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Former World Council of Churches (WCC) communications director Mark E. Beach was honoured at a commemorative prayer service on 22 September.

Religions for Peace is the world's largest and most representative multi-religious coalition, and as in other multi-faith groups, the World Council of Churches (WCC) and its ecumenical family figure strongly in its leadership bodies.

A Roundtable for Peace on the Korean Peninsula convened in Atlanta, Georgia (USA) on 8-12 November, building on decades of progress by the Korean Methodist Church, United Methodist Church, and World Methodist Council, as well the Korean Christian Federation and the World Council of Churches (WCC).

Promoting responsible agricultural investments was the theme of a session organised by the WCC at the Civil Society Policy Forum of the World Bank Group-International Monetary Fund Annual Meetings held in Washington DC from 9-13 October. “There is no doubt we need to invest more in agriculture – it feeds us all and remains an important source of employment, especially for the world’s poor,” said Athena Peralta, WCC programme executive for economic and ecological justice.

As tens of thousands of people coped with the aftermath of flooding in South Asia and the USA, World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit said the WCC fellowship is praying for flood survivors and those helping them.

As the recent developments of nuclear weapons and increased tensions between United States and North Korea leaders can bring the world to the brink of war, churches around the world are calling for bilateral dialogue, expressing their commitment to peace and nonviolent resolution.

“Negotiate a legally-binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons”. Do it “in 2017”. Make sure the negotiations are “open to all states” and include civil society. These are key points in a much-disputed report adopted last week by a United Nations working group of more than 100 countries meeting in Geneva.

Following the recent nuclear test conducted by North Korea, the WCC is calling on all parties involved in the current situation on the Korean peninsula – especially South Korea, North Korea, the USA, Japan and China – to “invest in initiatives to reduce tensions, to promote dialogue and to encourage negotiations for an end to the suspended state of war, and for peaceful co-existence on the Korean peninsula, rather than measures that increase the risk of catastrophic conflict“, according to WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit.

Church leaders from seven countries currently making historic choices for or against outlawing nuclear weapons will embark on a pilgrimage in early August to the two Japanese cities that were decimated by atomic bombs 70 years ago.

The plenary on justice at the WCC 10th Assembly brings into focus the core of its theme “God of life, lead us to justice and peace.” Following on diverse reflections from around the world on Christian unity, Asia and mission, the assembly plenary on 6 November in Busan, Republic of Korea, highlighted struggles for justice.

World leaders at the United Nations last week backed two steps in relation to the Arms Trade Treaty, promoted by churches, to make people safer through new laws to control deadly weapons.

Events in Northeast Asia this year “dramatize how much the region and the world still live in the shadow of mass destruction”, the WCC general secretary said in a comment on the 68th anniversary this week of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. “The God of life calls all of us to take up [the survivors’] tireless cry and make certain that a Hiroshima or Nagasaki bombing can never happen again.”