The Decade to Overcome Violence (DOV) sponsored by the World Council of Churches (WCC) has launched its 2009 focus on the Caribbean region with the theme: "One Love: Building a Peaceful Caribbean".

The WCC has honoured a former general secretary, Philip Potter, a Methodist from the West Indies who helped the churches take a high profile role in the struggle against apartheid and white minority regimes in southern Africa.

The UK-based international development agency Christian Aid is among those urging Caribbean heads of government to refuse to sign a new trade deal that the European Union (EU) is attempting to force onto the region.

Interfaith leaders from Latin America and the Caribbean have met with officials from three major global multilateral financial bodies to discuss ways of advancing the struggle for the MDGs and against poverty and inequality.

The spread of HIV and AIDS in the Caribbean is one of the major issues now facing churches in the region, says Gerard Granado, general secretary of the Caribbean Conference of Churches.

Archbishop of York Dr John Sentamu has been welcomed in the Caribbean as representing "a new sense of communion to Anglicanism" in its diversity. In Barbados he has spoken of economic sharing as a key characteristic of Christian life.