A German church has far exceeded its initial expectations in so far distributing more than 200,000 black bracelets intended as a symbolic protest against human rights abuses in China during the Olympic Games in Beijing.

Women of faith have a special calling to restore religion’s principles of nonviolence in a conflicted world, Sister Joan Chittister has told more than 2,000 women at a gathering in the USA.

Bishop Munib Younan of the Evangelical Lutheran Church has said Christians need a stronger voice in Jerusalem in order to prevent tensions spreading there, and that Muslims and Christians should work together on ecology issues.

A leader of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Namibia says a move by a human rights group to bring former president Sam Nujoma before the International Criminal Court in The Hague might result in public violence or even civil war.

Describing the past six months as "a disaster for Palestinians and indeed the whole Middle East," the leading Lutheran bishop in Jerusalem has urged US Christians to join their Middle East brothers and sisters and say they are "fed up" with stigmatization, bloodshed, hatred and occupation affecting both Israelis and Palestinians.