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The WCC Central Committee this week condemned a whole category of peculiarly indiscriminate weapons known as cluster munitions. A cluster munition scatters many small bombs in order to kill and injure people over a wide area. The church debate in Geneva coincided with a world conference on banning the weapons that stirred deep debate between governments and NGOs meeting in New Zealand.

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 (*)

Joint release with the World Alliance of Reformed Churches and the Council for World Mission

As 2008 marks the 60th anniversary of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it will be a "fantastic opportunity" for churches to re-connect with the endeavour of protecting and promoting human dignity, participants at an international ecumenical consultation were told.

The legacies of the slave trade, and how churches can respond to past and present forms of slavery, are going to be discussed at an ecumenical conference to be held 10-14 December in Runaway Bay, Jamaica. About sixty theologians, church leaders, social scientists and activists, mainly from Africa, the Americas and the Caribbean will gather in the country where nearly one million Africans and later indentured servants from Asia were exploited as human commodities and many more transited on their often deadly passage into slavery.

The United Nations and the World Council of Churches (WCC) have reaffirmed their commitment to collaborate at a meeting between the general secretaries of both organizations held on 29 October at the UN headquarters in New York.

In an effort to promote dialogue as an alternative to a possible military confrontation between Iran and the United States, the World Council of Churches (WCC) co-sponsored a discussion between Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and nearly 140 people of faith from across the United States.

"Robert Bilheimer is well remembered within the WCC as one of the imaginative individuals whose faithful and creative spirit shaped the movement and actions of the Council in its early stage of development," wrote WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia to Mrs Dorothy Bilheimer on 18 January 2007.

Writing to Mrs Adelheid Kistner on 5 December, WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia characterized her husband, South African pastor Dr Wolfram Kistner, as "a tireless champion for justice, equality and human dignity for all," and "one of the clearest voices, articulating biblically and theologically why we as Christians had to support the struggle against apartheid".

"… an extraordinary woman who lived an extraordinary life during an extraordinary time" is how World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary, Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia, describes Coretta Scott King in a tribute sent today to member churches in the USA. The widow of the US civil rights leader Martin Luther King, died yesterday, 31 January, at the age of 78.

With two months remaining until the World Council of Churches' 9th Assembly in 2006, the organizers have launched an invitation to churches and Christians everywhere to accompany and support the event.

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Hook up now to a major ecumenical happening, due to start in just three months!

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In 2005, for the second year running, churches representing over 560 million Christians world-wide are being invited to mark the UN International Day of Peace, 21 September, as an International Day of Prayer for Peace.

Grace and peace to you on this Feast of Pentecost 2005, in which we celebrate the many gifts of God's Spirit!