Beauty, grace, charm, refinement, distinction – the tulip has the lot says Anna Pavord.

Israel's plans to extend its controversial 470-mile security barrier further into Palestinian territory have pitted a Christian community's nuns and monks against each other, writes Catrina Stewart in Beit Jala

The decorators have been in at Combermere Abbey and given the old stables a fresh contemporary look

For people infected with HIV in Ukraine, there has often been little hope. For years they have been stigmatised, ignored, offered inadequate treatment and found themselves pushed to the edge of society, regularly forced to live without homes, support or even the official papers needed to find a job. Until now, however, there has been one clear beacon: a refuge desperately needed in a region that now has the world's fastest-growing infection rate.

Comment

This is real life. That thing you slashed was a real cock." Alice Bhatti, a Christian nurse working in a dilapidated hospital in Pakistan's dusty, sprawling metropolis Karachi, barely thinks twice before putting a blade to her wealthy assailant's penis. She is anything but the underdog that her status in such a society would imply. Alice is no frail social outcast battling against Pakistan's misogynistic patriarchy and religious majority. Mohammed Hanif has penned his protagonist as a feisty yet compassionate ex-convict, who bludgeons a corrupt surgeon, tackles extremist Muslim girls at her nursing school, and cares for her patients with endearingly understated zeal.

The Vatican has ordered an inquiry into historic sex offences at a London abbey.

The statistics are easy, the future is not. Up to 20 million Copts in Egypt, 10 per cent of the population, the largest Christian community in the region. But President Anwar Sadat once described himself as "a Muslim president for a Muslim people" and the Christians have not forgotten it.

Egypt is no stranger to religious tensions – but where do Christians fit into its revolution?

Gang warfare doesn't always involve drugs, tattoos and disagreements over rap lyrics. Police in Ohio are investigating an outbreak of violence between rival factions of the Amish community suspected of breaking into homes and cutting off each other's hair.

Vincent Nichols, the Archbishop of Westminster, sings the praises of Ramadan – and reflection – to Jerome Taylor

An article in another newspaper (which you won’t have read of course, because you are loyal i readers) made a passing reference to my possibly being more on the defensive in this spot than my illustrious predecessor Mr Kelner.