>In the meantime, might I suggest that tempting though it is, we not speculate over who was responsible.

I agree.

Although there has been some news reporting of celebrations, the overall reaction, around the world, has been of horror at the scale of the atrocity and loss of human life. The WTC was home to many foreign trade organisations, and there is a diverse ethnic mix in today's USA. People of all races and religions must have suffered.

Adverse reactions have been shown on television but the power of the mob is very strong and, even with our relatively free press, we know we are not given all the information that is available. It is hard to imagine what it must be like growing up in one of the countries of the world, like the old Soviet regime, old South Africa, for example, where news reporting and even that which is taught in schools, is very, very biased. A recent interview with a woman who had been caught on film screaming at black people being bussed to school in Little Rock, Arkansas is an example of how we conform to the beliefs of those around us. She said that it was hard to believe that she had done such a thing but it was not just her view but those of the ministers, teachers and family around her. Who else do we trust? The news showed a woman screaming "Fenian Bastards" (no apologies for the quote) at catholic children going to school in Northern Ireland, only last week. It isn't only the extreme ends of the fundamentalist muslim world that displays such behaviour.