The Canadian Government has followed churches and apologised for forcing 150,000 aboriginal children to attend state-funded Christian boarding schools aimed at assimilating them.

The first opening of the Australian Parliament after the election of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s Labour Government has proved a historic moment in the history of Australia – with an apology finally being made to indigenous people.

A march is to take place in two months time, involving the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, to express repentance for the Church of England's complicity in the slave trade.