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"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.

By Jean Blaylock (*)

"Humanity unfortunately has transgressed the Divine command for the protection of creation", said the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I in his message on World Environment Day today.  "We experience the results of this neglectful and avaricious behavior today, as weak-willed spectators of the repercussions of catastrophic climactic changes."

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 Christian Johannessen (*)

"The ecumenical movement is only faithful to the Gospel, if it is a movement of hope confronting itself with the reality of the severe threats to life that people are facing in today's world", said the World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia in Lunteren, the Netherlands, on Friday 11 April. Those threats include "the deadly scandal of poverty, diseases such as HIV and AIDS, the devastating and destructive consequences of climate change, and war - including the re-emerging danger of the use of nuclear weapons".

This year the World Water Day (22 March) falls on the Saturday before Easter (according to the calendar followed by Western churches). It also culminates the "Seven Weeks for Water" campaign by the Ecumenical Water Network.

In a wide ranging discussion at the Geneva-based World Council of Churches (WCC) the UN secretary general, H.E. Ban Ki-Moon and WCC general secretary, Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia found agreement for the two world bodies to work more closely on several global issues, particularly climate change.

The World Council of Churches central committee issued a reminder on the pressing issue of climate change this week, urging member churches and others to "Be stewards of God's creation".

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".

Societies must move away from "promoting endless growth and production of goods" as well as a "seemingly insatiable" consumption, says a statement presented today by the World Council of Churches to the plenary of high-level government representatives at the UN climate summit in Bali, Indonesia. While "the poorer carry the burden of the irresponsible waste of resources, energy and extreme consumerism of the richer," the statement affirms, actions should be focused on resolving "the problems of the great majority of today's world population."

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.

Revised figures for the HIV epidemic which drop the estimated number of people living with HIV worldwide to about 33 million have been welcomed by church workers active in the response to HIV and AIDS around the world as a sign of hope and a challenge to keep promises. The Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance (EAA) collected their views.

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.