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At the 42nd Committee on World Food Security in Rome on 12-15 October, the intergovernmental body continued its quest to coordinate a global approach to food security.

The possibility of a new economic framework is the chief focus of the newly published issue of The Ecumenical Review. Informed by years of ecumenical work on the relationship of poverty, wealth and ecology (including the proposal for a “greed line”), the 14 contributors offer an array of insights from specific contexts and religious standpoints – Dalits, South Africans, Latin Americans, Indigenous spirituality, feminist theology and non-Christian religions – into the values and structures that can create an “economy of life” for all.

Meeting from 17 to 24 June, the newly reconstituted Commission on Faith and Order of the WCC has begun to define its principal trajectories for ecumenical study and common activity from 2015 until the next WCC Assembly in 2020.

The 2014 Annual Review of the World Council of Churches, now published and posted online, reports on the 2014 activities and projects of the council.

Anglican and Reformed member churches of the WCC have taken significant new actions toward climate justice.

In Africa, where up to 40 percent of the health care facilities are provided by faith based organizations, Dr Mirfin Mpundu, executive director of the Ecumenical Pharmaceutical Network, says that due to their unique position churches can play a special role in eliminating HIV and AIDS and bringing improvements in the lives of people living with the virus.

Faith-based organizations, with the United Nations, have urged expansion of access to anti-retroviral treatment for persons living with HIV and AIDS in a consultation organized by the UNAIDS and Caritas Internationalis, from 25 to 26 February in Rome, Italy.

A seminar at the Ecumenical Institute in Bossey, Switzerland gathered diverse reflections on eco-theology, care for the creation and climate change, and how to build a sustainable world. The contributors included Christian theologians and activists as well as youth.

How we understand God figures directly in how we treat our planet and its inhabitants, asserts a group of theologians in the newest issue of The Ecumenical Review.

As HIV has reached its 30-year mark and a new generation confronts the effects, the latest issue of The Ecumenical Review takes a critical look at the pandemic.

"Greed and Global Economics" is the theme of the latest issue of Ecumenical Review. In view of the current economic, financial and ecological crises, theologians, economists, an ethicist, and an historian provide an analysis of the issues of economic justice and structural greed.

The WCC Executive Committee opened its bi-annual meetings Monday 12 September in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia with a welcoming ceremony by local church leaders and poignant and detailed presentations on the regional humanitarian crisis in Somalia and neighbouring countries.

Substantial information on torture and other human rights abuses was entrusted to the Brazilian attorney general at a ceremony in São Paulo on 14 June 2011. There was also a call for a national truth commission in Brazil to shed more light on past atrocities during the ceremony.

The Chernobyl disaster of 25 years ago remains a human and environmental tragedy so severe the consequences will continue for centuries. Its anniversary this week is especially timely given the current emergency in Japan which echoes some of Chernobyl’s hard lessons. To learn them would honour those who suffer from the past and could save lives in the future.

By Marcelo Schneider (*)

As churches worldwide prepare for the International Ecumenical Peace Convocation (IEPC) in Jamaica in May, the latest edition of the World Council of Churches (WCC) quarterly journal, Ecumenical Review, will focus on challenges of peacemaking in places as varied as the Middle East and Africa.

The wholeness of creation and the commitment for justice are two biblical insights that have guided ecumenical concern on climate change, say the editors of the latest issue of The Ecumenical Review, published under the title, "Churches Caring for Creation and Climate Justice".

Radical changes and tangible commitments from world leaders are needed if an equitable and sustainable global economic system is to be built, says an ecumenical delegation attending a UN conference on financing for development starting tomorrow in Qatar.

The executive committee of the World Council of Churches (WCC), meeting in Luebeck, Germany, 23-26 September 2008, reviewed programme, budget, and approved various public statements and reports and the extension of the contract of the current general secretary.