The Church of England has claimed that banks corrupt the people who work for them. In a scathing report, the Church argues that banking employees with high moral values are being encouraged to leave them at the office door. It is now calling for a debate on whether, instead of few 'bad apples' being weeded out, the 'whole orchard need replanting'. The submission, to the parliamentary commission on banking standards, urges City workers to draw a lesson from fishermen who risk losing money by cutting their nets adrift to aid rivals whose boats get into trouble. 'There is evidence that in many professions, but notably in finance and banking, practitioners who have a strong moral sense which they seek to live by in their private lives believe that such standards and ethics are impossible to apply in the corporate world.

Pray: that the banking community will recognise that building on good moral and ethical standards will bring benefits such as confidence and trust from their customers. (1Co.15:58)

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Russia’s intervention in Ukraine is a big concern for Poles who fear Moscow might be planning an invasion of their country. This has reportedly resulted in increasing numbers of Poles joining volunteer paramilitary groups that provide basic military training. Up to now, the Polish government has ignored unofficial militias. Now it is reportedly seeking a way to harness the 120 volunteer groups that boast a membership of 10,000. Some 800 members of paramilitary groups gathered in Warsaw on March 20 to attend a meeting hosted by the defence ministry. Defence Minister Tomasz Siemoniak announced the government’s decision to pay the wages of 2,500 people who would form the backbone of local volunteer units to be mobilised in the event of a war. In an interview with Reuters, the Polish President's chief security adviser, General Stanislaw Koziej, said the new approach had been prompted by the conflict in neighbouring Ukraine, where Russia is accused of fighting alongside pro-Moscow separatists.

Churches have opened their doors in the wake of Tuesday's Germanwings Airbus crash in the French Alps, which killed all 150 people on board. Sixteen of those who died were teenagers on a Spanish exchange programme from Joseph-Koenig school in Germany. Two of their teachers were also on the plane. The local Catholic Church in Haltern, St Sixtus, was reportedly open all night for mourners. Hundreds of people visited the church after the news broke yesterday to light candles and write messages of condolence to the families of those who died. At the school just 1.5km away, residents covered the entrance with flowers and red and white candles. Deputy Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, Sylvia Loehrmann, told reporters on Wednesday: ‘We can only share that pain and maybe some comfort can grow from that sharing. All of Germany is mourning with us and the whole world is sending us messages.’ At least three Britons were also killed.

At the moment Turkey is supporting forces forming to retake Mosul from IS by assisting America to train and equip Syrian rebel forces in Turkey, strengthening border security and upgrading discussions with the international coalition. Turkey also has influence among the Sunni Arab tribes of Mosul and other Sunnis, which allows it to collect human intelligence. A Turkish security official requesting anonymity said, ‘1.3 million people live in Mosul, at least 300,000 people will escape toward the Turkish border. We have to get ready for this potentially massive wave of immigration. Sadly Turkey is not at all ready for this serious issue.’ Another Turkish intelligence official said that Turkey is the only country with considerable influence with all Mosul tribes and other Sunni Arabs; and Turkey could easily be an intermediary, talking to all the parties and potentially achieving results with minimum bloodshed.

Both Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed rebels have pulled back most of their heavy artillery from the front line in accordance with a February ceasefire deal, Ukraine’s president said late Monday, amid reports of fresh clashes in the east. However Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko told a state broadcaster that some heavy weaponry remains in place at the airport in the rebel-held city of Donetsk. World leaders hope the withdrawal of heavy weapons as agreed at high-level peace talks last month will help bring a definitive end to the conflict, which the UN estimates has killed more than 6,000 people and displaced almost 1.8 million. The pullback is being overseen by hundreds of monitors from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), which has in the past cited a lack of cooperation on both sides. Poroshenko said in his interview that exchanges of artillery and rocket fire have largely stopped along the 485-kilometre (300-mile) front.

Hungary's foreign minister says his country has asked the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate the ‘brutal actions’ committed against Christians by the Islamic State group. Minister Péter Szijjártó said it was crucial for the Netherlands-based ICC to ‘prosecute the perpetrators’ of the anti-Christian violence ‘with rigour’. Islamic State militants have been beheading Christians, including at least 21 Egyptian Copts last month in Libya, after they refused to abandon their faith in Jesus Christ. Szijjártó's remarks came while concerns remained on Tuesday, 3 March, over more than 200 Christians abducted in Syria last week, the latest in a series of known kidnappings by the group. The minister said he spoke this week of Hungary's concerns about the crackdown on Christians during a session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has said his nation needs new, tougher rules allowing for the detention and expulsion of illegal migrants, otherwise Hungary would ‘turn into a refugee camp.’

Discrimination against Christians is being ‘ignored’ by governments and courts, MPs from across Europe have warned in the wake of a string of cases involving the rights of British workers to wear crosses or discuss their beliefs. The parliamentary arm of the Council of Europe has issued a formal declaration urging states to recognise the principle of ‘reasonable accommodation’ for the beliefs of traditionalist Christians on issues such as homosexuality for the first time. The first test of the new call will come as early as this week with the opening of an employment tribunal case involving a London nursery worker who claims she was dismissed for telling a lesbian colleague her beliefs on same-sex marriage. She also alleges that she was asked to act against her beliefs by reading stories about same-sex couples to children.

Almost one in five Dutch doctors would consider helping someone die even if they had no physical problems but were ‘tired of living’, according to one of the most comprehensive academic studies of such attitudes. The research, in which almost 1,500 GPs, geriatric care doctors and clinical specialists answered a detailed, anonymous survey, also found that 2% of them said they had taken part in such euthanasia or assisted suicide without medical grounds for a patient who was suffering, even though this is prohibited under Dutch law. The paper, published in the Journal of Medical Ethics, also found that 40% of the doctors said it was conceivable they would help someone in the early stages of dementia to die, while 3% had done so. Just over a third said they might also be willing to assist people with a psychiatric disease who wished to end their life.

Measles vaccinations must be immediately stepped up across Europe and central Asia after a series of outbreaks, the World Health Organization (WHO) says. Officials say they have been ‘taken aback’ by more than 22,000 cases in 2014 and the first months of this year. The WHO demands that countries control the outbreaks with ‘no exception’. It say the surges threaten the goal of eliminating measles in the region by the end of 2015. Dr Zsuzsanna Jakab, WHO regional director for Europe, said: ‘When we consider that over the past two decades we have seen a reduction of 96% in the number of measles cases in the European region, and that we are just a step away from eliminating the disease, we are taken aback by these numbers. We must collectively respond, without further delay, to close immunisation gaps’

The Ukrainian president says his forces are making an ‘organised’ withdrawal from the embattled town of Debaltseve. Petro Poroshenko said 80% of Ukraine's troops left on Wednesday morning, with more to follow. Fighting has raged over the transport hub, with pro-Russian rebels seizing control of most areas, despite a ceasefire deal. Russia's foreign minister said Ukrainian forces had been encircled and were forced to battle their way out. ‘I'm reckoning that common sense will prevail,’ said Sergei Lavrov as he urged the rebels to provide troops who surrendered with food and clothes. Earlier, US Vice-President Joe Biden accused Russia of violating the accord, agreed in Minsk last week. Mr Lavrov told reporters that the rebel attack in Debaltseve did not violate the ceasefire agreement, because the town was part of the rebel-held area at the time the peace deal was signed. Eyewitnesses saw dozens of tanks and columns of weary Ukrainian troops retreating from Debaltseve on Wednesday.