The year 2007 will be the 200th anniversary of William Wilberforce leading the battle to end the transatlantic slave trade.

Philip Boobbyer discovers how the rebuilding of an historic German church, destroyed by British bombers during World War II, is healing old wounds.

CHARLESTON, on the coast of South Carolina, USA, abounds with Southern charm. Pillared buildings sit in magnolia-filled gardens, visible from streets which date back to the 18th century. Two centuries of plantation economics have left behind shaded porches, steepled churches and cobbled streets.

Few countries have worked so hard to come to terms with their past, to repair, to restore as Germany has.

The day before Christine Jacobs, one of the ‘stolen generations’ of Aboriginal Australians, was due to speak at the launch of Australia’s National Day of Healing, she was knocked down by a car and killed. Her 14-year-old daughter, Tamara, read her speech at the event in the Great Hall of Parliament on 25 May.

Reasons for Hope conference in Liverpool, UK, focussed on healing history, the power of honest dialogue, and how the skills of asylum seekers and refugees could be used for the benefit of all.

Step Three to Remaking the World

Two great windows of opportunity will swing open this year in the fight against world poverty, surely one of the most pressing moral issues of our age. Poverty kills 6,000 children each week—the equivalent of a tsunami a month.

This is border country with a long and turbulent history. Everyone knows that borderlands can be flash points.England and Wales meet here and in the past fought it out, stealing each other’s cattle, firing villages and building castles to enforce the ownership of occupied lands.

The people of Pforzheim, Germany, suffered dreadfully in World War II-and a British aircrew paid a terrible price. Michael Henderson discovers how a small community is laying its ghosts to rest.