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The Tokyo Olympic Games have begun one year late in one of the world's biggest cities. There are no spectators—and little of the usual spiritual support from churches and no official Olympic Village prayer room.

As the Church of South India Synod released its new website, www.csi1947.com, on 31 May, the World Council of Churches (WCC) extended congratulations and prayers for meaningful storytelling, images and expressions of hope.

Archbishop Rev. Dr Soritua Albert Ernest Nababan, a global ecumenical leader, passed away on 8 May in Jakarta, Indonesia, at the age of 88. He was the World Council of Churches (WCC) president from 2006-2013 and served as the former Ephorus (Archbishop) of the Huria Kristen Batak Protestan, the largest Protestant church in Indonesia and the largest Lutheran church in Asia with a membership of 4 million people.

Rev. Dr Santanu Kumar Patro, registrar of the Senate of Serampore College (University), passed away on 5 May in Calcutta. The news of his death was met with outpourings of grief and gratefulness from students, faculty and friends of seminaries and institutions responsible for theological education in South Asia and beyond.

World Council of Churches acting general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Ioan Sauca expressed deep alarm at the recent decision of the Japanese government to approve the release of tritium-contaminated water from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant into the Pacific Ocean. 

As a report on human rights abuses in the Philippines was delivered to the UN by the global group Investigate PH, churches and human rights groups reiterated their concerns over propagation of a culture that allows the abuse to happen.

Rev. Prof. Dr Fernando Enns, on behalf of the World Council of Churches (WCC), presented a prayer in an interfaith setting during the 7th Global Interreligious Conference on Article 9 of the Japanese Peace Constitution, held 9 March in Okinawa.

World Council of Churches interim general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Ioan Sauca sent joyful greetings to the Gereja Masehi Injili di Halmahera 4th Annual Assembly in Indonesia, being held 18 February.

The National Council of Churches in Korea has published a Korean translation of The Light of Peace: Churches in Solidarity with the Korean Peninsula, a book the World Council of Churches (WCC) fellowship is using to recognize 70 years of unresolved conflict on the Korean Peninsula.

As the years change over the World Council of Churches interim general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Ioan Sauca on 31 December condemned the vicious Yemen attack hitting civilians. Sauca also expressed solidarity and prayers with churches and responders who continue to help hundreds of injured and traumatized people of the earthquake in Croatia and Norway landslide.

In a message of solidarity to the United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP), World Council of Churches (WCC) interim general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Ioan Sauca expressed concern that the human rights situation in the Philippines continues to deteriorate.