News and stories

The World Council of Churches general secretary Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia appealed to Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari to "ensure the safety and security" of Christians in the Punjab province, where three attacks against Christian communities were carried by militant Islamic groups in the last two months. He demanded that the government "take necessary actions against the perpetrators".

The World Council of Churches (WCC) will welcome five young people (aged 18-30 years) to serve as interns in its Geneva offices from February 2010 to January 2011. Interns bring valuable experiences to the WCC at the same time as they undertake several modules of ecumenical learning.

Anna Muinonen is the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) programme coordinator for FinnChurchAid, a member of Action by Churches Together (ACT) International providing emergency relief to victims of the long running conflict in the Central African country.

There is much hope in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) that the guns will soon fall silent. But the trail of human rights abuses the combatants leave behind compels the churches to intervene.

From the smallest village to the biggest town in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) people are yearning for peace. Church leaders encourage the rebel fighters to disarm.

A team of church representatives from Portugal, Switzerland and Brazil is paying a solidarity visit to churches, ecumenical organizations and civil society organizations in Angola and Mozambique from 18 to 28 July.

Dispelling the myth of "a little peaceful country", an international ecumenical Living Letters team visited Uruguay and discovered how violence manifests itself at the levels of family life, the state and youth, and how the churches in this South American country seek to overcome it.

In a speech in Kinshasa on 13 July, Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia, the general secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC), challenged churches to end their denial of violence against women. "The churches still seem to relegate violence to the private sphere, and still understand violence as only physical," he said.

A recent international consultation in Bucharest, Romania, saw representatives from 12 Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches debate on the teaching and practice of Orthodox ethics on peace.

A team of church representatives from Europe, Latin America and Africa will pay a solidarity visit to churches, ecumenical organizations and civil society movements in Uruguay and Bolivia from 9 to 16 July. A second team will visit the Democratic Republic of Congo at the same time.