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In Haiti, "the deadliest form of violence is extreme poverty, and the grimmest insecurity is food insecurity," according to a Living Letters team who visited the Caribbean nation on behalf of the World Council of Churches (WCC) last November.

The myth according to which host countries are "victims" of migration needs to be challenged, as in fact their economies benefit from the exploitation of the migrants' work.

By Peter Kenny (*)

Radical changes and tangible commitments from world leaders are needed if an equitable and sustainable global economic system is to be built, says an ecumenical delegation attending a UN conference on financing for development starting tomorrow in Qatar.

For one billion of the world population, "living with constant hunger" is "a normal state". However, there is nothing normal about that fact, which is "a result of the ways our societies have chosen to produce, share, buy and sell food".

The latest issue of the "Contact" magazine, jointly produced by the World Council of Churches (WCC) and the UN Standing Committee on Nutrition (SCN), addresses the current food price crises from various angles. A wide range of authors provide a broad perspective on the causes of the crisis and ideas for advocacy and action to counter it.

"Please remind the world that we are no longer at war," a high-ranking government official from Sierra Leone told an international ecumenical team visiting churches and ecumenical organizations in Liberia and Sierra Leone from 2 to 8 November.

There is a "gradual retreat of neoliberalism" in the region, according to participants in a Latin America and Caribbean ecumenical consultation to examine the links between poverty, wealth and ecology.

Communities have an important role to play when it comes to mental disorders. This was the unanimous view of experts who spoke at Geneva's Ecumenical Centre on Mental Health Day.

The executive committee of the World Council of Churches (WCC), meeting in Luebeck, Germany, 23-26 September 2008, reviewed programme, budget, and approved various public statements and reports and the extension of the contract of the current general secretary.

The spiritual and moral dimension s of climate change are best shown by how it affects the poorest and most vulnerable, says the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew in a message marking 1 September as a day of prayer for God's creation.

Representatives of ecumenical organizations meeting in advance of the 17th International AIDS Conference in Mexico City vowed to launch a global campaign to help churches become competent in dealing with the HIV and AIDS pandemic.

Can religions do more in response to the AIDS pandemic? To address this question over 450 representatives of faith-based organizations currently responding to HIV and AIDS will gather in Mexico City, 31 July - 2 August, in advance of the XVII International AIDS Conference.

"Our world may soon have a billion people living with constant hunger but we produce enough food to feed double the current global population if everyone shared equally," said Archbishop Desmond Tutu as G8 leaders prepare to meet in Japan. "World leaders must seek justice in solutions to the food crisis that now faces us."

With an estimated 850 million people suffering from hunger worldwide, nine out of ten of which live in developing countries, "the scandal of hunger demands the immediate attention of the churches", affirmed today in a statement the World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia.

A wide array of justice movements around the world are challenging churches to create new kinds of spirituality that will sustain them as they struggle against empire.

"Evil, injustice, oppression, all of those awful things, they are not going to have the last word. Goodness, laughter, joy, caring, compassion, the things that you do and you help others do, those are going to prevail," said Archbishop Desmond Tutu in Geneva today.

By Walt Wiltschek (*)

The four newest titles in the WCC's "Risk Series" of books were introduced at a session with the authors Monday afternoon. Two of the four are by Zimbabwean author Ezra Chitando, looking at the HIV/AIDS issue in the African context. Chitando used body imagery to describe the call of the church to bring about transformation. Churches, he said, need to have sharp minds, ears to listen to the cries of the marginalized, warm hearts, healing hands, long arms, and quick feet. "Churches can only be relevant if they are bearers of hope, ambassadors of hope", he said. He emphasized that HIV/AIDS is a global problem, not just an African one. "We need to mobilise the entire global community", Chitando said. His books are titled "Living with Hope" and "Acting with Hope". The other two new books in the series are "Resisting the Intolerable", by Geneviève Jacques, which addresses the importance of human rights, and "With Hearts, Hands and Voices" by Margot Käßmann, examining "spirituality for everyday life".

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.