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Two global church organizations have congratulated the Durban Review Conference on the adoption of its outcome document, while regretting that the latter makes no mention of the plight of hundreds of millions of people affected by caste-based discrimination.

The prime minister of uranium-rich Namibia favours his country ratifying the Africa Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone Treaty, a long-delayed milestone that requires action by only two more states, but with a caveat about peace.

The World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia has urged the government of Sri Lanka to immediately release from detention Santha Fernando, an ecumenical official who has been under arrest for nearly a month.

Caste-based discrimination in India may be 3,500 years old, but something new is unfolding. An emerging liberation movement has consciously chosen not to focus on Dalits' victimhood, but on the latent strength of the Dalit people, drawn from their own history and culture.

By Maurice Malanes (*)

An international ecumenical consultation has appealed to the government of Sri Lanka and the rebel movement Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to halt fighting in order to free tens of thousands of civilians trapped in a war zone in the north of the country.

WCC Central Committee member Rev. Dr Sharon Watkins, general minister and president of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) is among 25 religious and secular leaders and scholars appointed to US President Obama's Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. Also on the panel are the leaders of two WCC member churches -  Bishop Vashti M. McKenzie, of the African Methodist Episcopal Church ; and the Rev. Dr. William J. Shaw, of the National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc. - as well as the Rev. Peg Chemberlin, a Moravian clergywoman who is to become president of the National Council of Churches USA in 2010.

Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev, an Oxford-educated cleric who served as the Moscow Patriarchate's representative to European organizations in Brussels, has been appointed as head of the Russian Orthodox Church's Department of External Church Relations. Bishop Hilarion is also a member of the Central and Executive Committees of the World Council of Churches.

Jointly issued by LWF and WCC

By Emma Halgren (*)