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Peter Prove, director of the World Council of Churches Commission of the Churches on International Affairs, spoke on a nuclear weapons-free world during “The Audacity of Peace” gathering in Berlin.

A conference held in Wuppertal, Germany, and online on 9-12 April published a message calling on churches across the world to not only listen more closely to the victims of human rights violations, but to act in stronger solidarity with them.

Bringing together biblical, theological and practical perspectives on human dignity, participants of the international conference in Wuppertal challenged churches for a common understanding and protection of human rights during the public panel discussion on 11 April.

Addressing the challenges for a common vision of churches on human rights today, the international conference “Christian Perspectives on Human Dignity and Human Rights” will take place on 9-12 April in Wuppertal, Germany. Everyone is invited to follow the public session of the conference on 11 April, when a panel of the keynote speakers will bring together biblical, theological and practical perspectives on human dignity.

At the annual Karlsruhe Foyer Church and Law reception on 15 June, German bishops gathered with judges of the Federal Constitutional Court and Federal Court of Justice, as well as representatives of the Federal Prosecutor's Office and of the legal profession in Germany, to hear some reflections on “Ecumenical engagement for human rights, and current challenges.”

For many decades, the World Council of Churches (WCC) has worked to promote peace on the Korean Peninsula. From bringing people from both sides of the divided country together, to building an international ecumenical network to support them, the WCC has a history of formulating and promoting a vision for peace.

The need for urgent ecumenical responses to the dangerously escalating tensions on the Korean peninsula was the focus of a meeting of the Ecumenical Forum for Peace, Reunification and Development Cooperation on the Korean Peninsula (EFK) held in Leipzig, Germany on 7-8 July.

Analyzing efforts to protect religious communities and groups and build peace in Syria and Iraq, the WCC and Norwegian Church Aid presented a joint study on protection needs of religious and ethnic minorities in Syria and Iraq. The findings were announced on 12 December to the media and public at the Palais des Nations in Geneva.

The experience of his father’s fleeing Nazi Germany in 1938 and then living alien and stateless in Sweden provides biblical theologian Hans Ucko with the touchstone of his writing about stateless persons.

If we do not adjust aid better to the needs of the minorities in Syria and northern Iraq, we run the risk of building walls instead of bridges. As the populations of Syria and Iraq feel the toll of armed conflicts in their countries, the World Council of Churches and Norwegian Church Aid are now releasing a unique joint study, “Protection needs of minorities from Syria and Iraq,” today, 28 November, in Oslo, Norway.

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.

“The way we handle the refugee crisis, not least the settling in and integration process, will be of utmost significance, both for the attitude towards refugees and asylum seekers in the future, and for the long-term stability and sustainability of our own societies”, said Knut Vollebaek, ambassador and former Norwegian foreign minister, in his speech at the recent WCC/UN conference on Europe’s refugee crisis.

Reflections from the International Conference on Peace and Reunification on the Korean Peninsula in Arnoldshain, Germany

In the wake of recent crisis with the refugees in Europe, it is “absolutely and critically necessary that all European states take their proper responsibility in terms of reception and support for people seeking refuge, safety and a better future for themselves and their families. This cannot be left only to the states where they enter first,” says the WCC general secretary.

Church leaders from seven countries currently making historic choices for or against outlawing nuclear weapons will embark on a pilgrimage in early August to the two Japanese cities that were decimated by atomic bombs 70 years ago.