The Council of Australian Humanists (CAHS) has joined a growing volume of voices calling for the establishment of a Charities Commission in Australia. CAHS said it is incomprehensible Australia does not have a Charities Commission to oversight the huge charity sector in Australia when (1) the Charities Definition Inquiry of 2001 recommended a Commission (2) the New Zealand government has recently established a Commission and (3) Britain has had a Commission for many years.

The controversy of the Durban Review Conference has betrayed a new fear of freedom of expression. By Sophie Erskine, representative of the International Humanist and Ethical Union at the United Nations, Geneva.

IHEU member organization the French Libre Pensée has sent Pope Benedict XVI ironic congratulations on the 80th anniversary of the foundation of the Vatican State by the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini and Pope Pius XI.

The UK gay Humanist charity the Pink Triangle Trust has welcomed the humanistic agenda set out by President Obama in his inauguration speech, in which he called for a more inclusive and progressive America. Making a commitment to "restore science to its rightful place", Barack Obama said: "We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus and non-believers", and spoke of "our common humanity."

UN Watch has released a damning report on the Human Rights Council, "Human Rights in Crisis". The report gives a factual analysis of the activities of the Human Rights Council since it was created in 2006 to replace the Human Rights Commission, which was routinely criticized for its selectivity and politicisation. Regrettably, with few exceptions, the Council's performance has been even worse.

A. C. Grayling, Professor of Philosophy at Birkbeck College London, is one of Britain's leading technical philosophers with a gift for making philosophy intelligible to the layman. A Fellow of the World Economic Forum, the Royal Society of Arts and the Royal Society of Literature, Anthony Grayling is also an honorary associate of the National Secular Society and a distinguished supporter of the British Humanist Association. He has written widely on contemporary issues from war crimes to secularism and euthanasia and is one of the leading defenders of Enlightenment values in the English-speaking world. He now joins Roy Brown and the IHEU team at the Human Rights Council where his incisiveness and clarity of exposition will add welcome strength to IHEU's work in defence of Human Rights.

Quoting Spinoza in a statement to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva delivered jointly with the Association for World Education, IHEU has urged the Council to prioritize freedom of expression over demands for laws of the state to yield to the laws of God.

In what country has a regional court and the main administrative body given the ruling that the crucifix is “the symbol of a secular state”? One would assume it would be in a very religious country. But no, it is in a country where less than half of the citizens declare that they have confidence in the Catholic Church, and where the number of people who regularly attend Sunday mass or choose to get married in church is falling drastically.

IHEU has condemned recent aggression against prominent Humanist Mr C L N Gandhi, including abuse based on his birth caste. Mr Gandhi is Additional Commissioner of Road Transport, Andhra Pradesh State, India.

News has reached us that, following an appeal from IHEU, the UN Economic and Social Council has dismissed the complaint against the World Union of Progressive Judaism which, if upheld, would have cost the WUPJ its consultative status at the UN.