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World News

  • December 16, 2006
    World churches to establish advocacy forum on Middle East

    With the urgent necessity for peace in Israel and Palestine at the top of the global agenda, a World Council of Churches meeting has begun work on setting up an international forum to galvanize world-wide church advocacy for the Middle East.

  • December 15, 2006
    Auctioned potato makes a healthy contribution to Sudan

    A smiling potato being auctioned off by a North Carolina church youth group to raise money for people in Sudan has brought in an additional 1,045 US dollars for the cause - after proving a surprise hit on eBay and among local donors.

  • December 15, 2006
    Muslim clerics disagree about use of condoms to combat HIV-AIDS

    Muslim clerics from 25 African countries failed to reach agreement on the use of condoms in preventing HIV and AIDS at a recent meeting in Zanzibar - writes Frank Jomo for Ecumenical News International

  • December 14, 2006
    Indian Catholic bishops highlight plight of Muslims, Dalits and other minorities

    Catholic Bishops in India have appealed for justice for the country's Muslim population as it faces increasing pressure from nationalists, alongside Christians. They have also highlighted the plight of Dalits (formerly known as 'untouchables') and other minority communities.

  • December 14, 2006
    US churches seek reasoned debate on biotechnology industry

    A major inter-church organisation in the United States is urging people of faith join the debate on stem cell research in a constructive way, to raise necessary questions about human "enhancement", to affirm the human purposes of biotechnology, and to press for adequate regulation of the companies shaping the future of this crucial industry.

  • December 14, 2006
    Tea day keeps justice issues on the boil

    Long hours and arduous labour conditions are the daily reality faced by tea plantation workers the world over, say campaigners who will be drawing attention to their plight on Saturday. The reality is that their wages tend to be among the lowest in the world, with some receiving less than £1 per day.

  • December 13, 2006
    Pioneering US peace tax fund director is remembered

    Marian Hilda Claassen Franz, the first full-time director of the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund (NCPTF) in the United States, died last month, aged 76, after a two-year struggle with cancer ‚Ä' reports J. Daryl Byler of Mennonite Central Committee, the North American peace church development and relief organisation.

  • December 13, 2006
    Archbishop Tutu laments Israeli block on his fact-finding mission

    South African Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu says it is distressing that Israel blocked a planned mission by him and British professor Christine Chinkin to investigate the killing of 19 Palestinian civilians by Israeli shells - writes Peter Kenny for Ecumenical News International.

  • December 13, 2006
    UK visit to Bethlehem welcomed by local church and civic leaders

    Church and civic leaders in Bethlehem, together with the Anglican and Catholic bishops of Jerusalem, have welcomed the plans by UK church leaders to make an Advent pilgrimage to Bethlehem - which is facing isolation, depopulation and economic collapse due to the Israel-Palestine conflict and the presence of the separation wall.

  • December 12, 2006
    Theologians confront the roots of cruel and degrading treatment

    The image, message and reality of the crucixion of Jesus Christ "calls us [Christians] not to glorify, but to attend to the suffering in the world and to struggle for its elimination," said the participants of a recent theological consultation on cruelty organized by the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches (WCC) in partnership with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).