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Counting the 20 new volunteers who recently arrived in Jerusalem, the total number of people to have participated in the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI) has now passed the 200-mark, as the programme completes its third year of existence.

In a 1 August letter to Sudan's churches following the announcement of the death of the country's first vice-president, Dr John Garang, the World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia has expressed his "deep sadness" and his "solidarity and support" for the churches and people of Sudan.

Expressing solidarity with the victims of today's bomb blasts in London, and total rejection of violent actions, World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia sent the following message to the churches and the people of the United Kingdom:

The theme for the World Council of Churches (WCC) 9th Assembly, to be held in Porto Alegre, Brazil 14-23 February 2006, invites us to return to, and re-appropriate, the resources of prayer.

Given the history of their relationships, interreligious dialogue between Christians and Jews may be seen as a "miracle", but it's also a complex and demanding endeavour.

Representatives of the world's main faith communities have proposed reshaping the approach to global interreligious dialogue to face threats posed by the current world context more effectively.

The future will see the World Council of Churches (WCC) more courageously challenging its members to take up interreligious tasks in their own contexts, and practitioners of interreligious dialogue committing themselves to enlarging their community.

The need for religions to undertake a "critical and realistic self assessment" while making "overcoming violence in all its forms" an "urgent priority" was stressed by the World Council of Churches (WCC) central committee moderator, Catholicos Aram I, speaking in Geneva today.

> Critical moment interreligious conference > WCC general secretary meets Pope Benedict XVI > Samuel Kobia visits Russian Orthodox Church > Joint Consultative Group of the WCC and Pentecostal churches > Indigenous Peoples on interreligious dialogue and globalization

Moving away from 'cool' images of violence conveyed by culture, participants at the world mission conference in Athens took a hard look at the ambivalent relationship between mission and violence. No easy answers though.