Telegraph:

The gunman approached Father Daniil Sysoyev, 34, in his small wooden church in Moscow on Thursday night, checked his name and then shot the priest in the head and chest, police said.

The priest died on the way to hospital, Interfax news agency quoted investigators as saying. A choirmaster was injured in the attack, and is in hospital under armed guard.

Father Daniil, who claimed to have christened 80 Muslims, had repeatedly received death threats.

“I have received 10 threats via e-mail that I shall have my head cut off (if I do not stop preaching to Muslims)“, Father Daniil stated on a television programme in February 2008, according to Interfax. “As I see it, it is a sin not to preach to Muslims“.

The killing could increase tensions between the powerful majority Russian Orthodox Church, which has close ties to the Kremlin, and the country’s growing Muslim minority of about 20 million.

“The main theory is that religious motives are behind the crime,” a spokesman for the prosecutor-general’s office said.

Father Daniil had written books including “An Orthodox Response to Islam” and “Marrying a Muslim”, in which he advised Russian women against taking a Muslim partner.
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Channel 4’s Dispatches programme on Monday said that at least half of the Conservative shadow cabinet are members of the Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI), one of a number of pro-Israel lobby organisations.

The prorgramme, entitled ‘Inside Britain’s Israel Lobby’, said that such organisations make up “one of the most powerful and influential political lobbies in Britain”, but that “little is known” about these groups and their associated individuals.

CFI members and their businesses are alleged to have donated more than $16.8m to the Conservative Party over the past eight years.

The alleged donations include tens of thousands of pounds to William Hague, after he was appointed shadow foreign secretary in 2005.

The documentary alleged that Lord Kalm, a CFI member and significant donor to the Conservatives, threatened to remove Hague’s funding after he said that Israel had used “disproportionate” force during its war in Lebanon in 2006.

David Cameron, the Conservative leader, is alleged to have promised not to repeat the conjecture.

‘Transparent’

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Under the rules, swimmers – including non-Muslims – are barred from entering the pool in normal swimming attire.

Instead they are told that they must comply with the “modest” code of dress required by Islamic custom, with women covered from the neck to the ankles and men, who swim separately, covered from the navel to the knees.

The phenomenon runs counter to developments in France, where last week a woman was evicted from a public pool for wearing a burkini – the headscarf, tunic and trouser outfit which allows Muslim women to preserve their modesty in the water.

The 35-year-old, named only as Carole, is threatening legal action after she was told by pool officials in Emerainville, east of Paris, that she could not wear the outfit on hygiene grounds.

But across the UK municipal pools are holding swimming sessions specifically aimed at Muslims, in some case imposing strict dress codes.

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