Bon Jovi’s work was called “hugely influential” at the event

Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora of rock band Bon Jovi have been inducted into the US Songwriters Hall of Fame at a ceremony in New York.

Jon Bon Jovi said of the honour: “It’s the closest thing to immortality that we’re ever going to see here.”

The duo performed their hit Wanted Dead or Alive at a gala to celebrate 40 years of inductions.

Veterans Crosby, Stills and Nash were also inducted at the event, while Sir Tom Jones was given a hitmaker award.

‘Too talented’

The Welsh singer, who has only recently starting collaborating on his own material, said: “You have to have great songs to get your foot in the door.”

He also performed a medley of his hit songs at the event, and had to restart It’s Not Unusual after admitting he had started in the wrong place.

US singer-songwriter Jason Mraz was presented with the award for the most promising talent, and was tipped as a future inductee into the Hall of Fame.

Former winner Rob Thomas, who gave Mraz his honour, joked: “I hate you. You’ve ruined the curve for everybody. You’re kind of young, and you’re cute.

“You’re just too talented and I think you should stop,” he added.

British songwriting duo Roger Cook and Roger Greenaway, whose credits include I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing and Here Comes That Rainy Day Feeling Again, also gained a special award.

Europe’s new Herschel space observatory has provided a demonstration of its capability with a first image of the iconic Whirlpool Galaxy.

The billion-euro telescope opened its “eyes” to the cosmos last Sunday when a command was given to lift a protective hatch covering the instrument bay.

Herschel spied the galaxy, also known as M51, with its Photoconductor Array Camera and Spectrometer (PACS).

Scientists stress Herschel is still in its commissioning phase.

They need to learn how best to operate the facility.

Nonetheless, the very first test observation suggests the optical performance of Herschel will more than meet the design expectations.

Scientists connected with the mission said they were “ecstatic” with the results.

Albrecht Poglitsch, the lead scientist on PACS, told the BBC “nobody in their right mind would ever have predicted such a quality at the very first attempt”.

HERSCHEL SPACE TELESCOPE The observatory is tuned to see the Universe in the far-infrared Its 3.5m diameter mirror is the largest ever flown in space Herschel can probe clouds of gas and dust to see stars being born It will investigate how galaxies have evolved through time The mission will end when its helium refrigerant boils off

The European Space Agency (Esa) mission was launched from Earth on 14 May.

The observatory’s quest is to study how stars and galaxies form, and how they evolve through cosmic time.

Herschel is sensitive to light at long wavelengths - in the far-infrared and sub-millimetre range.

PACS covers the shorter end of the spectrum; the SPIRE (Spectral and Photometric Imaging Receiver) instrument looks at the longer end.

Whereas PACS got its opportunity to look out into the Universe immediately after the hatch opening on Sunday, SPIRE was not scheduled to make its first observation until Tuesday.

Its check-out targets were likely to include an object in our Solar System as well as something far-distant.

Left: The best view of M51 taken by Nasa’s much smaller Spitzer space telescope and its Multiband Imaging Photometer Right: The bigger Herschel telescope’s image is sharper. The European observatory reveals new structures in M51

Dr Poglitsch described his feelings on getting the first imagery down from Herschel.

“It certainly was a moment to remember,” he told BBC News.

“We were anxiously watching the progress bar on the computer. When, finally, the first image showed up on the screen it was truly amazing - nobody in their right mind would ever have predicted such a quality at the very first attempt.

“So, it was a mix of disbelief and exaltation, with the latter one gradually prevailing as all three ‘colours’ rolled in one after the other.

“The nice colour picture, of course, took days of more advanced processing of the data in the three individual bands and then quite some optimisation at the colour image level to visualize the information it carries.

“So, when we had reached that level - three days after the initial arrival of the data - everybody on the team was absolutely enthusiastic about what we had achieved.

“I would say that it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”

Dr Poglitsch is affiliated to the Max-Planck-Institut für extraterrestrische Physik, Garching.

The PACS team celebrates the first image. Albrecht Poglitsch is stood far right

The PEGI system is now used in more than 30 nations.

The videogame trade association, Tiga, say the Pan European Game Information (PEGI) rating systems has “room for improvement”.

Tiga’s chief, Dr Richard Wilson, said changes were needed to make the logos “instinctively recognisable”.

“There needs to be an advertising campaign and publicity as to what these pictograms actually mean,” he said.

The government backed the PEGI system as part of the Digital Britain report, removing responsibility from the BBFC.

Speaking to the BBC, Dr Wilson broadly welcomed the system but said more could be done.

“Game developers will welcome the new PEGI system, as it makes classification easier, especially those who export to the European market.

“While the age ratings are fairly clear, there needs to be improvement to the system - especially the pictograms - because they are not instinctively recognisable,” he said.

Laurie Hall - the director general of the Video Standards Council, which administers the PEGI system in the UK - agreed with Dr Wilson and told the BBC that more work needed to be done.

“I think people need to be made more aware,” he said.

“Take the spider logo: that means ‘fear’. In other words, people might find the game scary, but you might not immediately jump to that conclusion looking at the box.

“Our plan is to have a big awareness campaign and also put consumer information about the game on the packaging, in English, which will help.”

The decision to go with PEGI, rather than the BBFC, goes against the recommendations of Dr Tanya Byron’s review into protecting children from harmful content in the digital age, where she advocated the BBFC system.

Bill Olner at the launch of the video games all party parliamentary group

Games focus

The announcement was one of a number of measures brought in as part of the Digital Britain report.

The government also said it would consider tax relief on video game production.

That news came in the same week that an all party Parliamentary group for the video games industry was set up, chaired by Bill Olner MP with Lord Puttnam filling in as vice chair.

At the event, Dr Wilson said that without tax breaks the games industry stood to lose more than 1600 jobs over the next five years.

John Whittingdale, the Conservative MP who chairs the all party committee on culture, media and sport, said the UK games industry was “under assault” from other countries.

“We were third largest game developer, behind the United States and Japan.

“Now we are the fourth, overtaken by Canada because they have offered substantive tax breaks.”

Experts at the launch of the all party group stressed that there was a skills shortage in the UK which, coupled with high recruitment costs and a lack of relevant university courses, meant that games firms had to invest considerable money and effort into getting graduate recruits up to speed.

“Tax relief would level the playing field somewhat,” said Dr Wilson.

It is thought video games development contributed more than £1bn to the UK’s GDP in 2008.

Xue’s wife was said to live in fear of him

A man who sparked an international hunt in 2007 after abandoning his three-year-old daughter in Australia has been found guilty of murdering his wife.

A New Zealand jury convicted Nai Yin Xue, 55, of strangling his wife at their home in Auckland.

He fled to the US after the murder, but abandoned his daughter at a Melbourne railway station on the way - an act that was caught on security cameras.

The child - Qian Xun - was picked up by police, who nicknamed her Pumpkin.

She is now living with her grandmother in China.

Violent and domineering

The defence argued that Xue’s wife, 27-year-old An An Liu, had died in a sex game that went wrong.

But prosecutor Aaron Perkins dismissed the claim as “bizarre”, saying her body had been found in the boot of Xue’s car, and that she had been strangled with his neck tie.

“Pumpkin” now lives with her grandmother in China

Xue, who did not give evidence during the trial, punched the air in frustration when the verdict was announced and said in Mandarin “unfair, unfair”, according to reports.

The court had heard that Xue, a martial-arts instructor, was violent. He had threatened to kill his wife if she ever left him.

The prosecutor said An An Liu had lived in fear of her husband, who was angry because she had not given birth to a son.

The case grabbed headlines across the world after footage was released showing the abandoned girl’s plight.

Xue was eventually recognised by a Chinese family in Atlanta, Georgia, who tied him up and called the police.

The village of Phaphunda is small and unremarkable

It was a story buried in the middle of the Indian newspapers.

Two star-crossed lovers committed suicide after the local village council, or panchayat, ordered them to annul their marriage or face death.

Amreen was Muslim and her husband, Lokesh, a Hindu. Their match was simply unacceptable to their communities. The couple poisoned themselves.

Now police have charged the entire panchayat with abetting suicide.

‘Fatal mistake’

To find out more, we headed east from Delhi into the north Indian countryside.

A little more than two hours later, we found ourselves in the village of Phaphunda.

[The pair] should have stayed away and lived in the city Achan Singh, village council head

Like most others in the area, it was small and unremarkable.

The villagers, mostly farmers, live in houses built close to each other, with narrow lanes running through them. Horse-carts and cattle amble along - Delhi seems far away.

Attitudes here can be unforgiving. I headed first to the house of the village chief, Achan Singh, who heads the village council.

A tall, well-built man in his 40s, he was very welcoming, pouring out steaming cups of tea as we sat on his carpet.

Yes, he had heard about the incident but no it was not his panchayat that had anything to do with it.

“It was a gathering of elders from the two families,” he told me.

“The boy and girl were told that their marriage would not be allowed. They would have to leave each other or else they would be killed,” he said in a matter of fact way.

Pressed further, Mr Singh sympathised with the couple but said they had made a fatal mistake.

“You see, they fell in love and then ran away to get married. They should have stayed away and lived in the city.

“In our village, Hindus marry Hindus and Muslims marry Muslims. It’s very sad, what happened but what can you expect? The pressure on their families was enormous. They were being disgraced and dishonoured.”

Very nervous

Our local contact had arranged for us to meet the family of Amreen, the dead girl.

As we left Achan Singh’s house, he said he would join us. He revved up his motorcycle and rode off ahead, while we followed.

God knows what madness prompted her to run away with that boy Amreen’s aunt, Syeda

When we reached Amreen’s home, the village headman was already there. He had apparently arrived well ahead of us.

Her family lived across the highway in a predominantly Muslim part of the village.

A mosque was visible over the high walls of her father’s large farmhouse. Inside, buffalo were tethered to posts - he sold milk for a living.

“The boy, Lokesh, would come here every morning to buy milk. That’s how he met the girl and they fell in love,” one of the villagers told me.

The girl’s father, Salim, soon joined us for a conversation but it was soon apparent that he was very nervous.

“I really don’t know what happened,” he kept saying.

I asked him if he had come under pressure from the panchayat.

“No, no, there was no pressure,” he said hurriedly glancing over his shoulder at the chief.

‘Dishonoured’

“Go on, tell them how you were dishonoured in the community,” Achan Singh prompted him gently but firmly.

The pair fell in love buying and selling milk

“We were dishonoured in the community,” repeated Salim.

“Neither family wanted them to marry. But no-one threatened them either,” he maintained.

The girl’s aunt, Syeda, who had been listening in while tending to her sick mother, decided to speak up.

“She was a lovely girl, very innocent and always used to read the Koran. God knows what madness prompted her to run away with that boy. We’re all very sad at what happened.”

It was obvious I was going to get little more out of the family so we left and headed to the office of the local policeman for a little more clarity.

“We got to hear about the incident and decided to act,” said police superintendent Sharad Sachan.

“The young couple were legally married and therefore entitled to live together. Their parents and the villagers had no right to put pressure on them and force them to commit suicide. They are guilty of a crime and we will do all we can to build a case against them.”

As we headed back to Delhi, it was clear that with a wall of secrecy descending around the whole incident, the police were going to have their work cut out.

They may have the law on their side but the villagers are defending ancient codes and traditions that remain untouched by modernity. And they will fight to keep it that way.

Green tea has already been linked to health benefits

A chemical found in green tea appears to slow the progression of prostate cancer, a study has suggested.

Green tea has been linked to a positive effect on a wide range of conditions, including heart disease, cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.

The research, in the US journal Cancer Prevention Research, found a significant fall in certain markers which indicate cancer development.

A UK charity said the tea might help men manage low-risk tumours.

Although previous studies have shown benefits from drinking green tea - including some positive findings in relation to prostate cancer, there have been mixed results.

In this study, Philadelphia-based researchers tested a compound called Polyphenon E.

They were looking for a number of biomarkers - molecules - including vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) which are indicators of developing cancer.

They also looked for prostate specific antigen (PSA) - a protein only found in the prostate. Levels can rise if cancer is present.

‘12 cups’

The study included 26 men, aged 41 to 72 years, who had been diagnosed with prostate cancer and who were scheduled for radical prostate surgery.

Patients took four capsules containing Polyphenon E for an average of 34 days, up until the day before surgery - the equivalent of around 12 cups of normally brewed concentrated green tea.

The study found a significant reduction in levels of HGF, VEGF and PSA, with some patients demonstrating reductions of more than 30%.

Dr James Cardelli, from the Feist-Weiller Cancer Center, who led the study, said the compound, which was provided by the company Polyphenon Pharma, “may have the potential to lower the incidence and slow the progression of prostate cancer.”

There were only a few reported side effects associated with this study, and liver function remained normal.

Dr Cardelli said: “We think that the use of tea polyphenols alone or in combination with other compounds currently used for cancer therapy should be explored as an approach to prevent cancer progression and recurrence.”

“There is reasonably good evidence that many cancers are preventable, and our studies using plant-derived substances support the idea that plant compounds found in a healthy diet can play a role in preventing cancer development and progression.”

‘Keep progression at bay’

John Neate, chief executive of the Prostate Cancer Charity, said: “There have been several studies into green tea and its potential benefits, but there is, as yet, no conclusive evidence.

“The results of this study do suggest that there is merit in further research into the effects of extracts of green tea, both in relation to its impact on the prevention of prostate cancer and in controlling progression in men already diagnosed with the disease, as was investigated in this instance.”

“These initial positive findings could indicate that green tea could have a place in ‘active surveillance’, where a slow-growing, low risk tumour is monitored for changes and men want to take something which could help keep progression at bay.

“Potentially, this could mean completely avoiding, in some cases, any of the more usual medical interventions and their associated side effects.”

Prostate cancer kills 10,000 men in the UK each year

Researchers are probing an unexpected success in a study of an experimental treatment for prostate cancer.

In three men with advanced disease, use of an immune drug called ipilimumab, shrank their tumours to such an extent surgeons were able to operate.

The Mayo Clinic team in the US said the “startling” results in the study of 108 men had prompted them to set up a second trial using higher doses.

One UK expert said there were currently few treatments for advanced disease.

In men with advanced prostate cancer, which has spread outside the prostate, surgery cannot usually be done.

Hormone therapy is usually given to try to shrink the tumour to some degree and buy some time.

The trial was set up to see if MDX-010, a type of drug called a monoclonal antibody, would improve on hormone treatment.

The idea is that the drug will encourage a strong immune response to attack the cancer cells.

Half the men had normal therapy and half also received MDX-010.

In three cases, where the experimental drug was given, the tumours shrank dramatically, enabling surgeons to operate and remove the tumour.

There are 20 other patients who are showing improvements and who are being monitored by the surgeons.

‘Preliminary’

Dr Eugene Kwon, a surgeon at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, said the results in those men were well beyond their expectations.

“Our surgeons had never seen this happen before and we were really taken by surprise.”

They are now planning a trial in 30 men to test higher doses of the drug and hope to start much larger trials across many hospitals shortly after.

Dr Michael Blute, study leader and the surgeon involved said: “I had never seen anything like this before. I had a hard time finding the cancer.

“At one point the pathologist (who was working during surgery) asked if we were sending him samples from the same patient.”

Until large scale studies are carried out it is unclear whether this response can be repeated in other patients or is an anomaly.

But John Neate, chief executive of The Prostate Cancer Charity said they would wait for further results with anticipation.

“If a cancerous tumour has spread beyond the prostate gland, it would currently be regarded as inoperable and alternative types of treatment, typically hormone therapy are necessary.

“If these early and small scale results are replicated in larger trials, this represents a potentially very exciting development.

“We urgently need a wider range of treatment options for prostate cancer which has spread outside the prostate gland.

“It must be remembered that this is a small trial however, and the findings are preliminary.”

The statue will be near Big Ben

The design for a memorial statue dedicated to the nurse and Crimean War heroine Mary Seacole has been chosen.

Artist Martin Jennings created the winning sculpture, which will stand in the grounds of St Thomas’ Hospital in central London.

The Jamaican-born nurse was voted the greatest Black Briton of all time in a poll in 2004.

The statue is expected to be erected at its London location by the end of 2010 or early 2011.

The Mary Seacole Memorial Statue Appeal was set up to create a permanent reminder of the 19th Century nurse.

In 1854, she approached the War Office asking to be sent as an army nurse to the Crimea where there were known to be poor medical facilities for wounded soldiers.

She was refused but funded her own trip to the Crimea where she established the British Hotel near Balaclava to provide comfortable quarters for sick and convalescent officers.

The Jamaican-born woman was voted the greatest black Briton of all time

She also visited the battlefield, sometimes under fire, to nurse the wounded, and became known as “Mother Seacole”.

Baroness Amos, the chair of the Mary Seacole Memorial Artist Selection Panel, said she richly deserved to be recognised.

“People in - not just the black community, but in ethnic minority communities generally - will feel very pleased because it’s like a real recognition of the contribution that we have made to Britain’s history.

“Britain’s history has been diverse for generations and we need to recognise and understand that.”

Miss Seacole, who rivalled Florence Nightingale for her feats in the Crimean War, was the daughter of a Scottish soldier and Jamaican mother.

Mr Jennings said: “She’ll be facing Big Ben and marching towards the river - a wind, as it were, coming off the river - representing in some ways perhaps the wind of the resistance that she had to push against constantly in order to achieve what she wanted to achieve with her vocation.

“This is a wonderful location.”

The long-awaited Acropolis Museum in Athens is to be unveiled later.

The modern glass and concrete building, at the foot of the ancient Acropolis, houses sculptures from the golden age of Athenian democracy.

The £110m ($182m; 130m euros) structure also offers panoramic views of the stone citadel where they came from.

Culture minister Antonis Samaras said he hoped it would be the “catalyst” for the return of the Parthenon sculptures from the British Museum.

Some of the sculptures, also known as the Elgin Marbles, originally decorated the Parthenon temple and have been in London since they were sold to the museum in 1817.

The museum has long argued that Greece has no proper place to put them - an argument the Greek government hopes the Acropolis Museum addresses.

Mr Samaras said: “After several adventures, obstructions and criticism, the new Acropolis Museum is ready: a symbol of modern Greece that pays homage to its ancestors, the duty of a nation to its cultural heritage.”

The building, set out over three levels, holds about 350 artefacts and sculptures that were previously held in a small museum on top of the Acropolis.

Antique ceramics and sculptures are displayed on the first floor while the Caryatids - columns sculpted as females holding up the roof of a porch on the southern side of the Erechtheum temple - dominate the top of a glass ramp leading up the second floor.

‘Act of barbarism’

Sculptures from the Temple of Athena and the Propylaea entrance to the Acropolis will be displayed on the second floor, while the third features a reconstruction of the Parthenon Marbles.

The reconstruction is based on several elements that remain in Athens as well as copies of the marbles still housed in the British Museum.

The London institution holds 75 metres of the original 160 metres of the frieze that ran round the inner core of the building.

It has repeatedly rejected calls for their return saying they are displayed in an international cultural contest.

“I think they belong to all of us - we are all global citizens these days,” spokeswoman Hannah Boulton said.

The copies of those held in the British Museum are differentiated by their white colour - because they are plaster casts, contrasting with the weathered marble of the originals.

Museum director Prof Dimitris Pandermalis said the opening of the museum provides an opportunity to correct “an act of barbarism” in the sculptures’ removal.

“Tragic fate has forced them apart but their creators meant them to be together,” he said.

Bernard Tschumi, the building’s US-based architect, said: “It is a beautiful space that shows the frieze itself as a narrative - even with the plaster copies of what is in the British Museum - in the context of the Parthenon itself.”

NYSE Euronext was formed by a merger in 2007

NYSE Euronext is to acquire a 20% stake in Qatar Exchange for $200m (£121.3m), as part of a deal with parent company Qatar Holdings.

The deal is aimed at boosting business in the Middle East for both partners. Andre Went, a senior NYSE Euronext executive, will head the new exchange.

NYSE Euronext saw off competition from the London Stock Exchange, also eager to buy the exchange.

Qatar Holdings is the investment arm of the emirate’s sovereign wealth fund.

“We seek to elevate the market from the local level to a regional level and then to an international level and open it up for products other than the current stocks being traded,” said Qatar Finance Minister Yussef Kamal.

“We hope this partnership succeeds in improving the market’s efficiency and international reputation to which we aspire,” he added.

NYSE Euronext, the largest stock exchange group, was established in 2007 and includes the New York Stock Exchange, four stock markets in Europe as well as London’s derivatives Liffe market.