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In a symbolic act of closure of the year that began with the first WCC assembly in Latin America, World Council of Churches central committee moderator Rev. Dr Walter Altmann visited an interactive exhibition on domestic violence in downtown Porto Alegre/Brazil.

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".

What does cruelty have to do with theology? Some 25 theologians from all over the world will gather on 5-8 December in Crêt-Bérard (near Lausanne, Switzerland), to discuss why and to what extent cruelty can be considered as a new theme for theological reflection.

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The Lutheran World Federation (LWF) and the World Council of Churches (WCC) have reacted together to news of the "despicable" assassination on 4 November of Lutheran Church in El Salvador co-pastors Francisco Carillo and his wife Jesús Calzada de Carillo.

An inter-religious seminar on the "spiritual dimensions underlying the crisis in violence" will be part of a 13-15 November public event in Rochester, New York (USA) focusing on violence and the how faith communities can respond to it. Â

A new group of 25 ecumenical accompaniers have just begun three months of working with the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI). The group includes the first Hindu and the second Muslim to participate in the programme, the former from South Africa and the latter from the UK.

The 11 October killing in Mousel, Iraq, of a Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch priest, Father Boulos Iskander, was a "senseless crime that... neither benefits anyone nor promotes the cause of any religion".

A 10 October World Council of Churches (WCC) pastoral letter to the National Council of Churches and WCC member churches in the Philippines expresses the Council's "deep shock and grief" over the brutal stabbing on 3 October of Philippine Independent Church Bishop Alberto Ramento, and alleges that Philippines government security forces continue "to indulge in victimization, torture and extra judicial killings on the pretext of fighting the terrorist threat in the region" in spite of protests and demonstrations.

The World Council of Churches (WCC) has congratulated the sponsoring states of a draft resolution on conventional arms control currently before the United Nations General Assembly and urged them to include in the text a specific reference to international human rights law.

"The World Council of Churches (WCC) calls for the prompt and unqualified recognition of His Beatitude Patriarch Theophilus III as the primate of the Greek Orthodox Church of Jerusalem by the Government of Israel," said WCC general secretary, Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia in a letter sent to Israel's prime minister Ehud Olmert on 29 September.

The World Council of Churches (WCC) will continue to offer pastoral accompaniment to the relatives of a group of imprisoned people known as the "Cuban Five", and will advocate for the relatives' right to visit them.

The World Council of Churches (WCC) today expressed its continued concern and distress at the ongoing atrocities taking place in the Darfur region of the Sudan.

In a major new initiative, the central committee of the World Council of Churches (WCC) has endorsed proposals to establish a comprehensive ecumenical advocacy initiative for peace in the Middle East, and has reiterated its alarm at the dramatic humanitarian consequences and alleged violations of international law during the recent war in Lebanon and northern Israel. Â

The World Council of Churches' (WCC) central committee has urged religious and political leaders to promote the return of displaced persons, co-existence and reconciliation in the divided region of Kosovo as the basis of any long-term settlement.

The central committee of the World Council of Churches (WCC) has appealed to the United Nations and the African Union to endorse a plan for a sustainable peace process between the government of Uganda and the "Lord's Resistance Army" (LRA).

The main points of focus for the 2007 Decade to Overcome Violence focus on Europe will be migration and working on a theology of a just peace.

The central committee of the World Council of Churches (WCC) today called on the Government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam to respect the terms and conditions of the 2002 cease-fire agreement, put an immediate end to all hostilities and resume peace negotiations without future delay.

The World Council of Churches (WCC) central committee today condemnedextrajudicial killings in the Philippinesand called onthe government of the Philippines to disband "death squads", private militias and paramilitary forces operating with impunity in the country.

Lebanon's minister of culture, Dr Tarek Mitri, on 2 September expressed gratitude to the World Council of Churches (WCC), for its expressions of solidarity following Israel's attacks on Lebanon.