaking in the Clementine Hall of the Apostolic Palace, Francis acknowledged that current tensions might render efforts at ridding the world of nuclear weapons remote.

But he said reliance on such weapons “create nothing but a false sense of security”, and that any use of them, even accidental, would be “catastrophic” for humanity and the environment.

He said: “International relations cannot be held captive to military force, mutual intimidation, and the parading of stockpiles of arms.”

Francis added that “progress that is both effective and inclusive can achieve the utopia of a world free of deadly instruments of aggression”.

He also endorsed a new UN treaty calling for the elimination of atomic weapons, saying it filled an important gap in international law.

Beatrice Fihn, executive director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (Ican), the advocacy group that won this year’s Nobel Peace Prize for its instrumental role in getting the treaty passed, is among the speakers at the two-day Vatican meeting.

The conference comes amid mounting tensions on the Korean peninsula and heated rhetoric between Washington and Pyongyang over the North’s nuclear ambitions.

The event’s organizer,…

In an interview in The Daily Telegraph, the chairman of the Fundraising Regulator, Baron Grade of Yarmouth stated that a third of all complaints about charities stem from ‘junk mail’ complaints concerning “the accompanying enclosures sent to charities”.  These include free pens, badges and Christmas cards. These are often sent out by charities to try to increase the donations from members of the public.

The former BBC chairman, CEO of Channel 4 and executive chairman of ITV had initially stated that he found it strange that “anybody is complaining about getting a free gift”.

However, he now agrees with donors feelings, stating “They are saying ‘why are they spending this money, that could go to the charity’ – which actually is a really smart public response.”

The Fundraising Regulator was founded in January 2016 as the independent regulator of charitable fundraising.  It was set up In its first 3 months of being established, it received an average of 20 complaints a day to be removed from mailing lists. Last year, 16,000 of its 42,000 complaints were about direct mail.

The Fundraising Preference Service was set up to allow people to demand that charities stop sending them fundraising messages by phone, text or email.  However, if the mail is not addressed to an individual then the Post Office is obligated to deliver it.

In the article, he threatened repeated complaints from any particular charity could lead to them being brought…

St Clare’s Catholic primary school and Calderwood Lodge Jewish primary school will share the same building in an ambitious plan conceived by East Renfrewshire education authority in 2013, describing it as an exercise in common sense.  There was a simultaneous need for a new Catholic primary school and for Calderwood Lodge to be refurbished.

According to the article in the Times, this is the first time a Catholic and a Jewish primary school have come together. The purpose-build complex can be shared by the 444 pupils of St Clare’s and the 210 pupils of Calderwood. The nursery school, also part of the new complex, has places for 50 children in the morning and another 50 in the afternoon.

The atrium is shared for future joint assemblies and both head teachers foresee joint events including an forthcoming end-of-year pantomime and after-school activities. The staffroom is also shared. However, currently lessons are taught separately.

Monsignor Thomas Monaghan, priest of St Cadoc’s Church in Newton Mearns provides the pastoral care for St Clare’s. He said “This is not like sharing premises with any other school.

“They [Calderwood Lodge] have faith, and so do we. That’s why it works.”

Rabbi Moshe Rubin, chaplain to Calderwood Lodge and minister of the neighbouring Giffnock and Newlands Synagogue has three of his children in the primary school. He agreed stating “They wanted the same thing – and I think the two communities work well…

The data in the Children in Need Census shows there were 1,460 cases of Child Abuse Linked to Faith or Belief for the year ending 31st March 2017.

This periodically taken census about services being provided across the country to children includes practices around ‘spirit possession’ and ‘witchcraft’. Sometimes the term ‘witch’ is used to signify the belief that a child is able to use an evil force to harm others.

In all these cases, genuine beliefs can be held by families, carers, and the children themselves that evil forces are at work that are threatening them, and abuse often occurs when an attempt is made to ‘exorcise’ or ‘deliver’ the child.

This type of abuse has traumatic effects on children ranging from bruises and scars to psychological problems and sometimes results in death.

CCPAS joined with the Victoria Climbie Foundation and Manchester Metropolitan University to carry out this ground breaking research and concluded that community organisations lack confidence defining and identifying this form of abuse.

Justin Humphreys, Executive Director of Safeguarding at CCPAS, told Premier that there was clear evidence that the Government now needed to get involved, stating:

“There’s a lot that can be done but I think the key thing is that we really need some government backing at the highest level, the Department for Education specifically for us to actually make significant impact now.”

CCPAS is an independent Christian…

The data in the Children in Need Census shows there were 1,460 cases of Child Abuse Linked to Faith or Belief for the year ending 31st March 2017.

This periodically taken census about services being provided across the country to children includes practices around ‘spirit possession’ and ‘witchcraft’. Sometimes the term ‘witch’ is used to signify the belief that a child is able to use an evil force to harm others.

In all these cases, genuine beliefs can be held by families, carers, and the children themselves that evil forces are at work that are threatening them, and abuse often occurs when an attempt is made to ‘exorcise’ or ‘deliver’ the child.

This type of abuse has traumatic effects on children ranging from bruises and scars to psychological problems and sometimes results in death.

CCPAS joined with the Victoria Climbie Foundation and Manchester Metropolitan University to carry out this ground breaking research and concluded that community organisations lack confidence defining and identifying this form of abuse.

Justin Humphreys, Executive Director of Safeguarding at CCPAS, told Premier that there was clear evidence that the Government now needed to get involved, stating:

“There’s a lot that can be done but I think the key thing is that we really need some government backing at the highest level, the Department for Education specifically for us to actually make significant impact now.”

CCPAS is an independent Christian…