World News

THE UNITED Nations reports that the number of people needing assistance in the Horn of Africa crisis has now risen to 12.4 million, with drought declared in three more areas of Somalia. Alistair Gee, Executive Director of Act for Peace, the international aid agency of the National Council of Churches in Australia, said the situation is worse than ever. “Act ...

A Norwegian bishop addressing the recent bombing and shooting attacks in his country said Norway has "countered this insane terrorism by demonstrating love and solidarity." "We have brought out a social capital we maybe even did not know was there. We must rebuild our trust in human beings as fellow human beings," said Church of Norway Bishop Tor Singsaas of ...

"Norway has today experienced an unprecedented and horrible level of violence against innocent people," said Rev Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, a Norwegian Lutheran pastor and general secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC). Dr Tveit, who is currently in Norway, had just left Oslo when he learned of the bombing of a government building and the shooting at a ...

South Sudan achieves its independence on Saturday 9 July 2011, and the new president has received congratulations and an assurance of continued solidarity from Rev Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, general secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC). In a letter dated 7 July on behalf of the WCC, Tveit extended to the president of the Republic of South Sudan, ...

Young Christians aged 18-30 years are invited to apply for a programme addressing the links between environmental and socio-economic justice which is jointly organized by the World Council of Churches (WCC) and the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) in the context of United Nations climate negotiations in the latter part of 2011. “Youth for Eco-Justice” is a transformational training programme for ...

THE UNITING Church called for compassion and a renewed commitment to our international obligations on World Refugee Day, Monday 20 June. Uniting Church President, Rev AIistair Macrae, said it was important to remember this is not a new issue. “This year we rightly celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and 57 years since ...

The silence of the international community to the plight of millions of North Koreans facing starvation and severe malnutrition was of deep concern to the members of an ecumenical forum for peace and reunification of the Korean Peninsula, which met last week, 16 to 19 June, in Nanjing, China. The group, the steering committee of the Ecumenical Forum for Peace, ...

LEADERS the Church of England and the Methodist Church have been urged to work more closely in the future in order to strengthen Christian unity. A statement issued by the Church of England’s communications office on 16 June said the Joint Implementation Commission (JIC) set up under the Anglican-Methodist Covenant of 2003 to enhance unity is recommending the two churches ...

ESCALATING VIOLENCE against civilians in Sudan’s disputed South Kordofan state is leading to a major humanitarian catastrophe and threatens to return war to Sudan just weeks before the independence of South Sudan. Several eye-witness accounts indicate that government troops are carrying out “house-to-house” searches in the towns, pulling out suspected opposition sympathisers and in some cases killing them on the ...

TUVALU A Polynesian island nation in the Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and Australia, is home to more than 11,000 people, whose very existence, which at one time was tied to the ocean and its bounty, is now threatened by rising ocean water levels. The world’s fourth-smallest country – at 26 square kilometers – is shrinking, and the people of Tuvalu are ...