A food fight seems to be brewing. In North America and Europe, the last few months have seen simmering disputes over halal food products, a major part of Muslim life.

It's hard to deny that His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibet and the world's most famous Buddhist, is the also world's foremost expert on happiness. But what about other major religious traditions? Is happiness a good thing, or bad?

The long-running cartoon series explores issues such as family, community, education and religion in a way that few other popular television programmes can match, according to L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican's daily broadsheet.

When US President Barack Obama lands in India next month, his itinerary will include a visit to the Golden Temple here, the holiest Sikh shrine. This is being seen as a recognition of the importance and influence of the large Sikh community in the US.

“We have asked Mr. Blair and Mr. Hitchens to wrestle with the more immediate question facing developed and developing nations: Is religion a force for peace or conflict in the modern world?”

"There are many disputes in the world, let's make the 21st century a century of dialogue and solve these disputes. It will help bring peace to the world," said the Dalai Lama.

The New York Times reported recently on a Pew Research Center poll in which religious people turned out to be remarkably uninformed about religion. Almost half of Catholics didn’t understand Communion. Most Protestants didn’t know that Martin Luther started the Reformation. Almost half of Jews didn’t realize Maimonides was Jewish. And atheists were among the best informed about religion.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has sent a letter to the pope thanking him for opposing a Florida pastor's threat to burn the Quran and calling for cooperation against secularism, the Vatican and the Iranian presidency said Saturday.