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Lord Bingham, 76, dies of cancer

Lord Bingham of CornhillLord Bingham was regarded as a staunch defender of judicial independence

Lord Bingham, who held three of the top legal posts in the country and was seen by many as the pre-eminent judge of his generation, has died at the age of 76.

As senior law lord he ruled that the detention of foreign terror suspects without charge was a breach of their human rights.

After his retirement in 2008 he argued that Britain broke international law by invading Iraq in 2003.

Thomas Henry Bingham died of cancer at the family home in Wales on Saturday.

A commercial lawyer, he made his name as the chairman of inquiries into sanction-busting in Rhodesia by oil companies and the collapse of the bank BCCI.

He served as Master of the Rolls, the head of the civil judiciary, from 1992 until 1996 when he was appointed Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales and became Baron Bingham of Cornhill.

From 2000 to 2008, he was Senior Law Lord but retired before the Supreme Court began to function in October last year.

Professor Robert McCorquodale, director of the British Institute of International and Comparative Law, said: “He will be remembered as an exceptional man with a brilliant mind.”

Writing in the Guardian last month, Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, described him as “perhaps the greatest world jurist of our times”.

“He is an inspiration to anyone – legal professional or lay person – who holds dear their hard-won rights and freedoms, and believes that human rights are universal and non-negotiable,” she wrote.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Church calling

Kurt BarraganKurt Barragan says the stresses and strains of parishoners become those of a priest’s

The reputation of the priesthood has been badly shaken by abuse allegations in recent years.

It’s a difficult job at the best of times, with training longer than that for doctors, long hours and minimal pay.

Nevertheless, the Roman Catholic Church says it is seeing a small increase in the number of men prepared to forego family life and dedicate themselves to God – something it is hoped the Pope’s visit will encourage.

But who are these men?

Kurt Barragan, 29, is in his fourth year of training and is due to be ordained in 2012.

He first considered the priesthood when he was 16, but did not make the final “nerve-wracking” decision to commit until he had spent almost four years working as a civil servant.

Kurt admits the priesthood can seem like a lot of “don’ts” but says everything falls into place when you fully understand its purpose – and believe the Gospel offers the “most perfect happiness”.

“What I’m interested in is bringing other people to that path for happiness,” he says.

Spiritual father

The key “don’t” for many people of course, is sex. There is currently some debate within the Catholic Church over whether celibacy is still an essential requirement for a priest.

But Kurt, who has had reationships with women in the past, says celibacy is essential to allow him to single-mindedly dedicate himself to the church.

“That doesn’t mean marriage and children aren’t attractive to me, just that I also feel I can better serve the world as a spiritual father to many people, that’s what God has in mind for me,” he explains.

Priests serve in a variety of roles, from the traditional parish priest, to chaplains in prisons, hospitals or the army, and teaching roles.

Luke de PulfordLuke says the seminary experience involves a great deal of self-examination through prayer

It is a job which involves working with people at pivotal moments in their lives.

“You can switch very quickly from helping people who are dealing with grief at a funeral, to those who are preparing for marriage, or having their baby baptised,” Kurt says.

“You are always immersed in the lives of the people you serve, so their stresses and strains become yours.”

In the Southwark diocese, where Kurt is based, priests are paid through stipends – donations from parishioners in exchange for holding a service or saying a prayer, and the collections at Christmas and Easter. They are given accommodation in their parish.

In a big, wealthy parish, a priest could earn around £10,000 a year, but in a small parish this could be as little as £1,500. This could be topped up by Catholic charities to £4,000.

“It’s not a huge income, the aim is to have enough money to live on and a healthy recreation, beyond that what do you need it for?” he says.

“When I was a civil servant you were told to work seven hours and 12 minutes a day, as that worked out as a 36-hour week. There’s no priest I know who works as short a day as that.”

graphic

‘Caricatured view’

Luke de-Pulford, 26, also considered the priesthood. He spent a year studying in the seminary at the English College in Rome before deciding it might not be for him.

He says in seminary you explore yourself and your vocation through prayer.

“For some people, what remains constant is that calling to be a priest and for some people it changes, and I think I’m in that latter category,” he explains.

He is reflecting on the experience and while he would not rule out returning, he feels he probably wants to one day have a family.

Father Stephen LangridgeFather Langridge is responsible for vocations in Southwark

Both men say they had interesting reactions when they announced their vocations.

Luke says some friends said they could not understand his decision because in their view he was “someone who could get a job and potentially get a girlfriend”.

“It was really tough, especially as they had a caricatured view of the church and what it stands for. A lot of people thought I was wasting my life, but I believe if I had a vocation to be a priest there could be no higher calling,” he says.

Father Stephen Langridge, chairman of England and Wales’ vocations directors, says there was a boom in the number of vocations in the aftermath of World War II compared to the 1920s.

He says there was another rise in men entering seminaries following the visit of Pope John Paul in 1982. Figures from the National Office for Vocations show this peaking at 156 in 1985 before falling to a low of 22 in 2001. But over the past five years numbers have steadied at about 40 per year.

Fr Langridge says England has been used to a relatively high concentration of priests compared to other countries – about one for every 350 parishioners. But the fall in vocations since the 1980s means a priest in a parish may now be responsible for two or three smaller churches.

In an attempt to address the shortfall, in recent years the church has changed its recruitment strategy.

“My generation of priests are going to have a lot of work to do in regaining trust”

Kurt Barragan

Instead of simply asking people to become priests, they now encourage Catholics to pray and discern what God wants them to do. Marriage is also viewed as a vocation, which helps keep peoples’ minds open to hear a call to the priesthood instead.

Fr Langridge explains: “That means a youngster who’d always thought about marriage, perhaps in the stillness of their prayer suddenly thinks, ‘perhaps there’s something else.’ So the seed of a priestly vocation is sown in that way.”

About 60% of the people who come forward for interview are for one reason or another not suitable.

“Sometimes it’s a fervour of piety but the person doesn’t have the human qualities to enable them to hack the life. But that means that 40% of people would make good trained priests,” he says.

This new intake of priests know they have a great deal of work to do to overcome the overall damage to their reputation from such scandals as child sex abuse cases.

Kurt says it makes him more certain the church needs better priests than perhaps it has had before.

“Every time I read one of the stories in the papers it makes me incredibly sad. Because no-one goes into the priesthood without the highest ideals, so to know that there have been priests who have betrayed peoples’ trust in such an awful way is just incredibly painful and my heart goes out to people who have been wounded by that,” he says.

“My generation of priests is going to have a lot of work to do in regaining that trust.”

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Battle of Britain hero honoured

Lord DowdingAir Chief Marshal Dowding is credited with masterminding the Battle of Britain

Every year a south of Scotland town comes to a halt to remember the man who masterminded the RAF’s victory in the Battle of Britain.

Moffat in Dumfries and Galloway is proud to have been the birthplace of Air Chief Marshal Hugh Dowding.

A memorial stands in his honour in the town’s Station Park and each September a flypast is held in his memory.

This year, the 70th anniversary of the successful defence of the skies over Britain, they will remember him again.

A service, wreath-laying and a flypast by a Spitfire and Hurricane fighter plane are being held in his honour on Sunday, just as they have every year since the early 1970s.

It is a tribute his birthplace happily makes to the “architect of deliverance”.

Hugh Caswall Tremenheere Dowding was born in the Victorian spa town in 1882.

After his early schooling in the area, he quickly pursued a military career which would ultimately see him become a leader of “The Few” in the Battle of Britain.

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A squadron commander in the Royal Flying Corps in World War I, he stayed in the new Royal Air Force and became chief of Fighter Command by 1936.

His push for the development of radar and the Spitfire and Hurricane fighters is seen as a key to defeating the Luftwaffe.

He also decided the dates for the Battle of Britain although he admitted the start date had been “somewhat arbitrary” and only chosen because it marked the first major raid over the country.

It was Dowding’s strategic and tactical skill which has been credited with allowing the outnumbered British forces to ultimately thwart the German raids.

In 1968, just a couple of years before his death, he told the BBC about his memories of the 16-week period in 1940 which became known as the Battle of Britain.

Winston ChurchillDowding felt Churchill did not like being made to change his mind

“The overriding memory is one of intolerable stress, mingled of course with anxiety that so much depended on our shoulders in the Fighter Command to prevent the country being invaded and vanquished,” he said.

One key moment was his visit to the War Cabinet to try to persuade Winston Churchill not to send any more pilots and planes on operations over France after 3 June 1940.

Dowding said he believed it would leave Britain too vulnerable to air attack at home, an argument which eventually won the day.

“The important thing was that virtually and substantively the leakage of fighter aircraft to France was stopped,” he said.

“I never was very friendly with Churchill because he had been made to change his very stubborn mind in front of a room full of senior officers and officials in the country and he didn’t like that.

“I don’t think he ever liked me very much after that, if he had liked me before.”

It did, however, give Dowding precious time to try to improve equipment and train his pilots in the build-up to the start of the Battle of Britain in July.

That fight would last until October of the same year but mid-September was seen as the turning point in Britain’s favour in a battle which would force Adolf Hitler to indefinitely postpone invasion plans.

Historian AJP Taylor described it as the “decisive battle of the war” and said it was won by Dowding.

He believed it was a victory which was as “glorious in our history as the Battle of Trafalgar”.

The architect of the triumph died in 1970 in Tunbridge Wells in Kent.

His memory, however, is still kept very much alive in the town where he was born.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Call for homeopathy cash pull-out

Vials containing pills for homeopathic remediesAbout half of Scotland’s 14 health boards provided some funding for homeopathy

The British Medical Association (BMA) has told a BBC Scotland investigation that NHS Scotland should pull the plug on Glasgow’s Homeopathic Hospital.

FoIs revealed the Scottish NHS spends about £1.5m on homeopathy, almost a third of the estimated UK spend of £4m.

But the BMA said the money should be withdrawn until the Glasgow facility produces satisfactory evidence about the effectiveness of its treatments.

Homeopaths and their patients insist they see real benefits from treatments.

However, the BMA’s director of science and ethics, Dr Vivienne Nathanson, said: “The funding of the homeopathic hospital should stop until and unless they can pull an evidence base to say which patients they are going to be able to help and where that help is more than the placebo effect.”

TV DOCUMENTARY

Magic or Medicine – Homeopathy and the NHS which will be shown on BBC One Scotland on Monday, 13 September at 1930 BST

When asked about the reaction of patients, she said there was no justification for treating patients with medicines the BMA believes have no evidence of efficacy.

She added: “If there’s no evidence but they are being told that there is evidence, then the question is what is actually happening to those patients? Are they really having a proper choice?”

The programme, Magic or Medicine – Homeopathy and the NHS, has also uncovered evidence that the NHS in Scotland is spending far more per person on homeopathy than its English counterpart.

It found that GPs are prescribing at least 10 times as many homeopathic medicines per person as their colleagues in England.

Freedom of Information requests for the programme revealed that NHS Scotland spent about £1.5m on homeopathy – almost a third of the estimated UK spend of £4m.

Dr James McLay, a pharmacologist in Aberdeen, has researched the extent of homeopathic prescribing and said the figures were very worrying.

He told the programme: “We are duty bound as doctors to use proven evidence-based medicine. Homeopathy is not proven and it’s not evidence-based, and that is a concern.”

Spending on homeopathy in the English NHS has been shrinking, with many funders withdrawing NHS cash altogether.

There is no indication that this is happening in Scotland. FoI requests established that about half of Scotland’s 14 health boards provided some funding for the discipline.

Homeopaths and their patients point to the fact that the sums of money are small, and insist that they see real benefits from their treatments.

Carol Montgomery, a patient who was treated with homeopathy on the NHS, said it had cured her anxiety and other health problems

She urged other patients to give the alternative therapy a chance.

“It worked for me,” she said.

“And I would say to other people if you have problems don’t knock it, try it, because it won’t do you any harm, if it doesn’t do you any good.”

Magic or Medicine – Homeopathy and the NHS which will be shown on BBC One Scotland on Monday, 13 September at 1930 BST.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Chips stacked?

Adrian GoldbergBy Adrian Goldberg

Pokerstars online poker gamePokerstars refunded $2m to 25 000 customers after it uncovered cheating

“I had no idea I was being cheated when I was playing,” says online poker enthusiast Tom Broadbent ruefully.

“I then saw other players chatting online about ‘Chinese collusion’ and people were getting compensation.

“So I asked Pokerstars about it and the next day I got a refund.”

Mr Broadbent is one 25,000 players recently awarded compensation after falling victim to Chinese card sharps on the world’s largest internet poker site, Pokerstars.

In July of this year, the Isle of Man based company refunded $2.1m (£1.63m) to disgruntled customers and has now pledged to step up its security.

The case is not an isolated one. Previously, Pokerstars refunded $80,000 (£52,000) to players who unwittingly went up against poker “bots” – automatic card-playing software programmes.

In the recent Pokerstars case, a group of players based in China colluded by “going easy” with each other in high-stakes games.

By being less aggressive when other members of their ring were at risk of being expelled from the game, they were able to collectively stay in tournaments longer and win more cash from rival players who were oblivious to the fact they were being cheated.

The problem for the authorities and the gaming companies is that it is virtually impossible to prevent collusion like this, because players can share information about their hands via the phone or internet messenger without being detected.

“We had a hard job keeping up, just because of the volume of complaints from players”

Former Pokerstars employee

Cheating is usually only discovered by the poker companies retrospectively when security experts establish regular patterns of behaviour involving the same players, although software is also used to flag up suspicious plays.

While most online poker games are safe, the scope for fraud is considerable, and the rapid growth of the online poker industry has left some companies struggling to keep on top of security issues.

A former Pokerstars employee, speaking anonymously to the 5 live Investigates programme, said that the site’s rapid expansion caused problems.

“We had a hard job keeping up, just because of the volume of complaints from players [about suspected cheating],” he said.

“Not that all of the complaints were legitimate – 95% were just bitter [customers] because they lost, and there was no collusion. But Pokerstars still pledged to investigate them all.”

However, the former employee also claims that during his time working for Pokerstars, staff switched off the automatic alerts that flagged up possible cases of collusion because they were so overwhelmed by the number of alerts popping up.

Pokerstars did not wish to comment on the claims made by their former employee.

According to Forbes Magazine, Pokerstars brings in an estimated $1.4bn (£911.6bn) per year, making it a key player in a worldwide industry worth more than $5bn (£3.25bn) annually.

poker gameThe global online poker industry is estimated to be worth more than $5billion.

After the incident involving the Chinese gang, Pokerstars said: “This case has highlighted the need for us to improve our proactive systems and to improve the rule set that we will use to monitor the games in future.”

The company went on to say it was satisfied that the accounts involved were frozen quickly.

Despite paying compensation to players who lost out, the company has not reported those responsible to the Chinese authorities, but said it would co-operate fully with any investigation.

With the company not willing to report the case to the Chinese police, poker player Tom Broadbent took it upon himself to do so.

Mr Broadbent – who was refunded $16.90 in compensation but believes he is owed a lot more – recently travelled to Beijing to report the incident in person to the local police in the hope of securing a prosecution.

Mostly rebuffed, the police eventually told him they would look into the case, but often foreign gangs know they can get away with cheating players around the world because of the lack of conviction in some countries to tackle the problem.

As a case in point, the 5 live Investigates team read conversations taking place on Russian online poker forums, and found open discussion about collusion – or “team play” as it is known in thinly veiled code.

In one instance, a Russian player openly advertises for four or five players to join him so they can collectively cheat other unwitting poker players.

LISTEN TO THE FULL REPORT

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In another, players swap usernames for poker websites and their Skype addresses, so they can get together in a game for “team play”.

Poker experts and journalists say that security standards have improved as the industry has moved into the mainstream.

“There are varying degrees to which collusion happens but it is pretty easy to figure out when it’s going on, and it’s not extremely common,” says Aaron Todd, senior editor of the Casino City Times website.

“The vast majority of games, at least 95% and probably more, are completely above board.”

“Cheating can happen in live poker, too, but the one advantage that you have if you play online is that the sites keep track of every single poker hand played, so it’s easy to go back and investigate.”

Many online poker companies are regulated by authorities outside the UK, as gambling firms often register in tax havens, but agreements with jurisdictions including the Isle of Man, Alderney and Gibraltar allow offshore sites to advertise to British players.

Poker player Tom BroadbentPoker player Tom Broadbent is pursuing the cheaters in China

The UK Gambling Commission said that it in the past year it has received 400 inquiries relating to gambling sites licensed overseas – including poker and other forms of gaming.

“We only regulate gambling operators based in Great Britain,” the commission said in a statement.

“When we receive an inquiry relating to an operator regulated in an offshore jurisdiction the consumer is advised to directly contact the operator concerned.”

The Gambling Commission will also supply the consumer with contact details for the local regulator, but has no power to regulate or fine offshore operators.

With so little come-back, has the experience of being bilked put off poker players like Tom Broadbent?

“Not at all,” he laughs and neither has he given up on bringing those who cheated him to justice, as he plans on making another trip to China to check on the progress made by the local police investigating the case of the Pokerstars colluders.

Listen to the full report on 5 live Investigates on Sunday, 12 September at 2100 BST on BBC Radio 5 live.

You can also listen by downloading the 5 live Investigates podcast or via the BBC iPlayer.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Under-12s ‘should not face court’

GirlBarnardo’s says there are better ways of handling youth offending

Ministers are being urged to drop criminal prosecutions for under-12s in all but the most serious of cases, such as rape, murder and manslaughter.

Children’s charity Barnardo’s says there are cheaper and more effective ways to tackle offending by young children.

These include family-wide intervention projects for offending children, who are often close to going into care.

The government says the key to tackling youth crime is early intervention.

Barnardo’s says prosecution and conviction are necessary for very young children who commit the most serious offences.

But it wants the criminal age of responsibility to be raised from 10 to 12, for all cases except for murder, attempted murder, manslaughter, rape and aggravated sexual assault.

“Early criminality so often flows from inadequate parenting, and a lack of discipline and boundaries in a child’s life”

Martin Narey Barnardo’s

According to the Barnardo’s report – From Playground To Prison: The Conveyor Belt To Crime – more than 5,600 10- and 11-year-olds go through the criminal justice system each year, with the vast majority being given a reprimand or final warning.

In 2008, only four were sentenced for more serious violent offences.

But despite the fact that the majority of children are committing low-level crimes, reoffending rates are high.

They run at 40% for those given a referral order and at 70% for those given a community sentence.

Barnardo’s argues there is nothing to be gained from criminalising very young children in this way and that it only heightens the chance of further reoffending.

This is because children who offend at this age tend to have huge welfare needs.

Many have speech and learning difficulties and operate at a level well below their age.

And they come from extremely chaotic family backgrounds and are often close to going into care, the charity says.

These issues need to be tackled to prevent further problems, the report suggests.

Its chief executive and former director general of the Prison Service, Martin Narey, said: “The primary weakness of our current response is that addressing criminal behaviour by a very young child through punishment alone is – transparently – nonsense.

“Our response has to be directed at the parents and sometimes the wider family, because early criminality so often flows from inadequate parenting, and a lack of discipline and boundaries in a child’s life, which allow mischief to grow into much more troubling behaviour.”

Instead of prosecution, Barnardo’s calls for targeted work with families, challenging children and adults to face up to and accept responsibility for their actions and behaviour.

Barnardo’s estimates that by taking this approach, £6m would be saved from court appearances alone.

Mr Narey said: “Family-based approaches are much more likely to be effective than the conviction of the child on his or her own.”

And independent research suggests these sorts of family intervention projects do work.

One study pointed to a 64% reduction in anti-social behaviour and a 58% drop in truancy, exclusions and bad behaviour.

Although there are numerous projects around the country, there is no consistent approach at local level.

And it is not clear whether the government will continue to fund them after the comprehensive spending review in the autumn.

A Ministry of Justice spokesman said it would consider the report’s findings as part of its review of sentencing and rehabilitation.

He added that the government was committed to preventing youth crime and anti-social behaviour, as well as supporting young people to stop them entering the criminal justice system in the first place.

“The key to tackling youth crime is intervening early on and the majority of children are not prosecuted in a courtroom.

“Their actions are addressed using out of court disposals and robust intervention to prevent them entering the criminal justice system,” he said.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Nine Serbs to face Kosovo charges

Serbian troops withdrawing from Kosovo, June 1999Serbian troops were driven out of Kosovo in 1999 after a Nato bombing campaign

Serbian prosecutors have charged nine Serbian ex-paramilitaries with killing 43 ethnic Albanian civilians during the Kosovo conflict in 1999.

In a statement, the war crimes prosecutor in Belgrade said the nine shot their victims in the back multiple times and burned the corpses.

The accused, former members of the Jackals paramilitary group, were detained in March.

The killings took place in the western village of Cuska in May 1999.

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Serbian troops were driven out of Kosovo in 1999 after a Nato bombing campaign aimed at halting the violent repression of the province’s ethnic Albanians, who constituted 90% of its two million population.

Kosovo declared independence in 2008 – a move which Serbia has refused to recognise.

Serbia now wants to join the European Union, but must first prove to Brussels that it is serious about prosecuting for atrocities committed during the wars in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo during the 1990s.

The indictment of the former Jackals is the result of an investigation by the war crimes prosecution in Belgrade, working with the EU mission (Eulex) in Kosovo.

The former paramilitaries are accused of murder, rape, looting, intimidation and destruction of property in Cuska.

The purpose was to drive ethnic Albanians from their homes, the war crimes prosecutor said in a statement.

The murders were committed “in an extremely brutal way”, the indictment said.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Protests held after 9/11 memorial

demonstrators argue in New YorkArguments broke out in the street between supporters on both sides

Competing demonstrations have been held in New York on the anniversary of 9/11 over plans for an Islamic cultural centre close to Ground Zero.

Hundreds of people attended both demonstrations which became heated but passed off without violent incident.

The radical Dutch politician Geert Wilders addressed one demonstration, calling for an end to the plans.

The demonstrations were held after ceremonies honouring those killed in the World Trade Center nine years ago.

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New York authorities blocked off the street passing the site of the proposed Islamic cultural centre, a short walk away from Ground Zero.

Mounted police and dog units patrolled the streets, keeping the protests separated in two pens a distance away from the site of the former World Trade Center.

The question of building a mosque and cultural centre so close to the scene of the devastation of the 2001 attacks has inflamed passions across US society.

The competing protests attracted people from many different groups, from anti-war activists to Hell’s Angels, former US Marines to Buddhists.

Mr Wilders, a right-wing politician from the Netherlands who believes that Islam is comparable with Fascism, told the crowd that the planned cultural centre should not be allowed to go ahead.

Gert Wilders at the demonstrationMr Wilders is a controversial figure both in the US and the Netherlands

“We must never give a free hand to those who want to subjugate us, draw this line so that New York will never become New Mecca,” he said.

The rally was also addressed by the former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton and other Republican commentators.

But others said campaigners against the mosque were part of a hate campaign against Muslims.

“I’m really fearful of all of the hate that’s going on in our country,” Elizabeth Meehan, 51, told the Associated Press.

“People in one brand of Christianity are coming out against other faiths, and I find that so sad, Muslims are fellow Americans; they should have the right to worship in America just like anyone else.”

But anti-mosque campaigners, some holding plaques that read “never forget”, said the plans were an insult.

“This is hallowed ground. It’s something like Gettysburg or Pearl Harbour. Why did they have to do it here? Be a little sensitive,” said Theresa Angelo, 57.

At the earlier ceremony relatives read out the names of those who died when hijacked airliners hit the World Trade Center.

Koran-burning row timelineJuly Terry Jones announces his church in Gainesville, Florida, will stage International Burn a Koran Day. National Association of Evangelicals asks the church to call off the event18 August Gainesville Fire Rescue denies Mr Jones a fire permit, saying the church will be fined if it goes ahead.6 September Top US commander in Afghanistan Gen David Petraeus warns that burning could put troops’ lives will be in danger8 September Vatican condemns bonfire plans as “outrageous”9 September US President Barack Obama joins international condemnation. Mr Jones then says he has cancelled the burning, before saying it is only suspended.10 September Protests break out in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and President Barack Obama calls for religious tolerance in the US11 September Pastor Jones says he will not burn Korans, “not today, not ever”, as 9/11 anniversary is markedKoran-burning threat: Reaction Why burning would have been legal Profile: Terry Jones and the Dove World Outreach Center

Some of the families said the argument between both sides was disrespectful of their families’ loss.

But others said that “now was the time to speak out” against the planned Islamic centre.

Earlier, the pastor behind the threat to burn Korans in Florida said the event had been cancelled permanently.

“We will definitely not burn the Koran, no,” the Reverend Terry Jones told NBC’s Today show. “Not today, not ever.”

Earlier, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg addressed the mourners.

“No other public tragedy has cut our city so deeply, no other place is as filled with our compassion, our love and our solidarity,” he said.

Speaking at a memorial event at the Pentagon, also hit by a hijacked plane on 9/11, President Obama paid tribute to those who died.

He said that while it was tempting to dwell on their final moments, the memorial events were taking place “to remember the fullness of their time on Earth”.

Mr Obama also repeated his recent calls for unity, saying: “It was not a religion that attacked us that September day. It was al-Qaeda.”

“We will not sacrifice the liberties we cherish or hunker down behind walls of suspicion and mistrust.”

Prominent New York Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf is at the head of a group who plan to turn an abandoned factory building into a community centre and prayer space.

They say the centre will include facilities for all religions and be a place for reconciliation between faiths.

Image of the Ground Zero layout

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DR Congo bans ‘conflict mining’

Joseph KabilaMr Kabila said there was a”mafia” controlling mineral mining in DR Congo

Mining in three provinces of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has been banned on the orders of the President Joseph Kabila.

President Kabila ordered the indefinite suspension during a visit to the mining hub town of Walikale.

The president said he wanted to weed out what he called a “kind of mafia” involved in the mining industry.

Control over mining minerals like coltan and cassiterite has fuelled conflict between rebel groups.

The minerals are used in mobile phones and computers.

The ban covers the provinces of North Kivu, South Kivu and Maniema.

There has been a prolonged conflict there, last monthat least 150 women were reportedly raped by militia members near the town of Walikale.

The conflict is also fuelled by ethnic hatred, a hang-over from the 1994 slaughter of Tutsis in neighbouring Rwanda and Congo’s subsequent civil wars.

The BBC’s Thomas Hubert in eastern DR Congo says the ban may be difficult to enforce.

UN peacekeepers recently said they had control of the airstrip in Walikale, which is the easiest way out, but people might find other routes to export minerals.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.