麻豆约拍

Samira Ahmed with the religious and ethical news of the week. Moral arguments and perspectives on stories familiar and unfamiliar.

The Chief Rabbi will have a historic meeting with Pope Benedict in the Vatican on Monday. Samira speaks to Ed Kessler from the Woolf Institute at Cambridge who is coordinating the trip.

On Sunday parliamentary elections will be held in the Ivory Coast. Babatope Akinwande from British NGO Tearfund has just returned from the capital Abidjan and tells how the country is recovering after the recent civil war.

In Morocco, imams have been holding protest demonstrations against King Mohamed the Sixth. The King, who holds the title of Commander-of-the-Faithful, has long been able to take the support of the country's religious employees for granted. Now, the government is facing calls to loosen tight controls on preaching. Its response so far has been to dismiss some of the leading dissenters from their jobs. John Laurenson reports.

The Bishop of Bolton the Rt Rev Chris Edmondson will be bringing in some chocolate which will carry cards telling the story of the nativity. A recent report said that 8 out of 10 people think that celebrating the birth of Christ is still an important part of Christmas, but is the real Christmas message alive and well?

The Committee that will select Britain's next Chief Rabbi meets for the first time this week. However some in the Jewish community are questioning whether the office is still needed. Samira talks to our religious affairs correspondent Robert Piggott.

As the Durban Climate Change Conference ends we talk to South African Bishop Geoff Davies who earlier in the week compared rich countries behaviour at the talks with apartheid, saying wealthy nations were trying to keep power and wealth for themselves.

This week the US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton criticised African countries that discriminate against homosexuals and said America will take this into account when deciding on the future provision of aid. Kevin Bocquet examines the hard line stance the US, and UK is now taking, and asks whether this will be enough to force a u-turn by the African governments, and churches who are so vigorously promoting it.

The latest British Social Attitudes report is out. This year, the headline theme is selfish individualism. Julian Baggini and Jamie Whyte debate the luxury of being selfish.

Series Producer: Amanda Hancox.

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