Lawyers

• Central African Republic to hold national elections

  Central African Republic will hold much-delayed national elections Wednesday that residents and the international community hope will bring stability after years of sectarian violence. Dates for the polls have been repeatedly scheduled and missed due to violence and a lack of organization.

• Pope in Africa will seek to bridge Christian-Muslim faultlines

  Pope Francis steps onto African soil for the first time on Wednesday to address the continent's fast-growing Catholic congregation during a trip that will test his ability to bridge faultlines between Christians and Muslims.

• Kansas white supremacist sentenced to death for three murders

  A judge on Tuesday issued the death penalty for the white supremacist convicted of shooting to death three people at two Jewish centers in Kansas last year.

• In Indonesia, minorities under threat from Muslim hardliners

  When a mob of Muslims swooped on a little church deep in rural Aceh in Indonesia this month, the local police were nowhere to be seen, although they had received warnings of a possible attack.

• PM Modi calls beef killing "unwelcome" as intolerance concerns grow

  Prime Minister Narendra Modi has condemned the murder of a Muslim man over rumours he ate beef, in his first response to an incident that has sparked concern about growing religious intolerance.

• Italy's migrant crisis intensifies with murder arrests, drownings

  Italian police arrested 15 African men suspected of throwing about a dozen Christians from a migrant boat in the Mediterranean on Thursday, as the crisis off southern Italy intensified.

• Islamic State calls on backers to kill 100 U.S. military personnel

  Islamic State has posted online what it says are the names, U.S. addresses and photos of 100 American military service members, and called upon its "brothers residing in America" to kill them.

• ICC should prosecute Islamic State for Iraq genocide, war crimes: U.N.

  The United Nations human rights office said on Thursday that Islamic State fighters may have committed genocide against the minority Yazidi community in Iraq as well as crimes against humanity and war crimes against civilians including children.

• Islamic State snatches 220 from Christian villages: Syria monitoring group

  Islamic State militants have abducted at least 220 people from Assyrian Christian villages in northeastern Syria during a three-day offensive, a monitoring group that tracks violence in Syria said on Thursday.

• Pope decries beheading of Egyptian Christians in Libya

  Pope Francis expressed deep sadness at the beheading of 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians in Libya, departing from the script of an address on Monday to emphasise the unity of all Christians regardless of the denomination they follow.

• Anatomy of Nigeria’s $20 billion 'leak'

  In late 2013, Nigeria's then central bank governor Lamido Sanusi wrote to President Goodluck Jonathan claiming that the state oil company had failed to remit tens of billions of oil revenues it owed the state.

• Hardline Indian Hindus become Modi's enemies from within

  In an ashram near the Ganges river in the Himalayan foothills, Indian priest-turned-politician Sakshi Maharaj mimes rowing a boat to illustrate what will happen if Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government ignores Hindu nationalist demands.

• Jindal criticized by Louisiana newspapers over Muslim 'no-go zone' remarks

  Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, a potential 2016 presidential candidate, was criticized on Wednesday by his state's two largest newspapers over contentious remarks referring to Muslim-controlled "no-go zone" areas in European cities.

• Syria rebels in south emerge as West's last hope as moderates crushed elsewhere

  With moderate rebels facing defeat by al Qaeda in Syria's north, groups holding a corner of the south are seeking a higher profile and more help, as the last Western-backed forces holding out against both President Bashar al-Assad and the jihadists.

• Brazil's evangelicals gain clout, close to electing first president

  Brazil's increasingly powerful evangelical Christians are tantalizingly close to electing one of their own as president next month in what would be a historic shift for the world's largest Catholic nation.

• U.N. to send team to investigate Islamic State crimes in Iraq

  The United Nations agreed on Monday to send investigators to Iraq to examine crimes being committed by Islamic State militants on "an unimaginable scale", with a view to holding perpetrators to account.