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”Truly, I am in the household of God,” began WCC associate general secretary for public witness and diakonia Dr Isabel Apawo Phiri in her keynote speech today at the 14th Assembly of the Christian Conference of Asia.

Under the theme “Living Together in the Household of God,” some 440 representatives of member churches and partner bodies from 28 countries gathered on Thursday 21 May in Jakarta, Indonesia, for the opening of the Christian Conference of Asia’s 14th General Assembly.

US President Barack Obama has named Dr Ulysses Burley III to a presidential advisory panel on HIV and AIDS.

Members of the WCC Commission on Youth (ECHOS) visited the Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate and Bishop Yohannes, president of the Bishopric of Social and Ecumenical Services.

WCC general secretary Olav Fykse Tveit preached at the 7 May ecumenical service in Washington, D.C.’s National Cathedral commemorating the centennial of the Armenian genocide.

Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, general secretary of the WCC, and Dr Jim Yong Kim, president of the World Bank Group, discussed possible collaborative actions to end extreme poverty during a meeting in Washington, D.C., on 4 May.

“Nuclear weapons are incompatible with the values upheld by our respective faith traditions”, representatives of some 50 Christian, Buddhist, Muslim and Jewish organizations said on 1 May. The inter-religious statement came in a joint call to the 191 governments participating in the world’s largest disarmament treaty. The call, co-sponsored by the WCC, was made during civil society presentations to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference in New York City.

Amidst intimidation, illegal arrests, disappearances, torture and killings in Tanah Papua resulting from tensions between the Indonesian authorities and the Papuan pro-liberation groups, churches seek justice, peace, dignity and security for the Papuans.

Exploring in depth the concept of multi-religious belonging in the light of lived experiences, and discerning how churches can respond to it from pastoral and theological perspectives, was the focus of a consultation organized by the WCC and the United Church of Christ in Cleveland, Ohio, the United States.

The WCC general secretary has sent a letter to the President of the Republic of Indonesia H. E. Joko Widodo appealing for clemency for the 10 death row prisoners scheduled for imminent execution in Indonesia.

The WCC remembers today, 24 April, the 1.5 million Armenian victims – children, women and men – who died 100 years ago.

The prospect of armed robots taking human lives, and whether to ban autonomous weapons before they are made, concentrated the minds of governmental and non-governmental delegates at a United Nations forum in Geneva in mid-April.

Leaders and representatives from the Cuban Council of Churches, the Latin American Council of Churches, the National Council of Churches USA and the WCC have spoken out together on the normalization of relations between Cuba and the United States.

A court decision in the Dominican Republic annulling the citizenship of an estimated 200,000 Dominicans of Haitian ancestry has been strongly criticized by church leaders, including the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church.

Challenged by Christians from Brazil to strive for greater respect for religious and cultural diversity, churches are reflecting together on the gospel of John as they celebrate the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

The newly published issue of Current Dialogue is now available online. Along with key documents from the WCC 10th Assembly, the issue includes several strong pieces addressing some thorny issues in contemporary inter-religious encounter and dialogue, including the recent Malaysian prohibition of Christian use of the name Allah for God, the relationship of ecumenism and inter-religious dialogue, the particular difficulties in dialogue among the Abrahamic traditions, and the limits of dialogue itself.

The world is giving itself a kind of Christmas gift this year, a serious gift and one that is long-overdue. On 24 December 2014 an international law to regulate the global trade in armaments and ammunition enters into force.

Following the positive developments in relations between Cuba and the United States announced yesterday by their governments, the WCC general secretary expressed his gratitude for the process.

After a concerted examination of the evidence presented at the Vienna Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons and two earlier conferences, 44 of the states present called for a ban on nuclear weapons. The host government Austria added momentum with a specific, cooperative pledge to “fill the legal gap for the prohibition of nuclear weapons” and eliminate them.

Ferguson is in turmoil. So is New York. And so is Union Theological Seminary in the city of New York, a long-standing institution of theological education located on the upper west side of Manhattan – or in West Harlem – since 1836.