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The Central Committee of the World Council of Churches (WCC), at its meeting in Trondheim, Norway, 27 June 2016, has elected a new executive committee with 11 new members.

On the 28th Quadrennial Assembly of the National Council of Churches in India, held in Jabalpur from 27-30 April, Rev. Dr Sang Chang, WCC president for Asia, urged Indian churches to commit themselves afresh to the task of building just and inclusive communities.

Some 200 people from Japanese churches and minority right networks as well as overseas partners, gathered for an international conference on minority issues and mission at the Korean YMCA in Tokyo.

During the 4th United Nations Forum on Business and Human Rights, the WCC, in collaboration with the ACT Alliance and Lutheran World Federation, organized a side-event on “Faith-based organizations’ contribution to the protection of communities’ land rights: lessons learnt and good practices from Africa, Asia and Latin America” at the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva.

Participants in Manilakbazan 2015, called by some the “Lumad caravan”, have come to Manila for a month-long series of activities and protests to bring attention to human rights violations in Lumad communities of the Philippines.

Shortly after the 14th General Assembly of the Christian Conference of Asia, held recently in Indonesia´s capital Jakarta, WCC News had a brief chat with the newly elected general secretary of CCA, Dr Mathews George Chunakara.

Christians need a "spirituality of resistance" to face oppression, violence and experiences of defeat, the WCC general secretary said in an address at Germany’s biggest Protestant gathering.

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 gives thanks for the life and work of renowned academic, theologian and political analyst Dr Ninan Koshy. A former executive secretary and director of the WCC’s Commission of the Churches on International Affairs, Koshy died at the age of 81 in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India on 4 March.

The WCC has extended congratulations former staff members Mathews George Chunakara and Young-Cheol Cheon who have been appointed to new positions leading two ecumenical organizations in Asia.

Participants in a recent WCC consultation in Myanmar have stressed the need to equip churches and ecumenical organizations to build peace, human security and human dignity in order to move beyond conflicts, towards a world of peace.

The Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, general secretary of the World Council of Churches, has congratulated the two children's rights activists who won this year’s Nobel Peace Prize.

Scattered throughout the recent history of Indigenous Peoples are national treaties, declarations and laws that languish in obscurity or are brushed aside and ignored.

Inspired by the theme “pilgrimage of justice and peace”, the Central Committee of the WCC, a chief governing body of the Council, has set directions for the work of the Council from 2014 to 2017.

A communiqué adopted at a WCC consultation describes human trafficking as a “serious human rights violation” and its consequences are “most horrific results of the economic and social disparities that increase the vulnerability of millions of people”.

A group of activists from Manipur, India, visited the WCC headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland on 26 March, sharing accounts of human rights violations in their region and efforts to lobby against the Armed Forces Special Powers Act at the 25th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council.

Migrants are reduced to mere commodities, traded and exchanged in the global market, according to a declaration issued by churches calling for an end to this gross violation of human dignity. The declaration was issued on the occasion of the Second United Nations High Level Dialogue on International Migration and Development in New York City, USA.

While reflecting on the theme of the WCC upcoming assembly in Busan, Indian churches stressed the importance of celebrating life in fullness, vibrancy, dynamism and fervour irrespective of caste, creed, colour, class, gender or ethnicity.

Talk about peace on the Korean peninsula part of discussions at ecumenical consultation on peace and security issues in Asia.

Church representatives at a recent Oikotree Global Forum in Johannesburg, South Africa stressed the need to support peoples'€™ movements promoting justice in the economy and ecology, a concern, they say, that lies at the heart of the faith.