David Cameron rules out slavery reparation during Jamaica visit

David Cameron has ruled out making reparations for Britain's role in the historic slave trade and urged Caribbean countries to "move on".

The prime minister acknowledged that "these wounds run very deep" during his visit to Jamaica, where he faced calls to apologise from campaigners.

He said Britain's role in wiping slavery "off the face of our planet" should be remembered.

Jamaican PM Portia Simpson Miller said she had raised the issue in talks.

'Obvious sensitivities'

Addressing MPs in Jamaica's parliament, Mr Cameron said slavery was "abhorrent in all its forms".

He added: "I do hope that, as friends who have gone through so much together since those darkest of times, we can move on from this painful legacy and continue to build for the future."

Mr Cameron also announced £25m in British aid for a new Jamaican prison and a £300m development package for the Caribbean which will provide grants for infrastructure projects, including roads and bridges.

He said his visit - the first by a British prime minister in 14 years - was to "reinvigorate" ties between the countries, and that he wanted to concentrate on future relations rather than centuries-old issues.

Mrs Simpson Miller said while she was "aware of the obvious sensitivities", Jamaica was "involved in a process under the auspices of the Caribbean Community [Caricom] to engage the UK on the matter".

During Mr Cameron's speech, a small group of protesters with placards that read "reparations now" gathered outside parliament.

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Analysis

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By BBC News correspondent Elaine Dunkley

While Prime Minister David Cameron is keen to send criminals back to Jamaica to serve their sentences, Jamaicans want to talk about the wrongs of Britain's past.

The state of Jamaica's prison system has long been a source of international embarrassment for the island. Medical care is poor and there is serious overcrowding.

But more important to Jamaicans is the news that the British government will invest tens of millions in vital infrastructure in the Caribbean to help drive economic growth and create jobs.

The issue of reparation for Britain's involvement in slavery has been the mosquito in the ointment for Mr Cameron.

There have been calls from the Jamaican government to make financial amends and apologise.

No apology from him, but instead an acknowledgement about the impact that slavery has had.

Mr Cameron wanted this visit to be about the future - but Jamaica certainly can't forget the past.

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The issue of former slave-owning nations compensating former colonies is a contentious one in the Caribbean, where national commissions have calculated the sums could run into trillions of dollars.

One suggestion has been that the money could be provided in the form of debt relief.

Mrs Simpson Miller told the United Nations in 2013 there should be "an international discussion in a non-confrontational manner" and its parliament had passed a motion backing reparations.

One Jamaican MP, Mike Henry, threatened to boycott Mr Cameron's speech at the country's parliament if he did not engage on the issue.

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Britain's slave-owners

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For more than 200 years Britain was at the heart of a lucrative transatlantic trade in millions of enslaved Africans.

According to ship records it is estimated about 12.5 million people were transported as slaves from Africa to the Americas and the Caribbean - to work in often brutal conditions on plantations - from the 16th century until the trade was banned in 1807.

In 1833, Britain emancipated its enslaved people and raised the equivalent of £17bn in compensation money to be paid to 46,000 of Britain's slave-owners for "loss of human property". University College London has compiled a database of those compensated.

Among those listed is General Sir James Duff, who it is claimed is a first cousin six times removed of David Cameron. He was awarded compensation worth about £3m in today's terms.

Others who received compensation include the ancestors of novelists George Orwell and Graham Greene, as well as distant relatives of Arts Council chairman Sir Peter Bazalgette and celebrity chef Ainsley Harriott.

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Campaigners also called on Mr Cameron to make a personal apology, saying one of his own ancestors was paid compensation for the loss of his slaves in 1834.

Bert Samuels, a member of Jamaica's National Commission on Reparations, told Television Jamaica "he needs to atone, to apologise personally and on behalf of his country".

Sir Hilary Beckles, chairman of Caricom's reparations commission, wrote in an open letter in the Jamaica Observer that the UK must "play its part in cleaning up this monumental mess of Empire".

Image copyrightPA

Image captionMrs Simpson Miller gave Mr Cameron a warm welcome - but has since raised the controversial issue of reparation

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who lived in Jamaica for two years in his youth, said that, as prime minister, he would be ready to apologise for the slave trade.

Speaking at Labour's annual conference in Brighton, Mr Corbyn said it was "the most brutal part of our history and the history of Jamaica".

During his two-day visit, Mr Cameron revealed the UK will spend £25m on building a prison in Jamaica so that foreign criminals in the UK can be sent home to serve sentences in the Caribbean.

More than 600 Jamaican nationals are in UK jails but cannot be deported because of Jamaica's poor prison conditions.

Officials say the foreign aid-funded deal could save taxpayers £10m a year when transfers begin in 2020.

The Howard League for Penal Reform criticised the plan, saying it was "the wrong use of foreign aid" and would fail to address the real issue of overcrowding in British prisons.

Pope Francis 'met gay marriage row clerk' Kim Davis on US trip

Pope Francis reportedly met Kim Davis, a Kentucky clerk who was jailed for refusing to issue same-sex marriage licences, during his visit to the US.

Mrs Davis's lawyer said she had a 15-minute private meeting with the Pope at the Vatican Embassy in Washington.

Vatican spokesman Frederico Lombardi said that he "does not deny" that a meeting took place.

Mrs Davis opposes gay marriage and argued that her Christian faith should exempt her from issuing licences.

She spent six days in jail earlier this month after defying a federal court order to give marriage licences to gay couples in Rowan, Kentucky.

Mat Stavers, Mrs Davis's lawyer, told CBS News that Mrs Davis and her husband had been invited to meet the Pope following the media storm surrounding her stance.

Pope Francis "thanked her for her courage" and told her to "stay strong", Mr Stavers said.

Mr Stavers' group, the Liberty Counsel, says Pope Francis gave rosaries to Ms Davis and her husband Joe.

The group said they are waiting on the Vatican for pictures of the visit.

Image copyrightLiberty Counsel

Image captionThe rosaries Kim Davis says Pope Francis gave to her

Image copyrightReuters

Image captionMrs Davis made headlines for her controversial refusal to issue marriage licences to gay couples

The Pope was asked for his views on the question of government officials refusing to discharge their duties because of their religious beliefs during his return from the US on Sunday.

He told reporters on his flight back to Rome that conscientious objection was a "human right".

"It is a right. And if a person does not allow others to be a conscientious objector, he denies a right," he said.

Under Pope Francis's leadership, the Catholic church has taken a slightly more compassionate view of homosexual relationships than under his predecessors, the BBC's David Willey reports from Rome.

Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari to run oil ministry

Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari has said he intends to remain in personal control of the oil ministry as he pursues an anti-corruption campaign.

He won elections in March partly on his tough stance on corruption.

He has vowed to trace and recover the "mind-boggling" sums of money that have been stolen from the oil sector.

Oil exports account for around 90% of Nigeria's foreign currency earnings and because of low oil prices, the country faces tough economic challenges.

Mr Buhari, who took office at the end of May, has submitted his list of ministerial nominations, the Senate president has tweeted.

Over the last four months, he has been dealing directly with the top civil servants, who run the ministries.

He has already split the state-owned NNPC oil company into two entities in a bid to tackle corruption.

Issue of trust

The BBC's Will Ross in Lagos says there had been plenty of speculation that President Buhari would put himself in charge of the crucial oil ministry.

He made the announcement at the UN General Assembly in New York, confirming that a junior minister would take care of the day-to-day running of the ministry while he took overall charge of cleaning up the notoriously corrupt sector.

The Nigerian leader said that in about 18 months he would consider whether to break up the NNPC further to improve efficiency and better root out corruption, Reuters news agency reports.

"We want to see what we have done in reducing the size and redeploying most of the management. We want to see the impact of that before we decide further," he said.

In the 1970s and 1990s Mr Buhari held key positions in the oil sector so he has some relevant experience for the job, our correspondent says.

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Muhammadu Buhari at a glance:

Image copyrightAFP

• The 72-year-old is first Nigerian opposition candidate to win a presidential election
• Military ruler of Nigeria from 1984 to 1985 until deposed in a coup
• Poor human rights record during that time and a disciplinarian - civil servants late for work had to do frog jumps
• Appointed petroleum minister in 1976 and then chair of the newly created NNPC state oil firm
• Under Gen Sani Abacha in the 1990s, was chair of Petroleum Trust Fund that undertook development projects
• A Muslim from northern Nigeria, he is seen as incorruptible

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The president wants to recover stolen money and is also keen to ensure that those responsible for the looting end up in court, our reporter says.

Some analysts suggest he does not trust anyone else to do such an important job.

His list of cabinet appointees is expected to be presented to the Senate for approval by the end of September.

Our reporter says the long time it has taken to make his choices seems to have been to allow for an extensive vetting process to find suitable candidates who have not themselves been corrupt.

Timbuktu mausoleum destruction suspect appears at ICC

A suspected Islamist militant accused of destroying cultural sites in Timbuktu has appeared before the International Criminal Court (ICC), in the first case of its kind.

Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi is suspected of war crimes over the destruction of nine mausoleums and a mosque in the ancient Malian city in 2012.

He was handed over by Niger after the ICC issued a warrant for his arrest.

Islamists occupied the city until they were ousted by French forces in 2013.

Wearing a navy-blue suit and wire-rimmed spectacles, Mr Faqi told the court: "My name is Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi, I am from the al-Ansar Tuareg tribe."

He told the court he was born "about 40 years ago" in Agoune, 100km (60 miles) west of Timbuktu, and was a "graduate of the teachers' institute in Timbuktu and... a civil servant in education in the Malian government beginning 2011".

He said he wished to be spoken to in Arabic, but gave no other statement during the proceedings at which the charges were read out.

The judge said the next hearing would be on 18 January, where a decision would be taken whether to put the suspect on trial.

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Treasures of Timbuktu

Image copyrightAP

• Timbuktu was a centre of Islamic learning from the 13th to the 17th Centuries
• 700,000 manuscripts had survived in public libraries and private collections
• Books on religion, law, literature and science
• Added to Unesco world heritage list in 1988 for its three mosques and 16 cemeteries and mausoleums
• They played a major role in spreading Islam in West Africa; the oldest dates from 1329
• Islamists destroyed mausoleums after seizing the city in April 2012

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According to the prosecutor, Mr Faqi was a "zealous member" of Ansar Dine, a Tuareg extremist militia with links to al-Qaeda, reports the BBC's Anna Holligan who was in court.

He is alleged to have been head of the Hesbah - or what some call the "manners' brigade" - which enforced strict Islamist law in Timbuktu during the unrest that rocked Mali in 2012 and 2013, and of being involved with and executing the decisions of the so-called Islamic Court of Timbuktu.

During their occupation, the militants vandalised and destroyed mosques and mausoleums, and burnt tens of thousands of ancient manuscripts.

The city - which is listed as a World Heritage Site by Unesco - was considered the centre of Islamic learning from the 13th to the 17th Centuries.

At one time it counted nearly 200 schools and universities that attracted thousands of students from across the Muslim world.

Image copyrightAFP

Image captionManuscripts were damaged

Image copyrightAP

Image captionThe mausoleums took a year to be rebuilt by local stone masons using traditional techniques

The mausoleums were shrines to Timbuktu's founding fathers, who had been venerated as saints by most of the city's inhabitants.

But this practice is considered blasphemous by fundamentalists.

Earlier this year, 14 mausoleums were rebuilt by local stone masons using traditional techniques.

The case against Mr Faqi is the first to be brought before the ICC "concerning the destruction of buildings dedicated to religion and historical monuments".

The court, which has until now always focused on attacks against people, hopes the charges against Mr Faqi will deter others who may seek to destroy these treasured pieces of history, our correspondent says.

Does a death sentence always mean death?

Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has been sentenced to death by a federal jury in the US for his part in the attacks on the 2013 marathon. But only a small proportion of those on Death Row are actually executed.

Between 1973 and the end of 2013, 8,466 people were sentenced to death in the United States, and 1,359 - about one in six - were executed.

"It's a death penalty in name only," says Frank R Baumgartner, a political science professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

He has studied the fate of people on death row and discovered that as of 31 December 2013

• 2,979 remain on death row
• 392 had their sentences commuted
• 3,194 had their death sentences overturned

Of those who have had their sentences overturned, the Death Penalty Information Center, estimates that 152 have been exonerated.

One conclusion that can be drawn from these figures is that, as Bryan Stevenson, executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, put it on BBC Radio 4 earlier this year: "For every nine people that we have executed in America, we have identified one innocent person on death row."

Some people, of course, have died on death row of natural causes or suicide.

The proportion of people executed varies from state to state. Eighteen out of the 50 states have banned the death penalty, and just this week the state of Nebraska legislature voted in favour of abolishing it.

Image captionThe Nebraska lethal injection chamber

Of the 32 states where the death penalty remains in force, Baumgartner points out that Virginia executes a higher proportion of those sentenced to death than any other - about 72%.

"They are very strict about limiting appeals to 12 months. If your appeals aren't filed within 12 months, your case will be considered to be final.

"That's the only state to have such rules, and the only state that has more than 50% of cases carried out to execution.

"There are many states where it is extremely rare."

California has executed about 1%.

"They simply don't carry out their executions," Baumgartner says.

US Death Row prisoners executed: selected states 1973-2013
State/jurisdiction	Sentenced to death	Executed	% executed
Virginia	152	110	72%
Texas	1,075	508	47%
Georgia	325	53	16%
Ohio	419	52	12%
Florida	1,040	81	8%
Illinois	307	12	4%
California	1,013	13	1%
Pennsylvania	417	3	1%
Kansas	13	0	0%
Federal	71	3	4%
US total	8,466	1,359	16%
Source: US Department of Justice

But as well as individual states, the federal government can try people, and sentence them, for federal crimes. This is what has happened in the case of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

Although he committed the crimes in Massachusetts - a state without the death penalty - he was convicted and sentenced by a federal court.

So the chance of being executed by the federal government is low, says Baumgartner.But between 1973 and 2013, the federal government has only executed three people out of 71 sentenced to death. There are 56 people awaiting execution.

Across the world, the number of countries using the death penalty has been in decline, says Prof Carolyn Hoyle, director of the Centre for Criminology at the University of Oxford.

More than half of all countries have officially banned the death penalty, and less than a quarter have used it in the last decade.

"If you look back to 1988 only 35 countries had abolished the death penalty. Today, 107 have abolished the death penalty," she says.

"Another 52 countries haven't executed anyone in the last 10 years, so they retain it on the books, but they are not actively using it."

The UK stopped using the death penalty in 1965, but retained it as a punishment for arson in the Royal Dockyards until 1971, and for treason and piracy with violence until 1998.

Image captionFormer Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi was sentenced to death last week

Only 39 countries have executed someone in the past decade, most of them in Africa, the Middle East and Asia.

The US has by far the most developed appeals system according to Hoyle. In contrast, some countries have "speedy courts" and limited options for appeal. Some do not allow the accused to take part in the trial and may coerce suspects into making a false confession.

There are no available figures for the number of people in these countries who have been sentenced to death and subsequently had their sentences revoked.

But there is anecdotal evidence of miscarriages of justice, says Hoyle.

"In China, a very high-profile case a few years ago was of a man who was convicted of killing his neighbour. The neighbour wandered back to the village 10 years later alive and well.

"That was a case where not only was he not guilty, there had not actually been a crime."