Day: May 6, 2023

The newly crowned King Charles III and Queen Camilla appeared on the Buckingham Palace balcony on Saturday with other members of the royal family following the country’s first coronation service in nearly 70 years. The Royal Air Force Aerobatic Team, the Red Arrows, the Royal Air Force Aerobatic Team performed flypast after helicopters, marking the end of a historic day of celebrations. Meanwhile, the crowd saw a scaled-down flypast due to adverse weather conditions, as over 60 aircraft from the Royal Navy, British Army and Royal Air Force had been due to take part. William, Prince of Wales; Kate, Princess of Wales; and Edward, Duke of Edinburg were among attendees during the balcony appearance along with Charles and Camilla. Prince Harry did not appear on the balcony as reportedly he is on his way to Heathrow Airport to return the US after leaving the ceremony at the Westminster Abbey, the site of coronations in Britain since 1066 – nearly a millennium ago. Earlier, Charles, 74, and Camilla, 75, left Buckingham Palace for Westminster Abbey in the Diamond Jubilee State Coach, in what is traditionally known as the King’s Procession. Accompanied by the Sovereign’s Escort guards, they traveled along The Mall outside the palace, through the Admiralty Arch, passing to the south of the King Charles Island statue in Trafalgar Square before turning onto Whitehall Road leading to the church. The procession continued down Whitehall and along the east and south sides of Parliament Square. They arrived at Westminster Abbey for the coronation service after completing a route stretching some 2.1 kilometers (1.3 miles) from Buckingham Palace. Following the coronation service, conducted by the archbishop of Canterbury, the senior bishop of the Church of England, Charles was crowned with the historical St. Edward’s Crown, while Queen Camilla wore a modified version of the Crown of Queen Mary, fashioned in 1911. During the ceremony, Charles, dressed in symbolic “vestments,” was presented with items of Regalia, including the Orb and the Sovereign’s Scepters representing the monarch’s religious and moral authority. A fanfare was sounded, the abbey bells rang for two minutes, and a gun salute was fired by the King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery stationed at Horse Guards Parade. This was accompanied by Gun Salutes at His Majesty’s Fortress the Tower of London fired by the Honourable Artillery Company, and at all Saluting Stations throughout the UK, Gibraltar, Bermuda, and ships at sea. Following the service, Charles and Camilla set out from the Westminster Abbey to Buckingham Palace in the 260-year-old Gold State Coach, in the larger ceremonial Coronation Procession. When they arrive at the palace, Charles and Camilla were received by the UK and Commonwealth Armed Forces with a royal salute. Military personnel from the UK’s Armed Forces, numbering 6,000, were on duty during the coronation, along with roughly 400 from at least 35 Commonwealth countries. Charles ascended the throne on Sept. 8, 2022, following the death of his long-serving mother Queen Elizabeth II. He is the 40th British monarch to take the traditional Oath of Faithful Service. In taking the crown, Charles also became head of the Commonwealth, an association of 56 independent countries and 2.5 billion people. For 14 of these countries, as well as the UK, the king is head of state. These countries, known as the Commonwealth realms, are Australia, Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Belize, Canada, Grenada, Jamaica, Papua New Guinea, St. Christopher and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, New Zealand, the Solomon Islands, and Tuvalu. Along with millions of people taking to the streets to witness the spectacle, more than 2,200 distinguished figures, including members of the royal family, representatives from 203 countries, and some 100 heads of state, were also at the event. Attendees included Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, all living former British premiers, first ministers of devolved national governments, members of foreign royal families, Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay, China’s Vice President Han Zheng, US first lady Jill Biden, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Irish President Michael Higgins, and dozens of other heads of states and foreign dignitaries. Prince Harry, the son of Charles and late Diana, Princess of Wales, was also among the attendees, while his wife Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, and their children Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, did not attend.

Source: Anadolu Agency

The official vehicle of Trkiye’s ambassador to Sudan was hit by gunfire on Saturday, as fighting continues between the army and a paramilitary group in the capital Khartoum and its surroundings. No casualties were reported and the source of the gunfire that hit Ismail Cobanoglu’s vehicle was unclear, said Turkish diplomatic sources, speaking on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak to the media. Speaking to the reporters, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said: “None of our brothers, ambassadors or other guards, including our special forces, were injured. There is damage to the vehicle.” About the attack, he said: “The clashes sometimes intensify in the street where the Turkish Embassy is located. Tensions and conflicts escalate. Therefore, for the safety of our embassy and our colleagues, we decided to temporarily move our embassy to Port Sudan with the advice of the transitional government.” Cavusoglu said talks with both the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces continue to reveal the motive of the attack. In Sudan, the army and the paramilitary group blamed each other for the attack targeting the diplomatic vehicle, including the Turkish ambassador to Khartoum. The incident was “a cowardly act that clearly violated all international norms and agreements,” the RSF said in a statement. Also, criticizing the RSF for the attack, the army said in a statement that RSF forgot that the ambassador could make a statement about what happened. Fighting between two rival generals – army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and RSF commander Mohammed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo – broke out on April 15, leaving more than 550 people dead and thousands injured so far. A disagreement had been fomenting in recent months between the two sides concerning the integration of the RSF into the armed forces – a key condition of Sudan’s transition agreement with political groups. Sudan has been without a functioning government since fall 2021 when the military dismissed Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok’s transitional government and declared a state of emergency in a move decried by political forces as a “coup.” The transitional period, which started in August 2019 after the ouster of President Omar al-Bashir, was scheduled to end with elections in early 2024.

Source: Anadolu Agency

The UN warned that nearly 19 million Sudanese will suffer from food insecurity amid ongoing fighting between the army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group. The World Food Program (WFP) expects that the “number of acutely food insecure people in Sudan will increase by between two and 2.5 million people,” said Deputy UN spokesman Farhan Haq. “That raises the number to a total of 19 million people in the next three to six months if the current conflict continues,” he added. According to the WFP, the most affected Sudanese provinces to see high rates of food insecurity would be West Darfur, West Kordofan, Blue Nile, and Red Sea. Haq reiterated an appeal by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) to secure $445 million to support an outflow of refugees from Sudan and to provide aid in the next six months. Fighting between two rival generals – army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and RSF commander Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo – broke out on April 15, leaving more than 550 people dead and thousands injured.

Source: Anadolu Agency

Three Russian pilots have been returned from captivity in Ukraine, the Defense Ministry said on Saturday. “As a result of a difficult negotiation process, three Russian servicemen – pilots of the Russian Aerospace Forces who were in mortal danger in captivity- were returned from the territory controlled by the Kyiv regime,” said a ministry statement. The servicemen are getting necessary medical and psychological assistance and will be transported to medical and rehabilitation centers, it added. The last prisoner exchange between Russia and Ukraine took place on April 16, with the two countries announcing swaps from the ongoing 14-month conflict on a monthly basis.

Source: Anadolu Agency

The US will provide Poland with eight Apache helicopters until Warsaw receives its own units, Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak confirmed Saturday. “The US army will provide Poland with Apache helicopters from its own resources, even before signing the contract for the purchase of 96 helicopters,” Blaszczak said in Washington after meeting US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin at the Pentagon on Friday. Last year, Poland expressed its desire to purchase 96 AH-64 Apache helicopters, though it is unclear when the deliveries could take place. The US ground forces will provide Poland with eight Apaches, and the training of Polish pilots is set to begin in a few weeks. The helicopters will go to eastern Poland next year, Blaszczak said. Having Apaches is important because they work well will with Abrams tanks, which Warsaw also ordered from the US in recent years, he added. Poland, a NATO member in Eastern Europe where millions of Ukrainians fled after Russian forces last year launched a war, plans to deploy the helicopters to its 18th Mechanized Division and 1st Air Force Brigade. The purchase must first be approved by the US Congress and State Department.

Source: Anadolu Agency

Iran on Saturday executed a Swedish-Iranian dual national accused of spearheading a separatist group blamed by Tehran for a string of attacks in the country. The judiciary’s Mizan News said Habib Farajullah Chaab, the leader of Harakat al-Nidal group, was executed on Saturday, calling him the ‘mastermind’ of an attack that killed 25 people in Ahvaz in 2018. On September 22, 2018, militants masquerading as soldiers opened fire on an annual military parade in Ahvaz, the capital of Khuzestan province. At the time, Iran blamed Saudi Arabia and Israeli intelligence agencies for involvement in the attack. Mizan News accused Chaab of ‘planning and executing’ several other attacks in Iran, saying the focus of the group he headed was to carry out ‘assassinations and bombings’ in southwestern Iran. Chaab, who was arrested in November 2020 and brought to Iran from abroad, was given the death penalty on charges of ‘corruption on earth’, which carries the maximum legal punishment under Iranian law. The sentence against him was upheld by Iran’s apex court in March after multiple court hearings, linking him to intelligence agencies of Sweden, Israel and the United States. Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom expressed dismay over the execution, saying his government had urged Tehran not to go ahead with the sentence. ‘The death penalty is an inhuman and irreversible punishment and Sweden, together with the rest of the EU, condemns its application under all circumstances,’ he said in a statement. Iran has arrested several dual nationals in recent years, mostly on charges of espionage and security crimes. In January, Alireza Akbari, a dual Iranian-British national and former deputy defense minister, was executed on charges of espionage for the British intelligence agency MI6.

Source: Anadolu Agency