"We remain committed to work side by side with the churches", the president of Southern Sudan Salva Kiir Mayardit has told representatives of an international ecumenical delegation in Juba, Southern Sudan.

Two years after the signing of a peace agreement to end a 21-year-long civil war in Sudan, some church leaders in south Sudan are urging eventual secession for their region, saying Khartoum has failed to make unity attractive - writes Fredrick Nzwili for Ecumenical News International.

The General Secretary of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF), the Rev Dr Ishmael Noko, will lead an interfaith delegation to North and South Sudan from 9 to 13 January 2007 ‚Ä' reports LWI.

Peacemakers are helping communities resolve differences and recover from violence in Sudan's Darfur region despite a devastating four-year-old war that has killed hundreds of thousands of civilians and is continuing to escalate - writes Tim Shenk of Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), the North American peace church development organisation.