Mumbai, India, 22 January (ENI)--The World Social Forum has ended in Mumbai with a call to use "people's power" to counter the consequences of globalisation by learning from Mahatma Gandhi who used non-violent struggle to lead India to independence from Britain. "To fight globalisation, you need to fight the way Mahatma Gandhi fought with the strength of the masses. People's power is a new factor in international politics," India's former president Kocheril Raman Narayanan told tens of thousands of people at the closing ceremony in Mumbai on Wednesday. "This movement is one of the most significant in history."

At the same time, a "People's Forum" - jointly organized by the Christian Conference of Asia and the National Council of Churches in India - condemned "the unjust world trade system and agreements that continue to impoverish the people of Asia-Africa". Many Christians were among the delegates in Mumbai. The church forum called for the revision of the charters of international finance bodies such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization to provide for transparency and equal representation for all member countries

The World Social Forum was launched in 2001 in Porto Alegre, Brazil, as a counter to the World Economic Forum, an annual gathering of politicians and business leaders that takes place annually in the Swiss mountain resort of Davos. Nobel Peace Laureate Shirin Ebadi, Nobel economist Joseph Stiglitz, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson, and French farm union leader Jose Bove were key speakers at the six-day event, the first time the social forum has met outside Brazil.

Criticism at Mumbai was also directed at US President George W Bush and the US-led invasion of Iraq as well as about globalisation and capitalism. Booker prizewinner Arundhati Roy called on activists to "identify two companies from the US that have benefited from the war in Iraq, identify all their offices and projects, and shut them down".

On Wednesday, traffic in Mumbai came to a standstill as activists including Tibetan monks, trade unionists, peace campaigners, socialists and environmentalists marched through India's financial capital chanting, "Our earth is not for sale." The World Social Forum, said Ione Algama, president of the Baptist Women's League in Sri Lanka, was "a great exposure to diverse problems faced by the people in different areas". She said she hoped it would help "unite the world especially, people faced with oppression and injustice". [415 words]
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Mumbai, India, 21 January (ENI)--Church agencies are hoping to mobilise millions of people around the world for a "People's Week of Action" in 2005 to protest against the consequences of free trade, privatisation and economic liberalisation. "We want to make this a global campaign to spread awareness of the injustices meted out under free trade," said Martin Gordon, senior campaign officer of Christian Aid, the London- based church aid agency at the forefront of the plans.

The event scheduled for April 2005 is timed to take place ahead of the G8 summit in Britain and the next ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization to take place in Hong Kong. Christian Aid said it could be the biggest campaign ever seen in the world and is intended to promote the right of poor nations and people to have access to water, food and the provision of basic services.

Plans were hammered out on Tuesday by representatives of non-governmental organizations attending the World Social Forum in Mumbai. Delegates at the forum had previously heard Joseph Stiglitz, a US Nobel Laureate in economics and former World Bank chief economist, call for the path of economic globalisation to be changed to avoid undermining social security.

"Economic policy cannot be delegated to the technocrats of international financial institutions" but needed to be at the centre of democratic debate in each country, Stiglitz said. The six-day forum, which ended on Wednesday, was intended as a platform to debate "strategies of resistance" to the model of globalisation formulated by large multinational corporations, national governments, and international financial institutions.

This message was echoed by many delegates from churches and church agencies. "Free trade is playing havoc with the life of the people, especially the poor," said Angel Luis Rivera, programme coordinator for faith, economy and society at the Latin American Council of Churches. Indigenous people in Ecuador who survive by producing hand-woven clothes were now facing financial ruin, he noted, as they were unable to compete with manufactured goods flooding markets under a free-trade regime.

Still, said John Samuel, the Bangkok-based Asia director of ActionAid, "We are not against trade itself but unjust trade." The market economy favoured by the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank "promotes an inequitable distributive system" he said. [396 words]
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Jerusalem, 15 January (ENI)--Roman Catholic Bishops from Europe and the Americas, visiting the Holy Land, on Thursday condemned Israel's building of a West Bank security barrier, saying they will lobby for the project to be halted.

"We have seen the devastating effect of the wall currently being built through the land and homes of Palestinian communities," the bishops said at the end of a four-day visit, in a statement issued at a news conference in Jerusalem's walled Old City. "This appears to be a permanent structure, dividing families, isolating them from their farmland and their livelihoods, and cutting off religious institutions."

The president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Wilton D. Gregory, said he would be taking the issue up with the Israeli President, Moshe Katsav. Gregory added that protests against the barrier had already been made to the Israeli Embassy in Washington. At the same time, he indicated a willingness to hear more from the Israelis. He said he intended to visit an Israeli hospital, where he hoped to have the opportunity to meet with victims of the violent conflict, including survivors of Palestinian suicide bombings.

The auxiliary bishop of Stockholm, William Kenney, who also represented the Commission of the Bishops' Conferences of the European Community said the matter would be referred to the Brussels-based commission. "I will also be personally doing this with the Swedish Government, when I return, giving my impressions of the situation I have seen," he said.

Israeli authorities say that the barrier, which is being constructed in and around the West Bank, is aimed at stopping more suicide bombings and other terror attacks. On Thursday, Israel closed access to the Gaza Strip after a female Palestinian suicide bomber killed four Israelis at a Gaza crossing the previous day. The Catholic bishops expressed condolences for all deaths that occurred during their visit and affirmed their opposition to all bloodshed.

Palestinians argue that the building of the barrier is an attempt by Israel to seize more land in territory where they live, and to unilaterally determine the borders of a future Palestinian state. Israel denies that the barrier delineates a new political boundary and says it can be dismantled later, if and when a final peace agreement with the Palestinians is achieved. [391 words]
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New Delhi, 14 January (ENI)--Christian leaders in Pakistan are threatening to launch nationwide protests after the killing of two pastors in recent months, bringing the total number of Christians killed in Pakistan over the past four years to almost four dozen.

"We would be forced to launch an agitation if the killers of the two priests are not arrested within seven days," said the Christian leaders, who include Bishop John Victor Mall of the united Church of Pakistan, the India-based Hindustan Times reported on Monday. "A judicial commission should be formed to investigate the incidents."

The warning comes after evangelical pastor Mukhtar Masih was shot dead by unidentified gunmen on 5 January, in Khanewal, northern Pakistan, and the killing last July of Roman Catholic priest George Ibrahim of the Faisalabad diocese in the northeast. Attacks on church targets in Muslim-majority Pakistan have increased since October 2001, the date that marks the launch of attacks by the United States and its allies on perceived terrorist targets in Afghanistan, Pakistan's neighbour. Altogether 46 Christians are believed to have been killed in the past four years.

"The murder of yet another Christian only adds to our feelings of insecurity," said Victor Azariah, general secretary of the National Council of Churches of Pakistan, which groups four major Protestant churches. "Whatever be the reason, murder or violence can never be justified in a civilised society."

Masih was murdered, according to some reports, over the use of loudspeakers to announce daily prayer services at his church, in defiance of police warnings and Muslim opposition. About 97 per cent of Pakistan's 150 million people are Muslims. "Exercise of our religious freedom should not disturb other communities," noted Azariah.

Hundreds of Christians of all denominations took part in a protest demonstration at Masih's funeral on 6 January demanding the arrest of the pastor's killers and condemning continued violence against Pakistan's religious minorities. A statement issued by the Justice and Peace Commission, a Roman Catholic body, said that robbery was not a motive for Masih's killing since a large amount of cash the pastor was carrying had been left untouched.

"The incident has added to the terrorism attacks against Christians," the statement said. "This clearly shows that the government has failed to control terrorism in this country." [393 words]
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New York, 28 January (ENI)--A new grouping of US churches that would widen ecumenical dialogue within the United States is expected to be launched in 2005. The new alliance, which is currently being called Christian Churches Together in the USA, would be the first formal group to include representatives of Protestant, Episcopal (Anglican) Roman Catholic, Pentecostal, Evangelical, Orthodox and predominantly African-American denominations.

"Never before in the history of the United States has such a broad and widely representative group come together in this way," said a statement from the Disciples News Service after a meeting of 50 church leaders held in early January in Houston, Texas. Neither the Roman Catholic Church - the single biggest denomination in the US - nor many Evangelical or Pentecostal bodies belong to the US National Council of Churches (NCC), currently the main ecumenical body in the US.

"Present realities in the US leave the churches deeply divided, with no place for Roman Catholic, Evangelical, Pentecostal, historic Protestant, Orthodox, and other Christian traditions to come together in fellowship, in order to strengthen witness in the world," said the Rev. Wesley Granberg-Michaelson, general secretary of the Reformed Church in America and chairman of the coalition's steering committee.

The Houston gathering was the fourth such meeting since 2001. Organizers first met amid speculation that such a body might replace the NCC. However, that does not appear to be an aim of the new grouping, with potential members saying it will be a streamlined organization with a small staff. A statement about the group says it aims to provide "a common witness for Christ to the world" and would speak out on shared public concerns, as well as foster "faithful evangelism" and seek "reconciliation by affirming our commonalities and understanding our differences".

At least 25 denominations are expected to join the new group, the minimum number that organizers say is required for the new alliance to be launched. Denominations and bodies that have signalled a willingness to form the new coalition are being asked to give their formal approval to the plan over the next twelve months. [363 words]
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Mumbai, India, 20 January (ENI)--Meeting halls at the World Social Forum (WSF) in Mumbai are full as activists from around the world debate issues such as refugees, child labour, gender and race-based discrimination, and political oppression. But the real action is taking place on the pathways of the forum's sprawling venue in Mumbai's Goregaon suburb, where advocacy groups of all hues are organizing marches, folk dances in ethnic dresses, and street theatre to drive home the forum's message that "another world is possible".

This has led to the six-day event being dubbed a carnival of social action, and one in which Christians and church groups are playing a prominent role. Christians are highly visible through the presence of hundreds of Roman Catholic nuns - many in their traditional habits - provoking curious looks from villagers who have never seen women in such attire.

Chanting "we want peace, we want justice for all," hundreds of nuns and priests took part in a Tuesday demonstration under the banner of the Forum for Justice and Peace in India. "This is a very positive change," said Ninan Koshy, from India and a former director of the Churches Commission on International Affairs of the Geneva-based World Council of Churches. "For the first time, we find churches taking an active part in the World Social Forum."

An Indian church agency, Churches Auxiliary for Social Action (CASA), mounted a colourful march with hundreds of villagers and ethnic groups wearing their colourful traditional attire. They included folk artists from Jharkhand in northern India, dalits (low castes) from south India and people of the desert state of Rajasthan in their vibrant headgear.

"I don't think this is a mere exhibition of ethnic traditions and cultures," said Martin Taylor, a CASA officer from India's Tamil Nadu state. "This is a great opportunity for us to be here. We will be certainly inspired by the work different groups are doing to make a more just world possible."

CASA has brought 1500 Indian participants to the Mumbai forum while its parent body, the National Council of Churches in India, and the WCC have brought another 1550 church delegates to India. Catholic groups too are involved in the forum. Members of the All India Catholic University Federation and the International Movement of Catholic Students marched on 16 January - the opening day of the forum - denouncing religious fundamentalism and globalisation.

The January 16-21 event under the slogan "Another World is Possible" marks the first time that the global forum of civil society movements and activists, mainly advocating for economic justice worldwide, has taken place outside Brazil. "This is the first time in the WSF history that the Lutheran communion has had such a strong presence," said Peter Prove, who is responsible at the Geneva-based Lutheran World Federation for international affairs and human rights.

Claire Schaeffer-Dussy, a Catholic journalist from the US, commented on the "extra-ordinary Christian presence" at the Mumbai forum. "I never thought the church was so active in this region," she said. [515 words]
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Mumbai, India, 19 January (ENI)--Tens of thousands of activists including Christians from India and around the globe have gathered in Mumbai for a six-day congress to seek alternatives to what organizers call "unfair" globalisation. The World Social Forum opened on Friday in India's financial capital with criticism focussed on US President George W Bush and the invasion of Iraq as well as on globalisation and capitalism.

Organizers say the gathering is intended to bring together "mass organizations and social movements to build alliances to create a more just world and to oppose unfair patterns of globalisation". Hundreds of church delegates had gathered at a church in a Mumbai suburb shortly before the forum's official opening.

"This is an opportunity and responsibility for each one of us," Orthodox Metropolitan Geeverghese mar Coorilos, president of the National Council of Churches in India, told the delegates. He urged them to seek "concrete and effective solutions" to the problems being discussed in Mumbai, the western city that was formerly called Bombay.

The event will host hundreds of meetings and workshops on globalisation, militarism and racism. Organizers say about 2660 organizations from 132 countries will attend the forum. "This is the first time that we, the church people, are coming together in such an organized manner," said Mathews George Chunakkara, Asia secretary of the Geneva-based World Council of Churches, one of the church bodies represented. Others include the Lutheran World Federation, the Christian Conference of Asia, as well as aid agencies Christian Aid, Bread for the World, and World Vision.

The first World Social Forum was organized in 2001 as a counterweight to the World Economic Forum, an annual gathering of politicians and business leaders that takes place in the Swiss resort of Davos, this year from 20 to 25 January.

The social forum is intended as "an open platform to discuss strategies of resistance to the model for globalisation formulated ... by large multinational corporations, national governments, the IMF [International Monetary Fund], the World Bank and the WTO [World Trade Organization], which are the foot soldiers of these corporations", said forum organizers. The Mumbai gathering is the first social forum - now also an annual event - to take place outside Brazil.

"We have to be in and with the civil society here," said Peter Prove, who is responsible for international affairs and human rights at the Lutheran World Federation. Participants at the social forum are scheduled to include Nobel Peace Laureate Shirin Ebadi; Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel economist; the former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson; and French farm union leader Jose Bove. [445 words]
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Nairobi, 12 January (ENI)--Seventy-two children with HIV/AIDS from Nyumbani, a Roman Catholic orphanage for HIV-positive children on the outskirts of Nairobi, have won the right to be admitted to Kenyan public schools. Kenya's High Court on 9 January ordered the Ministry of Education and the Nairobi City Council to place the children in public schools in the city. The children had been refused admittance to primary schools in the Kenyan capital.

"This is a resounding victory for life, liberty, and justice, over prejudice, stigma, and fear," Ababu Namwamba, a lawyer for the orphanage, said of the court ruling. Five Nairobi primary schools had refused to admit the children when schools opened on 5 January, said the founder of the orphanage, the Rev. Angelo D'Agostino, a Roman Catholic priest from Providence, Rhode Island in the United States.

"Once they find the child is from Nyumbani, they find some sort of excuse like they are too full, they don't have any room or whatever," D'Agostino told journalists. The schools' refusal to admit the children had been criticised by church leaders who said that it challenged the government's policy of free compulsory primary education.

"This is the first case we have heard of, but refusing these children admission is not only ungodly and evil, but also underlines the misconceptions surrounding HIV/AIDS," said the Rev. Isaac Wanyoike of the Presbyterian Church of East Africa. The children had sought in their court action a blanket order to allow all children, regardless of their health status, to have the right of access to education.

The Rev. William Wako, provincial secretary of the Anglican Church of Kenya said it was very unfortunate if children were being denied places in public schools. "This issue raises questions when we are fighting to end all forms of discrimination on people with HIV/AIDS," he told ENI.

Lawyers are seeking to have the ruling extended to cover all children with HIV/AIDS in Kenya and not just those from the Nyumbani orphanage. The government has been instructed to respond within 21 days. [353 words]
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Thrissur, India, 8 January (ENI)--Church leaders in India and Pakistan have welcomed the thawing of relations between India and Pakistan following meetings of the two rival neighbours at a summit of South Asian countries, held in Islamabad this week. "The Churches in India consider the agreement to start dialogue between India and Pakistan as a new chapter of peace-building in South Asia," said the National Council of Churches in India, a grouping of 29 Orthodox and Protestant Churches.

Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee met during the summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation in Islamabad. They issued a joint statement on 6 January, announcing a timetable for bilateral talks on issues such as Kashmir, a region bordering both countries that has dogged their relations for decades.

The year began with restored air links between India and Pakistan. Trade treaties were signed during the seven-nation summit. The Musharraf and Vajpayee's agreement seeks to halt violence, hostility and terrorism in Kashmir and to promote dialogue. The Kashmir dispute began after the partition of the Indian sub-continent into Hindu majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan in 1947, while the countries were under British colonial rule. Tensions over the area became an obstacle to the development of a regional trading group.

Relations between the two nations hit a low after a December 2001 attack on India's parliament carried out, said Delhi, by Kashmiri Islamic militants fighting for separation from India with the support of Pakistan. After the attack, India threatened to attack camps in Pakistan it said were used to train terrorists for a jihad (holy war) in Indian-controlled Kashmir.

Hundreds of thousands of Indian and Pakistani soldiers had lined both sides of their porous 630-kilometre long border for months, with the nuclear-armed neighbours raising fears of a fourth Indo-Pak war. "We are happy that the national leaders have realised the need to have peace instead of wasting resources on the army and nuclear arsenals," said Metropolitan mar Aprem who heads the 30 000 strong Assyrian Church of the East in India, based at Thrissur in India's southern state of Kerala. India and Pakistan, he said, "simply cannot afford to be enemies".

"Everybody is happy. This is what we have been demanding for the last 50 years," said Victor Azariah, general secretary of the National Council of Churches in Pakistan in a telephone interview with ENI from Lahore. The Pakistan church council groups four major Protestant churches in Pakistan. The National Council of Churches in India has said that special prayers for India-Pakistan dialogue will be offered from 18-25 January during worldwide Christian unity celebrations. [451 words]
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New York, 23 January (ENI)--A group of dissidents within the US Episcopal (Anglican) Church opposed to the election of a gay bishop have formed a network they hope will eventually become an officially recognised body of Anglicanism within the United States.

"We are not splitting off from the Episcopal Church," said Robert Duncan, the bishop of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, head of the new faction, which includes representatives of 12 dioceses from nine US states, indicating the group will fight from within the church.

In announcing the formation of the Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes on 20 January, the leaders of the group said they would work for an expanded base of support and, they hope, eventual recognition by the Anglican Communion, the global association of churches tracing their roots to the Church of England.

The members of the network say they are dismayed by the November 2003 consecration of openly gay V. Gene Robinson as Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire. The representatives have returned to their dioceses to try to receive formal recognition of the organization, which some have described as a kind of a "church within the church".

In practical terms their action is seen proceeding with network member parishes seeking recognition from a group of bishops associated with the new group but not from their current local bishops - a move viewed in some quarters as a violation of current church law. The Washington Post newspaper quoted a document by the Rev. Geoffrey Chapman of the American Anglican Council saying that the dissident faction was seeking a "realignment of Anglicanism on North American soil committed to biblical faith and values".

Frank Griswold, the Episcopal Church's presiding bishop, in a statement on Thursday, did not directly address the action to form the protest network but praised what he called a "diverse centre" within the church that has been able to accept the existing tension between liberals and conservatives on the issue of gay clergy.

However, another Episcopal bishop, Don Johnson from the state of Tennessee, said he would use "all the power" of his office to see that clergy and congregations within his diocese did not have a formal relationship with any group "seeking to destroy the Episcopal Church", seen as a reference to the dissident group. [394 words]
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Geneva, 23 January (ENI)--A new French edition of a landmark ecumenical translation of the Bible taking account of the latest Biblical research has been presented in Geneva. "This occasion allows us to reflect upon and celebrate the key role that reading and studying the Bible together has played for Christians throughout the ecumenical movement from the outset," said the Rev. Sam Kobia, general secretary of the World Council of Churches, at the Geneva launch on Friday.

The new edition is an annotated version of the first five books of the Bible called the Pentateuch and is part of the Traduction oecumenique de la Bible (TOB) (Ecumenical translation of the Bible). The original TOB was published in 1975 and was the first time French-speaking Roman Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox scholars had worked together on a Bible translation into French from Hebrew and Greek.

"Making translations of the Bible into our various languages is an important and vital task indeed," noted Kobia at a symposium on the new Bible in Geneva. "Having a variety of translations available encourages the Bible to be read in a plural and ecumenical way." He added, "Having a variety of translations available is a precious tool in the struggle against religious fundamentalism."

The ecumenically translated Bible quickly established itself as a standard work in universities and theological faculties not least because of its annotations, introductions and reference sections. But at the time that it appeared in the 1970s, scholars began to cast doubt on what had until then been widely accepted as the standard account of the history of the Old Testament books, observed Thomas Roemer, an editor of the new volume.

This made it necessary to revise the annotations and introductions, even though there is today no single dominant accepted theory about the Pentateuch, explained Roemer, a professor at the university faculty of theology in the Swiss city of Lausanne. "One could ask therefore if the revision of the TOB is not premature," he said, noting that, "in fact, the opposite seems to me to be true. I believe it is essential to offer to the public introductions and notes which take account of current research."

Still, he explained, the new version will itself probably need to be revised in 20 years time. "It is not only wrong but also pointless to complain. We should rather be pleased about this and see it as a sign that Biblical research is continuing to discover new insights that will better help us understand the Biblical text."

:: TOB: Le Pentateuque - Les cinq livres de la Loi, co-edition Cerf/Societe biblique francaise, ISBN: 2-204-07172-2, 416pp [451 words]
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Jerusalem, 22 January (ENI)--The Armenian Orthodox Patriarch in the Holy Land, Torkom Manoogian, has lodged a complaint with the Israeli government, claiming his people are being harassed by what he called "extremist Jews". He was referring to tensions between some Jews and his community, which lives mainly in a quarter of Jerusalem's walled Old City.

"They [the extremist Jews] spit on us and swear at us when our people walk down the street," Archbishop Manoogian told the Israeli interior minister Avraham Poraz, who was engaged in a round of meetings with leaders of Israel's Christian communities. The talks followed the recent transfer of the department of non-Jewish communities from the defunct Religious Affairs Ministry to the Interior Ministry.

Poraz has demanded to know why the Israeli police force is not making greater efforts to arrest those who have allegedly been tormenting the archbishop and his people. Police officers have responded that they do safeguard religious processions of all Christian groups but Israel does not have enough resources, as they put it, to "guard every monk".

During his discussions with the various Christian leaders, Poraz also heard demands that Israel make it easier for religious figures from abroad to obtain visas to enter the country. Some Christian leaders complained that they had been forced to undergo what they described as "humiliating physical" searches at land crossing points into Israel, in particular the Allenby Bridge on the Jordanian border.

Among the complainants was the Archbishop of the Coptic Orthodox Church in the Holy Land, Anba Abraham, who said he was forced to take of his shoes and also the cross he wears across his chest, so that they could be inspected by Israeli security guards. Poraz promised to make inquires into such procedures and to try to resolve them. [309 words]
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