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The World Council of Churches (WCC) is sending an international ecumenical Living Letters delegation to visit the Indigenous Peoples in the Northern Territory of Australia from 12 -17 September 2010.

Deep concern over the precarious situation people on the Korean peninsula are facing was expressed by the general secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC) in a letter to WCC member churches in South Korea.

Church ecumenical officers play a key role in the advancement of ecumenism at a time when resources are scarce and inward-looking tendencies thrive.

In a keynote speech on the theme of the 13 th General Assembly of the Christian Conference of Asia (CCA) "Called to Prophesy, Reconcile and Heal", the Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, general secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC) said: " There is no true prophecy that does not speak both the critical truth and contribute to the building up of a vision, a dream of the new life in common."

An international ecumenical delegation visiting Turkey at the end of November has encouraged the country's authorities to improve the situation of religious minorities. The exercise of religious freedom, the legal status of churches, including property issues, and the right to religious education were on the agenda.

By Mark Beach (*)

By Konrad Raiser (*)

Nearly 140 leaders from the world's churches, North and South Koreans among them, have called for the formation of an inter-Korean confederation even before complete reunification of Korea can take place. Agreement was reached at the close of a three-day meeting in Tsuen Wan, Hong Kong where the Christian leaders expressed unrelenting hope for peace and reconciliation among Koreans, despite the stark realities of the ongoing division of the Korean peninsula.

Ecumenical Delegation to Meet With High-Level Officials to Promote Peace and Reconciliation

In a momentary foretaste of Korean reunification, two Korean pastors - one from the north, one from the south - bridged more than 60 years of separation in jointly presiding over a celebration of the Eucharist during a worship service commemorating more than 25 years of work toward bringing peace and reconciliation to the divided Korean peninsula. The “Tozanso Process”, which brings together Christians from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in the north and the Republic of Korea in the south, as well as representatives of partner churches from other nations, was initiated by the World Council of Churches (WCC) in 1984.

In a recent meeting with a delegation from the World Council of Churches (WCC) visiting Pyongyang, North Korean president Kim Yong-nam said a significant impetus to solving the nuclear weapons stand-off in the region would be for North Korea and the U.S. to meet “face-to-face with each other”.

By Jonathan Frerichs (*)

The election of a new general secretary for the organization and the selection of the venue for its next assembly were highlights of the World Council of Churches (WCC) Central Committee meeting that ended yesterday in Geneva, Switzerland.

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How does the church interact with a rapidly changing society? On 31 August, members of the World Council of Churches Central Committee spent much of the morning discussing this question in a pair of plenary sessions in Geneva.

Central committee members will choose between three potential sites for the 10th Assembly of the World Council of Churches, to be held in 2013: Busan, South Korea; Damascus, Syria; and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

"Being indigenous peoples is not about wearing colourful garments but about being engaged in the political struggle towards an alternative to the current, crisis-laden model of civilization", says María Chávez Quispe, an indigenous person from Bolivia who is a consultant for indigenous issues at the World Council of Churches (WCC).

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.