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The WCC mourns the death of Leopoldo J. Niilus, former director of the WCC’s Commission of the Churches on International Affairs (CCIA), renowned lawyer, peace negotiator and author of several writings on human rights and international affairs.

Participants in a recent WCC consultation in Myanmar have stressed the need to equip churches and ecumenical organizations to build peace, human security and human dignity in order to move beyond conflicts, towards a world of peace.

In the wake of a racially charged police shooting in the state of Missouri, United States, “the efforts of the churches, faith communities, ecumenical and interfaith partners and civil society organizations and coalitions that have called for prayer, calm, peaceful protest, and open and honest dialogue on racism and issues of class” have received support and encouragement from the WCC.

A Peace Train has recently started its journey from Berlin, Germany through Russia and China to northeast Asia and the WCC 10th assembly in Busan, Republic of Korea.

Church leaders from Syria, Russia, the United States and European nations have called a political solution the only way towards peace in Syria. This stance was shared in a communique they issued following their meeting with Kofi Annan, former United Nations general secretary, and Lakhdar Brahimi, UN-Arab League joint representative for Syria.

At a WCC consultation in Hong Kong participants reflected on “Asia’s human security challenges” today and how to strengthen efforts of working towards “sustainable peace with justice in Northeast Asia.”

An international ecumenical consultation in Hong Kong is all set to examine issues of human security and peace with justice in Asia, especially in the context of recent geo-political developments in the Northeast Asia, with a special focus on the Korean peninsula.

At the recent World Social Forum, ecumenical voices warned about the grave consequences of extraction of natural resources and mining, which they say generate a tremendous amount of social and ecological debt.

Church representatives at a recent Oikotree Global Forum in Johannesburg, South Africa stressed the need to support peoples'€™ movements promoting justice in the economy and ecology, a concern, they say, that lies at the heart of the faith.

"€œPeace is something radical, something that has to be told - and has to be believed, so that it may become possible," said the Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, general secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC) in a Sunday evening sermon at the Myung Sung Presbyterian Church in Seoul, Republic of Korea on 27 January 2013.