Six members of a Satanic cult were jailed for up to 20 years in Russia on Monday for four murders in which they "ritually sacrificed", dismembered and then ate their teenage victims in a forest.

The members of the gang called themselves Satanists and earlier carried out animal sacrifices, Komsomolskaya Pravda, the Russian daily, reported, citing investigators.

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A cult guru who raped a pretty recruit and sexually assaulted another may have attacked hundreds of women, it has been claimed after he was found guilty of rape.

Jet-setting Michael Lyons was convicted on Friday of raping one woman at Wood Green Crown Court and of sexually assaulting a second.

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As many as 200 women are lynched every year in India after being accused of practising witchcraft, a study by a charity has found.

Avdhash Kaushal, chairman of the Rural Litigation and Entitlement Kendra, said that most victims were single or widowed and were often targeted for their land or money.

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The 62-foot King of Kings statue no longer stretches out its giant arms to motorists on Interstate 75, but a pastor of the Solid Rock Church says the June 14 fire was good PR for what the church is about: Christ.

The fire also shone a spotlight on the Bishops, who built Solid Rock from a dozen congregants in a tin-roofed building with folding chairs into one of the region's largest churches, with a satellite church east of Cincinnati, a home for troubled women, 13 churches in the Philippines and an orphanage in Brazil.

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Reports this week suggest a still-married Benny Hinn is now romantically involved with Paula White, another television preacher with a colourful past.

In February, Hinn's wife Suzanne filed for divorce, citing "irreconcilable differences." The two were at that point living apart.

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Former Yahweh ben Yahweh cult member Maurice Woodside and his son shot at two partying teens who climbed onto a yacht docked behind their North Miami Beach house, police said Friday.

Police charged his son, Jeremiah Parham, 22, with aggravated assault with a firearm after they said he sprayed the teens with an AK-47 rifle.

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An Oregon couple who left their infant daughter's fate to God rather than seek medical treatment for a mass that grew over her left eye will face charges of first-degree criminal mistreatment.

Prosecutors revealed Thursday during a custody hearing that a grand jury has indicted Timothy and Rebecca Wyland, members of Oregon City's Followers of Christ church.

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When Pascal's little brother got sick, his family accused him of witchcraft and took him to a pastor who forced him to drink pigeon's blood and oil.

Denied food and beaten for three days, the ten-year-old managed to escape, joining some 250,000 other street children in Congo for three years until he was scooped up by a children's centre in Kinshasa's tough east end.

UNICEF, the United Nations' children's charity, says accusing children of sorcery is a fairly new and growing trend in Africa, despite long-held traditional and mystic beliefs on the continent.

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John Friend talked about the freedom of Anusara; it's nothing like the more rigid schools that demand students repeat the same poses in the same way at every single class, nor is it the kind of practice in which teachers withhold praise, lest students become too egocentric. "Anusara is positive," Friend said, resting his head on the back of his chair and absently caressing one of many highly polished orbs on an adjacent table. "It's accessible. Easily applicable. And yet it has depth and sophistication."

Consider those religions that focus on sin and damnation, on discipline instead of joy. "Fundamentally they say no," he told me. "While Anusara is a yes."

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The amendment bill would punish "proselytizing" that "uses coercion or other forms of inducement" – vaguely enough worded, Christians fear, that vigilantes could use it to jail them for following the commands of Christ to feed, clothe and otherwise care for the poor.

"There was always a virtual anti-conversion law in place, but now it is on paper too," said a senior pastor from Thimphu on condition of anonymity. "Seemingly it is aimed at controlling the growth of Christianity."

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One of the world's largest and most controversial Pentecostal churches has been given permission to build a $200m (£130m) replica of Solomon's Temple in Brazil's economic capital, São Paulo.

The 10,000 capacity "mega-church", which is the brainchild of Brazil's Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, will also house a replica of the Ark of the Covenant and be built according to "biblical orientations".

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