MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

United State marks seventh 9/11 anniversary

Memorial services are set to be held to mark the seventh anniversary of the 11 September 2001 attacks on the US.

Nearly 3,000 people were killed when four planes were hijacked and flown into New York's World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania. The presidential candidates, Barack Obama and John McCain, will attend a ceremony at Ground Zero in New York. At the Pentagon, a new memorial will be dedicated by President George W Bush for the 184 people who died there. The memorial in Washington was built at a cost of $22m (£12.6m; 15.8m euros) on a 1.9-acre (0.77-hectare) parcel of land within view of the crash site. Mr Bush will head to the ceremony shortly after standing for a moment of silence on the South Lawn of the White House at 0846 (1240 GMT) - the time that the first of the two passenger planes hit the World Trade Center. "The president thinks about 9/11 every single day when he wakes up and before he goes to bed," White House press secretary Dana Perino said on Wednesday. 'Put aside politics' Senators Obama and McCain, the Democratic and Republican nominees in November's election, will appear together at Ground Zero in the afternoon to lay wreathes in honour of the victims In a joint statement from the campaigns announcing their decision to visit Ground Zero together, the two men vowed to come together "as Americans" and suspend their political campaigns for 24 hours. "All of us came together on 9/11 - not as Democrats or Republicans - but as Americans," the statement said. "In smoke-filled corridors and on the steps of the Capitol; at blood banks and at vigils - we were united as one American family. "We will put aside politics and come together to renew that unity, to honour the memory of each and every American who died, and to grieve with the families and friends who lost loved ones," it said. Their appearance is to be followed by another in the evening at a Columbia University forum to discuss their views on public service. The ceremony in downtown Manhattan will pause four times for silence - at 0846, 0903, 0959, 1029 - marking the times when the planes hit the Twin Towers, and the times when each tower fell. Family members and students representing the 90 countries that lost people in the attacks will also read out the names of all the 2,973 dead. Seven years after the attacks which shocked the world, Ground Zero is a construction site. After years of delays and disagreements over how to commemorate the dead, work has finally begun on a memorial and a new skyscraper - the "Freedom Tower" - which is due to be completed by 2012. On Wednesday, New York mayor Michael Bloomberg called for the abolition of the WTC planning agency, saying the reconstruction was "frustratingly slow, owing in large part to a multilayered governance structure that has undermined accountability from the get-go". "Most important, the memorial must be completed by the 10th anniversary. No more excuses, no more delays," he added. New York State Governor David Paterson said he also shared "a sense of disappointment and frustration at the unacceptable pace of the Ground Zero rebuilding". (BBC)