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While negotiations at a key UN climate summit in Bali, Indonesia, seem trapped in a "vicious circle", ecumenical representatives struggle alongside civil society organizations to bring about a paradigm change.

Concern about undue pressure exerted by the European Union on African, Caribbean and Pacific countries to sign interim Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) by the end of the year has been expressed by World Council of Churches general secretary Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia in a 6 December letter to EU commissioner for external trade Peter Mandelson. The interim agreements open up local markets to competition with European companies without adequate legal frameworks and infrastructure in place, and they address issues which are still contentious within a deadline that prevents parliamentary discussion. Therefore these agreements represent an imminent danger of revenue loss for those countries, hindering their poverty eradication efforts, the letter affirms.

A severe reminder "of the wealth that was built and sustained on the continued extraction and plunder of Africa's resources as well as on the exploitation of Africa's people" was addressed to Christians in the global North by the participants in the African ecumenical consultation "Linking poverty, wealth and ecology" last week.

When does the pursuit of economical wellbeing turn into greed? This is one of the questions to be discussed at a 5-9 November ecumenical consultation in Dar es Salaam. Joint church strategies and actions for addressing the interlinked problems of poverty, excessive wealth, and ecological degradation in Africa are intended results.

Calling for alternatives to enforced free trade, churches and church-related organizations world-wide, along with other religious groups and community partners, are gearing up for the Trade Week of Action, 14-21 October.

The Kyoto Protocol is "an important step forward towards a just and sustainable global climate policy regime" and as such needs to be fully implemented, however "much more radical reductions [of greenhouse gas emissions] are urgently needed," the World Council of Churches (WCC) executive committee stated at its 25-28 September meeting in Etchmiadzin, Armenia.

War-torn Sri Lanka is to receive the first of a series of ecumenical "living letters" teams which will visit Christian communities facing situations of violence in different regions of the world in the run up to the 2011 International Ecumenical Peace Convocation being organized by the World Council of Churches.

Local churches in Palestine/Israel are looking to the whole fellowship of the World Council of Churches (WCC) to play a stronger role in supporting local churches' struggles for a just peace there. This is the main finding of a delegation led by the Council's general secretary Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia that visited Palestine/Israel from 21 to 26 June. A new advocacy forum launched prior to the visit, and ecumenical accompaniment are high on the churches' list of actions in pursuit of this goal.

By Fredrick Nzwili (*)

Focusing on how to take action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and contribute to real change in the lives of communities through new forms of development, a 12-15 April WCC/Christian Aid consultation in London worked to determine elements of a common platform for churches' involvement in the UNFCCC COP 13 climate change negotiations in Brazil next November-December.

What are the implications of climate change for development in a world where years of development efforts are destroyed in a few seconds or hours by a hurricane or a single flood? This will be the subject of a 12-15 April 2007 consultation in London hosted by Christian Aid and sponsored by the World Council of Churches (WCC) Working Group on Climate Change.

The German Protestant aid agency Brot für die Welt has handed a steering wheel, symbol of its water campaign, over to the WCC, thus symbolically handing responsibility for this concern and a newly formed Ecumenical Water Network.

The Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Grameen Bank's creator Muhammad Yunus not only recognizes his "creative genius in promoting his concept of microcredit, but also testifies to the fact that genuine economic and social development has to grow from below if it is to be accessible for the people," the World Council of Churches (WCC) said today in a congratulatory message.

The coordinator of the stewards programme at central committee says he is in that position because he himself was inspired by being part of a similar programme seven years ago.

Young people will strengthen their profile in the World Council of Churches (WCC), following the establishment by its central committee of a new body to promote the participation of youth in the organization's life and work.