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The legacies of the slave trade, and how churches can respond to past and present forms of slavery, are going to be discussed at an ecumenical conference to be held 10-14 December in Runaway Bay, Jamaica. About sixty theologians, church leaders, social scientists and activists, mainly from Africa, the Americas and the Caribbean will gather in the country where nearly one million Africans and later indentured servants from Asia were exploited as human commodities and many more transited on their often deadly passage into slavery.

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.

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.

"Robert Bilheimer is well remembered within the WCC as one of the imaginative individuals whose faithful and creative spirit shaped the movement and actions of the Council in its early stage of development," wrote WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia to Mrs Dorothy Bilheimer on 18 January 2007.

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.

Writing to Mrs Adelheid Kistner on 5 December, WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia characterized her husband, South African pastor Dr Wolfram Kistner, as "a tireless champion for justice, equality and human dignity for all," and "one of the clearest voices, articulating biblically and theologically why we as Christians had to support the struggle against apartheid".

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.

"… an extraordinary woman who lived an extraordinary life during an extraordinary time" is how World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary, Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia, describes Coretta Scott King in a tribute sent today to member churches in the USA. The widow of the US civil rights leader Martin Luther King, died yesterday, 31 January, at the age of 78.

With two months remaining until the World Council of Churches' 9th Assembly in 2006, the organizers have launched an invitation to churches and Christians everywhere to accompany and support the event.

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Full text of WCC public statements available, see below

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In 2005, for the second year running, churches representing over 560 million Christians world-wide are being invited to mark the UN International Day of Peace, 21 September, as an International Day of Prayer for Peace.

Grace and peace to you on this Feast of Pentecost 2005, in which we celebrate the many gifts of God's Spirit!

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