Crowds cheer King Charles and remember Queen Elizabeth in Northern Ireland


Simon Rushton
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Thousands of people jostled to meet King Charles III and Queen Consort Camilla at Hillsborough Castle, Northern Ireland, on Tuesday as the couple exchanged laughs and smiles as well as condolences in the sunshine.

The king travelled to the official British royal residence on the outskirts of Belfast, which the royal couple visited on the latest leg of a domestic mourning tour.

The monarch and his wife spent some time observing a sea of floral tributes placed outside Hillsborough Castle.

Queen Elizabeth was not a distant observer in the transformation and progress of relationships in and between these islands
Alex Maskey

At a ceremony inside, the king pledged to “seek the welfare” of all Northern Ireland’s people and described how his family have felt their “sorrows” as he praised his mother’s relationship with Northern Ireland.

A momentous step forward in Anglo-Irish relations came in 2012 when the queen shook hands with Martin McGuinness, then the deputy first minister of Northern Ireland and a former IRA commander.

During the ceremony, the king was offered condolences by Alex Maskey, the speaker of the local assembly and a member of the republican Sinn Fein party.

He reflected on how much had changed in the divided society during the reign of Queen Elizabeth.

“It is extraordinary to consider how much social and political change Queen Elizabeth witnessed in the time between those visits, and indeed throughout her long reign,” he said.

“Yesterday an assembly of unionists, republicans, nationalists met to pay tribute to the late queen. When she first came to the throne, no one would have anticipated an assembly so diverse and inclusive.”

As King Charles entered the castle, there were chants of “long live the king” and the royal standard was raised over the building.

The royal couple received a 21-gun salute as they entered the grounds of Hillsborough Castle.

King Charles held an audience with Sinn Fein politician Michelle O'Neill, the designate first minister of the local government, alongside Mr Maskey.

Britain's King Charles III, left, meets Alex Maskey and Michelle O'Neill, both senior Sinn Fein party members in the National Assembly. AFP
Britain's King Charles III, left, meets Alex Maskey and Michelle O'Neill, both senior Sinn Fein party members in the National Assembly. AFP

“I am here at a time of great personal sorrow as we mark the death of my mother after a life famously dedicated to service,” King Charles said.

“In the years since she began her long life of service, my mother saw Northern Ireland pass through momentous and historic changes. She never ceased to pray for the best of times for this people.”

Mr Maskey said Queen Elizabeth was “not a distant observer in the transformation and progress of relationships in and between these islands”.

“She showed how a small but significant gesture, a visit, a handshake, crossing the street, or speaking a few words of Irish, can make a huge difference in changing attitudes and building relationships,” he said.

Suzi Pickering, from the 1st Hillsborough Brownies, was among those in the crowd to speak to the king and queen consort in Hillsborough Castle.

“It's all very exciting. King Charles shook all of the girls' hands and the queen consort as well,” she said.

“He asked the girls if they had escaped from a very important school lesson to be here. They were all very excited. A lot of giggling and 'yeses' going on.

"The queen consort, Camilla, asked which guiding association they were from as well.

“It is a huge honour to be part of history. The last few days is all about history and something they will remember as well.”

The royal couple then travelled to Belfast for a memorial service at St Anne's Cathedral. The king shook hands with Ireland's President Michael D Higgins following the service.

Outside Belfast city hall, crowds were 10 deep in some places as people waited to see the king. People in the crowd described the atmosphere as "emotional" and "full of excitement".

A trumpet fanfare welcomed the royal funeral party into St Anne's, where the head of the Catholic Church in Ireland said the queen was part of the country's reconciliation.

Archbishop of Armagh John McDowell said "faithfulness, care, dutifulness, love and devotion" had all been part of her long reign.

"And all of these could be employed to describe her relationship with Northern Ireland, with patience binding them all together, but paying attention especially to what she said most recently, the word which I think will be most associated with Queen Elizabeth and Ireland, north and south, is reconciliation," he said.

After the service, the king again chatted and shook hands with people outside.

He then boarded a plane bound for London. The queen's coffin was being flown from Edinburgh to London on Tuesday evening, accompanied by her daughter Princess Anne.

On Wednesday, it will be taken from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Hall, where the queen will lie in state until her funeral on Monday. Hundreds of thousands of mourners are expected to file past the coffin, after waiting in queues expected to be up to 35 hours long.

The queen and Ireland

The late monarch had lost a member of her family in the Troubles, her cousin Lord Mountbatten, who had a close relationship with Charles.

The 79-year-old Lord Mountbatten was murdered on August 27 1979, when a bomb blew apart a boat at Mullaghmore in Co Sligo, on one of the most violent days in the history of the Troubles that saw 18 British troops die in an IRA ambush.

The queen’s historic state visit to the Republic of Ireland in 2011 – the first by a British monarch since the Republic’s independence – was another milestone.

She visited significant locations such as Dublin’s Croke Park – the site of the 1920 Bloody Sunday massacre where British forces fired into the crowd at a football match, killing 14 spectators and players – and surprised and delighted the nation by speaking a few words of Gaelic at the start of her state dinner speech.

Funeral preparations

All four nations of the UK are having funeral events before the queen's official funeral next week.

Scotland was centre stage on Monday when King Charles and his wife visited. They will visit Wales on Friday.

The queen’s four children guarded her coffin for a short vigil of solemn reflection while the first members of the public filed past in Edinburgh on Monday.

The king and queen consort's flight was watched by more than 53,000 people on a flight-tracking website as it landed in Belfast.

Flight KRH21R was the most-tracked flight in the world on FlightRadar24, as the Embraer Legacy 600 jet landed at Belfast City Airport at 11.55am — having left Edinburgh at 11.24am.

The same plane, registration G-LEGC, carried Charles on his first flight as king from Aberdeen to RAF Northolt on Friday and he also boarded it on his way from the South Ruislip airbase to Edinburgh on Monday.

About Karol Nawrocki

• Supports military aid for Ukraine, unlike other eurosceptic leaders, but he will oppose its membership in western alliances.

• A nationalist, his campaign slogan was Poland First. "Let's help others, but let's take care of our own citizens first," he said on social media in April.

• Cultivates tough-guy image, posting videos of himself at shooting ranges and in boxing rings.

• Met Donald Trump at the White House and received his backing.

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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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  • Financial well-being incentives 
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The biog

Age: 30

Position: Senior lab superintendent at Emirates Global Aluminium

Education: Bachelor of science in chemical engineering, post graduate degree in light metal reduction technology

Favourite part of job: The challenge, because it is challenging

Favourite quote: “Be the change you wish to see in the world,” Gandi

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Coming soon

Torno Subito by Massimo Bottura

When the W Dubai – The Palm hotel opens at the end of this year, one of the highlights will be Massimo Bottura’s new restaurant, Torno Subito, which promises “to take guests on a journey back to 1960s Italy”. It is the three Michelinstarred chef’s first venture in Dubai and should be every bit as ambitious as you would expect from the man whose restaurant in Italy, Osteria Francescana, was crowned number one in this year’s list of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants.

Akira Back Dubai

Another exciting opening at the W Dubai – The Palm hotel is South Korean chef Akira Back’s new restaurant, which will continue to showcase some of the finest Asian food in the world. Back, whose Seoul restaurant, Dosa, won a Michelin star last year, describes his menu as,  “an innovative Japanese cuisine prepared with a Korean accent”.

Dinner by Heston Blumenthal

The highly experimental chef, whose dishes are as much about spectacle as taste, opens his first restaurant in Dubai next year. Housed at The Royal Atlantis Resort & Residences, Dinner by Heston Blumenthal will feature contemporary twists on recipes that date back to the 1300s, including goats’ milk cheesecake. Always remember with a Blumenthal dish: nothing is quite as it seems. 

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The specs: 2018 Chevrolet Trailblazer

Price, base / as tested Dh99,000 / Dh132,000

Engine 3.6L V6

Transmission: Six-speed automatic

Power 275hp @ 6,000rpm

Torque 350Nm @ 3,700rpm

Fuel economy combined 12.2L / 100km

Tax authority targets shisha levy evasion

The Federal Tax Authority will track shisha imports with electronic markers to protect customers and ensure levies have been paid.

Khalid Ali Al Bustani, director of the tax authority, on Sunday said the move is to "prevent tax evasion and support the authority’s tax collection efforts".

The scheme’s first phase, which came into effect on 1st January, 2019, covers all types of imported and domestically produced and distributed cigarettes. As of May 1, importing any type of cigarettes without the digital marks will be prohibited.

He said the latest phase will see imported and locally produced shisha tobacco tracked by the final quarter of this year.

"The FTA also maintains ongoing communication with concerned companies, to help them adapt their systems to meet our requirements and coordinate between all parties involved," he said.

As with cigarettes, shisha was hit with a 100 per cent tax in October 2017, though manufacturers and cafes absorbed some of the costs to prevent prices doubling.

Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
  • Priority access to new homes from participating developers
  • Discounts on sales price of off-plan units
  • Flexible payment plans from developers
  • Mortgages with better interest rates, faster approval times and reduced fees
  • DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
F1 The Movie

Starring: Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, Kerry Condon, Javier Bardem

Director: Joseph Kosinski

Rating: 4/5

Six large-scale objects on show
  • Concrete wall and windows from the now demolished Robin Hood Gardens housing estate in Poplar
  • The 17th Century Agra Colonnade, from the bathhouse of the fort of Agra in India
  • A stagecloth for The Ballet Russes that is 10m high – the largest Picasso in the world
  • Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1930s Kaufmann Office
  • A full-scale Frankfurt Kitchen designed by Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, which transformed kitchen design in the 20th century
  • Torrijos Palace dome
Living in...

This article is part of a guide on where to live in the UAE. Our reporters will profile some of the country’s most desirable districts, provide an estimate of rental prices and introduce you to some of the residents who call each area home. 

Green ambitions
  • Trees: 1,500 to be planted, replacing 300 felled ones, with veteran oaks protected
  • Lake: Brown's centrepiece to be cleaned of silt that makes it as shallow as 2.5cm
  • Biodiversity: Bat cave to be added and habitats designed for kingfishers and little grebes
  • Flood risk: Longer grass, deeper lake, restored ponds and absorbent paths all meant to siphon off water 
The smuggler

Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple. 
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.

Khouli conviction

Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.

For sale

A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.

- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico

- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000

- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950

Tearful appearance

Chancellor Rachel Reeves set markets on edge as she appeared visibly distraught in parliament on Wednesday. 

Legislative setbacks for the government have blown a new hole in the budgetary calculations at a time when the deficit is stubbornly large and the economy is struggling to grow. 

She appeared with Keir Starmer on Thursday and the pair embraced, but he had failed to give her his backing as she cried a day earlier.

A spokesman said her upset demeanour was due to a personal matter.

Jawan
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THE BIO: Martin Van Almsick

Hometown: Cologne, Germany

Family: Wife Hanan Ahmed and their three children, Marrah (23), Tibijan (19), Amon (13)

Favourite dessert: Umm Ali with dark camel milk chocolate flakes

Favourite hobby: Football

Breakfast routine: a tall glass of camel milk

The biog

Name: Salem Alkarbi

Age: 32

Favourite Al Wasl player: Alexandre Oliveira

First started supporting Al Wasl: 7

Biggest rival: Al Nasr

Libya's Gold

UN Panel of Experts found regime secretly sold a fifth of the country's gold reserves. 

The panel’s 2017 report followed a trail to West Africa where large sums of cash and gold were hidden by Abdullah Al Senussi, Qaddafi’s former intelligence chief, in 2011.

Cases filled with cash that was said to amount to $560m in 100 dollar notes, that was kept by a group of Libyans in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.

A second stash was said to have been held in Accra, Ghana, inside boxes at the local offices of an international human rights organisation based in France.

Know before you go
  • Jebel Akhdar is a two-hour drive from Muscat airport or a six-hour drive from Dubai. It’s impossible to visit by car unless you have a 4x4. Phone ahead to the hotel to arrange a transfer.
  • If you’re driving, make sure your insurance covers Oman.
  • By air: Budget airlines Air Arabia, Flydubai and SalamAir offer direct routes to Muscat from the UAE.
  • Tourists from the Emirates (UAE nationals not included) must apply for an Omani visa online before arrival at evisa.rop.gov.om. The process typically takes several days.
  • Flash floods are probable due to the terrain and a lack of drainage. Always check the weather before venturing into any canyons or other remote areas and identify a plan of escape that includes high ground, shelter and parking where your car won’t be overtaken by sudden downpours.

 

Updated: September 13, 2022, 5:19 PM`