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This year's Nobel Peace Prize affirms that "multilateral, legal and peaceable conduct of international affairs is not only possible but productive," said Peter Weiderud, director of the World Council of Churches Commission of the Churches on International Affairs (WCC/CCIA), commenting on the prize awarded to Mohamed El Baradei today.

> Middle East, US, Caribbean and Latin American churches prepare for WCC Assembly > Women's Voices and Visions on Being Church > Aram I and Kobia at US seminar on the future of ecumenism > Global Communicators' Network Meeting > Kobia at International Conference on Violence and Christian Spirituality

"Tourism, while being a potent force for good, has sadly turned into an activity that leaves in its trail massive numbers of victims", says World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Samuel Kobia in a message on World Tourism Day, 27 September.

A spear buried on the common border of two nomadic-pastoralist communities in the North Rift region of Kenya marked the end of bloody clashes a couple of decades ago. Today, the two rivals need the churches to help them arrest a fast-growing gun culture.

"The outcomes of the UN world summit, the largest gathering of heads of state in history, fall far short of the vision and the expectations of churches and people during this critical period in world history," said World Council of Churches' (WCC) general secretary Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia, speaking on the eve of the International Day of Prayer for Peace, 21 September.

Churches must take responsibility to nurture healing in broken societies and to promote peace, urged leaders of the World Council of Churches (WCC) in public statements on Haiti and small arms released today.

Calling on member churches and churches around the world to observe an International Day of Prayer for Peace on 21 September, World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia observes that "Christian spirituality is not a call to retreat from social action and public life. As injustice and violence grow, […] we have all the more reason to pray with and for one another and for our world."

Reacting to the tragic events at Baghdad's Kadhimiya mosque on 31 August, which Iraqi authorities fear have claimed the lives of up to a thousand Muslim pilgrims, the general secretary of the World Council of Churches Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia expressed the heartfelt condolences and deep sympathy felt by Christians worldwide at this loss of life.

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To fully evaluate the Gaza pullout, it is necessary to watch for a number of "signs of peace" in the months ahead, according to the international affairs unit of the World Council of Churches (WCC).