Incoming US President Barack Obama's message to the world will be "together we can", says the law professor who taught him at Harvard as the formal inauguration gets underway in Washington DC.

As focus turns to the climax of the Republican convention and the running mate by their candidate, John McCain, Democrat Barack Obama is turning his attention to winning over sceptics - including some religious voters.

People in Britain rate committed campaigners such as Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King far more highly than celebrities such as Sir Bob Geldof and Angelina Jolie, a recent YouGov poll commissioned by Christian Aid shows.

An event at Washington National Cathedral in the US later this month is to gather young people together to ask what Martin Luther King's platform would be for the next US President.

On the third Monday of every January, the United States marks Martin Luther King Day. The national holiday celebrates the birth and life of the civil rights activist and Baptist minister, whose Christian convictions about justice and the Gospel led him to a path of non-violence and peacemaking.

Jane Fonda, Jesse Jackson, US Congressman Ed Markey, and American Federal Communications Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein have joined with a broad alliance of reformers - including religious organisations - to demand equal access and fair ownership of media provision.