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The Mumbai terrorist attacks and an IMF agreement that will negatively impact the poor set the tone for a World Council of Churches (WCC) Living Letters team visit to Pakistan from 24 November to 1 December.

Church leaders attending the annual meeting of the United States Conference for the World Council of Churches in Washington began drafting a message to President-elect Barack Obama that they plan to send to him prior to his inauguration on 20 January.

Education is crucial to grapple with violence, the president of the Protestant Federation of Haiti, Rev. Sylvain Exantus, told an international ecumenical team visiting Haiti from 24 to 28 November.

After six days of intense discussions on migration, the conflict in Sri Lanka and climate change, of common prayer and practical efforts to make the voice of the churches on these issues heard at the United Nations, the UN Advocacy Week of the World Council of Churches (WCC) ended with good results on Friday.

The Joint Working Group between the Roman Catholic Church and the World Council of Churches (WCC) has began to pursue two study processes on how churches can make their own the outcomes of ecumenical dialogues - the so called "reception process" - and on the "spiritual roots of ecumenism".

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Leaders of Sri Lanka's Buddhist majority expressed divergent views on resolving the ethnic conflict in their country, while speaking to a delegation led by Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia, general secretary of the World Council of Churches.

The plight of people displaced by war will be the main topic of a " Living Letters " visit to Uganda, 27 October to 2 November. An international ecumenical delegation sent by the World Council of Churches (WCC) will discuss with representatives of churches, state and civil society about the protection of refugees, with a specific focus on sexual violence and the vulnerability of children.

By Anto Akkara (*)

There is a "gradual retreat of neoliberalism" in the region, according to participants in a Latin America and Caribbean ecumenical consultation to examine the links between poverty, wealth and ecology.

The World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia has said that "one of the greatest problems facing the world today is religious extremism."

The Commission on World Mission and Evangelism (CWME) of the World Council of Churches (WCC) agreed to hold a mission event involving some 200 participants in mid-2012, in advance of the WCC 10th assembly to take place the following year.

The rapidly changing relationship between religion and state and the challenge of multiple identities were the foci of a lively dialogue between ten Chinese and nine European scholars and religious leaders representing Buddhism, Islam, Christianity and traditional Chinese religions held in Sweden, 3-6 October.

Despite having a constitution which does not allow discrimination and a proactive government working for the integration of the marginalized parts of society, violence and discrimination persist in some parts of India.

"New paradigms and models of ecumenical work and engagement" are necessary to counter "a malaise in the ecumenical movement" in Asia, a group of ecumenists from the region stated.