Search results

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.

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.

At the 50th meeting since its foundation in 1946, the Commission of the Churches on International Affairs (CCIA) decided to refocus, establishing four thematic working groups, in order better to respond to the needs of the member churches.

A new inter-religious partnership for health will be kick-started at the United Nations Millennium Development Goals Review Summit in New York, 20-22 September.

With a new sense of urgency in view of a pandemic that grows exponentially, high level figures from many of the world's faiths have committed to exercise "stronger, more visible and practical leadership" in response to HIV, with an emphasis on eradicating the stigma and discrimination towards those affected.

The first-ever Summit of High Level Religious Leaders on HIV and AIDS will be held in Den Dolder, Netherlands, from 22-23 March 2010. It aims to generate greater involvement from religious leaders of many of the world’s faiths in the global response to the pandemic.

By Juan Michel (*)

On the eve of the 22 September United Nations Summit on Climate Change representatives of faith communities around the world called on world leaders and on "all people of Earth to accept the reality of the common danger we face, the imperative and responsibility for immediate and decisive action and the opportunity to change."

"As Christians, we are called to stand with those who are victims of oppression, poverty or violence," Rev. Elenora Giddings Ivory, director of the World Council of Churches (WCC) programme on Public Witness said in advance of the WCC's United Nations Advocacy Week, 16 to 21 November in New York.