Chiang Mai, Thailand/Edinburgh: "Ethnic or Burmese, no one is safe from the terror of the dictators of Burma," a relief team leader writes in the July newsletter of Christians Concerned for Burma. "As we were treating internally displaced people in Karen state at a recently burned village, deeper inside Burma Aung San Suu Kyi had just been arrested and many of her supporters murdered."

"We have helped to treat and pray for women who have been raped by soldiers of the Burma Army, children who were shot, parents who saw their children thrown into a fire and many others," the Free Burma Ranger adds. "They screamed for help but no one came to save them."

In September, Iain Torrance, current moderator of the general assembly of the Church of Scotland, said, "As a national church with long links to Myanmar we are convinced that the time has come for the State Peace and Development Council to ensure that there is freedom of movement and of speech for Aung San Suu Kyi and all peace-loving democratic leaders." [Burma was renamed Myanmar by the state council in 1989.]

"We urge the international community to maintain sanctions on Myanmar, to ensure that the military government undertakes a specific programme to reform and transfer power to a democratically elected government," Torrance said. "We express our concern that a national constitutional convention which excludes the National League for Democracy is most unlikely to gain the confidence of the people which is needed for its success. We urge tourists to avoid Myanmar for as long as democracy and human rights are held in contempt. We plead with the Chinese government to recognize that its long-term interests lie in actively working for the security, welfare and freedom of the Burmese people."

Geneva: Setri Nyomi wrote in August to Samuel Kobia, the next general secretary of the World Council of Churches. The challenge, he told Kobia, is to stimulate a WCC that is "spiritually vibrant and institutionally relevant", and he reiterated the Alliance's commitment to work with the WCC in the search for a new ecumenical configuration.

Kobia, a Methodist minister from Kenya, will take up his post in January 2004, succeeding Konrad Raiser of the Evangelical Church in Germany.

Lausanne, Switzerland: Paulette Piguet, who died in August aged 83, was the first woman executive on the Alliance staff. A remarkable linguist, handling the work of the secretariat in five languages, she served the Alliance for 27 years "with much intelligence and devotion" (Marcel Pradervand, A Century of Service). She was a member of the Swiss Reformed Church.

She joined the World Presbyterian Alliance in Geneva in 1950 but, as general secretary Marcel Pradervand recalled, she "soon proved herself to be much more than a secretary".

The 17th general council (Princeton 1954) recognized this by electing her an executive, with the title of assistant secretary; later she was made associate secretary.

She was in Nairobi in 1970 when the Presbyterian Alliance united with the International Congregational Council to form the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (Congregational and Presbyterian), and served the newly united Alliance for a further seven years.

At the centennial consultation (St Andrews 1977), participants said farewell to her with a standing ovation. "Paulette Piguet is not only a person of deep piety, but also a good theologian," said Alliance president James I McCord. "When a lot of nonsense was kicked around, she spoke to us in such a way that we were called back to our senses."

Leuenberg, Switzerland: The Community of Protestant Churches in Europe (CPCE) is the new name of the Leuenberg Church Fellowship. Leuenberg, near Basle, is where the Leuenberg agreement, the founding document of the community, was adopted thirty years ago. Member churches - Lutheran, Methodist, Reformed and United, as well as Czech Brethren and Waldensian churches with reforming roots that antedate the 16th century - grant one another table and pulpit fellowship. They commit themselves to common witness and service at local, regional and European levels and to continuing theological work.

The old name was insufficient to express what this community is, CPCE president Elisabeth Parmentier (Strasbourg) said. Of the 103 member churches, 98 agreed to the name change, which underlines the intention to shape and foster the community.

Prague: Ludek Broz, who died in August aged 81, following a long illness, enriched modern Czech theology. He made it impossible for it to remain isolated from the global problems of the contemporary world. His particular interest was the Francophone lands, later the African continent and the developing world in general. For many years, he was the chief editor of the theological magazine Communio Viatorum and the leading editor of the Czech church publishing house Kalich. In the 1970s and 80s, he taught systematics at Comenius Protestant Theological Faculty in Prague. Following his retirement, he published independently the international theological magazine Metanoia, in which he continued to draw attention to the theology of the "third world".