Comments made by Northern Ireland’s Deputy First Minister that he is a ‘very broad-minded Christian’ and a ‘practising Catholic’ have been slammed by a victim of the Troubles. Ann Travers, whose sister Mary was murdered by the Provos, said she was ‘flabbergasted’ to hear Mr McGuinness, a former IRA commander, call himself a practising Catholic. The Sinn Fein man said he was a very young man when the conflict began and he was very much involved in participating in the civil rights protests. He then went on to describe how his family were devout and he prayed every night. Mr McGuinness said his faith was important in finding common ground with Mr Paisley during the peace process.

Three policemen and a retired police officer were arrested in an inquiry into fraudulent activity at the Police Federation of England and Wales. Surrey Police are investigating the transfer of £1m to a charitable account last August. One of those arrested quit as federation vice-chairman earlier this week. Two of the men are Met police officers on secondment. The organisation represents thousands of constables, sergeants and inspectors. Surrey Police's economic crimes unit were involved in the probe and are contacting the Charities Commission. Meanwhile a detective constable from a London unit, which investigates rapes, serious sexual violence and child abuse, was charged with a string of child sex offences and suspended from duty. DC Chris Maitland was originally arrested last November, and has now been charged with two counts of sexually touching a girl under 13, five counts of taking indecent images of children, and seven counts of making indecent images of children. Pray for our police at

The traditional Stations of the Cross are a series of fourteen images depicting the stages of Christ’s journey on Good Friday. This year Premier Christianity has created a unique photographic study of a parallel journey retold through the lives and stories of the refugees in Calais, Lebanon and the UK. The dramatic new project is called The Stations, and mirrors the Stations of the Cross through images and stories of today's refugees. A special exhibition of The Stations is being held at St Martin-in-the Fields, London from 15 March until 10 April. People are being invited to take their copy of Premier Christianity to the exhibition to use as a guide.

In England we have ‘Jewniversities’. These ‘Jewnis’, for short, are universities with large percentages of Jewish students. Birmingham, Leeds, Nottingham, Manchester, Oxford and Cambridge have 61% of UK’s Jewish students. Many say that anti-Semitism is to blame for this fact. If young Jews believe universities are hostile to pro-Israel viewpoints, they actively seek like-minded people at ‘Jewnis’ for reasons of comfort and security. Jewish students generally have positive experiences. However, in York University Jewish students refused to sign a joint statement with their university over their complaints of anti-Semitism, as it does not acknowledge the issue properly. In Oxford, the Labour party’s national student organisation launched an inquiry into allegations of anti-Semitic behaviour and intimidation. The London School of Economics Israel Society has called on the student union to change its attitude towards Israel and Jewish students. It published a poster online attacking the union for failing to take action over anti-Israel events on campus. See  and