A British father was banned from taking his son to church after the boy's Muslim mother won a court order at Derby Crown Court preventing the boy from attending. The father, a non-practising Muslim, has close connections to his local Christian community. He is divorced from the boy's mother and was warned he could be denied access to the nine-year-old if he takes him to church or a Christian leisure centre. The father, born in England to Pakistani parents, has lodged an appeal with the High Court to have this order overturned. 'This judge is simply scared of being branded Islamophobic,' he said. 'I want my son to have a balanced life in which he is exposed to different faiths and can make up his own mind about religion.’ The boy sees his father every other weekend. The order also decrees that he must provide only Halal food.

Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee (FAC) will monitor the case of a British father held in Ethiopia, among other cases, amid concerns that the government has lessened its commitment to ending human rights abuses abroad. The FAC said that there was ‘plainly a perception’ that the government had recently downgraded its commitment to the promotion of human rights, following news last August that the Foreign Office would no longer use the longstanding designation ‘countries of concern’ to denote countries associated with human rights abuses. Later an FCO official said that human rights were ‘not one of our top priorities’. Now the FAC will monitor the situation of several individuals facing abuses abroad, including Andy Tsege, a British father of three who was kidnapped at an airport in 2014 and taken to Ethiopia; he is being held under sentence of death.

The biggest data leak in history, detailing the activities of 200,000+ offshore companies, charts an escalating transfer of wealth by the offshore system from the poorest to the richest nations. Money that funds superyachts, private jets, fine art auctions, and property causes unseen damage to the economy of vibrant cities by making them unaffordable to ordinary people. Cash is also injected into London hedge funds and Wall Street trading rooms, funding high-stake investments and big bonuses. The data reveal a huge breadth of unseen activity that provides advantages only to the wealthy; such as Russian banks’ slush funds for President Putin’s inner circle, assets belonging to twelve country leaders, and companies connected to more than 140 senior politicians and their friends and relatives. All this is claimed to be subject to sanctions for supporting regimes in North Korea, Syria, Russia and Zimbabwe and the proceeds of crimes. See also this week’s article in British Isles section.

Brigadier General Tal Kalman, chief of staff of the Israeli air force, warned that weapons flowing into the region could shift the balance of power away from Israel, hinting at growing Iranian hegemony without naming the country. He said the air force was the ‘dominant and central figure’ in the successful defence of Israel against the threats facing it, but warned it could change. ‘Advanced Western and Eastern weapons have entered the equation and have been received by the countries surrounding us,’ he said, referring to military equipment coming from Europe and the United States, as well as from China, including fighter planes, ballistic missiles, and advanced surface-to-air missiles. An arms race, along with instability, creates a great danger. Despite Russia’s nominal withdrawal from Syria, the more advanced S-400 air defence system, along with other pieces of Russian military equipment, remain in the war-torn country, according to Russian media.