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The plight of the world's children was in focus at a high-level panel discussion organized by the WCC UN liaison office in New York on 13 July on the theme "Churches and the United Nations: Building a Partnership for the Protection of Children".

The new wave of violence in the Middle East is a cause for alarm around the world, and all sides should cease the violent confrontation and ensure the protection of civilians, the World Council of Churches (WCC) appealed today.

By Manuel Quintero*

For five years since the first UN global conference on small arms in 2001, hopes around the world were that this year's follow-up conference, which concluded on 7 July, would find new ways to contain the intercontinental epidemic of guns and gun violence.

"Make me a Channel of Your Peace", the first line of the prayer of a peacemaker attributed to Saint Francis of Assisi, is to be the theme for the Focus on Europe 2007 of the WCC's Decade to Overcome Violence (DOV).

New proposals to tighten US economic and humanitarian restrictions on Cuba will adversely effect vulnerable Cuban people, and a recommendation that would isolate the Cuban Council of Churches constitutes "a gross violation of religious freedom and a remarkably aggressive interference in religious matters," the WCC states in a letter addressed to President George W. Bush, issued on 10 July 2006.

On behalf of the World Council of Churches (WCC), which has a two-decades-long record of supporting the peaceful reunification of the Korean peninsula, its general secretary Rev. Dr Sam Kobia, today wrote to WCC member churches and the national council of churches in South Korea condemning the test launching of seven missiles, including the long-range Daepodong- missile 2, by the People's Republic of Korea on 4 July 2006.

WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia joins more than 200 religious leaders from around the world who have arrived in Moscow for the World Summit of Religious Leaders, 3-5 July 2006.

International church and ecumenical organizations have welcomed the adoption of a new International Convention on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, and a Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, both of which were agreed at the inaugural session of the UN Human Rights Council which concluded in Geneva on 30 June 2006.

The head of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, Patriarch Abune Paulos, one of the presidents of the WCC, has spoken out forcefully in favour of peace and reconciliation in a region beset by conflicts.

"Deeply distressed" by the current escalation of the Israel/Palestine conflict, World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia called on the international community "to take bold and novel actions to uphold international law and break the vicious cycle of violence" in the region. Both parties should engage in "equitable negotiations," he said.