The new kid on the block at Anglican Youthworks says his motto is ‘whatever it takes' to bring a young person to Christ. James Fong, recently appointed to the new role of High School SRE Adviser for the Diocese of Sydney, is keen to get the gospel message out to the city's 220 state High schools.

Moore College, already known as one of the nation's top theological training centres, has a new role. Each Sunday evening since Easter it has played host to a regular congregation of 70-80 people. “It is an ideal venue,” according to the Rev Andrew Katay, Senior Associate minister at St Barnabas', Broadway, and the man responsible for the congregation plant.

Many Anglicans worldwide are talking of a crisis in the Church. Archbishop Peter Jensen and the five Sydney regional bishops have issued a strong statement in response to developments that have caused the current crisis.

More than twenty years after fleeing Communists who had taken control of their home city of Saigon, elderly couple Mau Huynh and Anh Luong were living in fear in a Cabramatta block of units. “They had bad people in the other flat. We were very scared of them,” Mr Huynh said. Their daughter-in-law was working as a translator for a home care unit that provided support to a resident of one of the independent living units run as part of the Anglicare ministry complex at Cabramatta Anglican Church. She thought the support facility looked ideal for her parents-in-law and found out they might be eligible to apply for one of the units.

On December 17, 1996 terrorists from the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) took over the residence of the Japanese Ambassador in Lima, Peru during a diplomatic reception. The President, Alberto Fujimori would have been in attendance had his plane not been delayed. About eight hundred people were taken hostage. Most of the captives were released within a few days however it was not until April 22, 1997 that the final 71 hostages were released and the situation was resolved in a bloody confrontation. Novelist Ann Patchett does not name the South American country where Bel Canto is set. However the arrival of armed guerrillas at an ostentatious State dinner and the lengthy standoff cannot but recall the Peruvian incident.

The past 100 years in Australia have been golden years. We have enjoyed freedom. There has been unparalleled opportunity. We have freedom of association, freedom of movement. This is a great country. Many take this for granted. It's easy to think of it as a given, a right. But thinking people don't. Reflect for a moment on what enabled our freedom. Reflect for a minute on the wars of last century.

The conflict in Israel is a complex drama of violence, injustice and tragedy. The roots of the problem sink hundreds of years back through history. The battle for land, nationhood and identity - not to mention compensation - involves a tangle of perspectives. Suicide bombers, gun-wielding settlers, stone-throwing youths and bombed out refugee camps might provide the footage for media coverage, however the situation is more complex than a three-minute visual and thirty second sound-bite. This article aims to provide an overview of the situation. This is not an exhaustive study of the crisis but rather a timeline of the conflict. For reasons of length 1882 has been chosen as the starting point.

War has been part of human experience since people first formed alliances and fashioned themselves into nations. War takes many shapes and is wrought for many reasons. Men take up arms in revenge, for greed, to achieve political goals, to obtain geographical advantage. Wars are fought for religious reasons, on ideological grounds, in self-defence and to protect the vulnerable.