The World Council of Churches (WCC) has asked the United Nations secretary-general to make sure that recommendations of a key report about war crimes committed during the conflict between Israeli and Palestinian armed forces in Gaza at the beginning of 2009 are properly followed up.

As nations are spelling out their bargaining positions for the negotiations on a new international climate deal to take place in Copenhagen next month, churches around the world are trying to ring home the message that climate protection is an ethical and spiritual issue.

The World Council of Churches (WCC) has urged the United States of America and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea to hold bilateral talks within the context of resumed Six-Party Talks on North Korea's nuclear programme.

Resettlement of people displaced by the consequences of climate change was highlighted as a major concern for churches at a gathering of ecumenical representatives from Asia and the Pacific region.

Church representatives from around the world will gather in New York City 15-20 November to press three issues within the agenda of the United Nations: peoples being displaced by climate change, indigenous people's rights and Colombia's protracted internal conflict.

"Now is the time to continue the trend" toward nuclear disarmament, four global, regional and national ecumenical organizations told leaders of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the European Union, the United States and Russia. "The present opportunity must be transformed into conclusive actions."

An international ecumenical delegation has urged stronger action against human rights abuses in Honduras at a meeting with the general secretary of the Organization of American States (OAS) and representatives of the U.S. State Department in Washington, 22-23 October.

The World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia has congratulated Rev. Martin Junge on his 26 October election as general secretary of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF). Expressing "joy and encouragement" at the election of the Chilean theologian to the LWF's chief executive post, Kobia called him a "champion of lively partnerships in the quest for Christian unity and the building of human...

Nearly 140 leaders from the world's churches, North and South Koreans among them, have called for the formation of an inter-Korean confederation even before complete reunification of Korea can take place. Agreement was reached at the close of a three-day meeting in Tsuen Wan, Hong Kong where the Christian leaders expressed unrelenting hope for peace and reconciliation among Koreans, despite the stark realities of the ongoing division of the...

If there were an easy path toward the reunification of Korea, it might have been discovered during the past 25 years or at least since the Cold War ended in the late 1980s. But it hasn't been found yet.