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Queen Elizabeth’s funeral to be held on Sept. 19 at Westminster Abbey

Floral tributes to the late Queen Elizabeth II are seen in Green Park in London on Sept. 10, 2022, two days after she died at the age of 96. (AFP)
Floral tributes to the late Queen Elizabeth II are seen in Green Park in London on Sept. 10, 2022, two days after she died at the age of 96. (AFP)
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Updated 11 September 2022
Agencies

Queen Elizabeth’s funeral to be held on Sept. 19 at Westminster Abbey

Queen Elizabeth’s funeral to be held on Sept. 19 at Westminster Abbey
  • The coffin will be taken from Balmoral Castle to Edinburgh on Sunday before being flown to London on Tuesday
  • It will later lie in state at Westminster Hall from Wednesday until the morning of the funeral
Updated 11 September 2022
Agencies

LONDON: The state funeral for Queen Elizabeth II will be held at Westminster Abbey in London at 11:00 a.m. (1000 GMT) on Monday Sept. 19, royal officials said on Saturday.
Buckingham Palace also confirmed that the queen, who died on Thursday aged 96, will then be taken to St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle, west of London, for a committal service.
“We will carry out our duty over the coming days with the heaviest of hearts, but also with the firmest of resolve to ensure a fitting farewell to one of the defining figures of our times,” said the Earl Marshal, Edward Fitzalan-Howard, the Duke of Norfolk.

The queen’s body is currently in an oak coffin covered by the Royal Standard for Scotland, with a wreath of flowers on top, in the ballroom of Balmoral Castle, in northeast Scotland.
Royal officials called it “a scene of quiet dignity.”
The queen’s coffin will be taken on a 180-mile (290-kilometer) trip by road from the remote estate to the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh on Sunday.
In the Scottish capital, the coffin will be taken from the Palace of Holyroodhouse to St. Giles’s Cathedral to lie at rest until Tuesday.
It will then be taken by air to Buckingham Palace in London, before lying-in-state at Westminster Hall from Wednesday.
(With AFP and Reuters)

Topics: United Kingdom Queen Elizabeth II Britain Britain's Queen Elizabeth II Death of Queen Elizabeth II

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Several feared dead after two US army helicopters crash during training in Kentucky

Several feared dead after two US army helicopters crash during training in Kentucky
Updated 12 sec ago
Reuters

Several feared dead after two US army helicopters crash during training in Kentucky

Several feared dead after two US army helicopters crash during training in Kentucky
  • Crew members were flying two HH-60 Black Hawk helicopters, operated by the 101st Airborne Division
  • The HH-60 is a variant of the Black Hawk helicopter designed to provide support for various military operations
Updated 12 sec ago
Reuters
The governor of Kentucky said on Thursday fatalities were expected after two US Army Black Hawk helicopters crashed during a routine training mission over the state late on Wednesday.
The status of the crew members was not immediately known, the US Army’s Fort Campbell said in a statement, without providing the number of people who were on board.
“We’ve got some tough news out of Fort Campbell, with early reports of a helicopter crash, and fatalities are expected,” governor Andy Beshear said in a post on Twitter, adding that local authorities and emergency services were responding to the accident.
Crew members were flying two HH-60 Black Hawk helicopters, operated by the 101st Airborne Division, which crashed at around 10:00 p.m. ET (0200 GMT Thursday) in Kentucky’s Trigg County, Fort Campbell’s public affairs office said.
“The command is currently focused on caring for the service members and their families,” the statement said, adding that the cause of the crash was under investigation.
The HH-60 is a variant of the Black Hawk helicopter designed to provide support for various military operations, including air assaults and medical evacuations, according to the Army.

Freed ‘Hotel Rwanda’ hero Paul Rusesabagina arrives in US

Freed ‘Hotel Rwanda’ hero Paul Rusesabagina arrives in US
Updated 30 March 2023
AP

Freed ‘Hotel Rwanda’ hero Paul Rusesabagina arrives in US

Freed ‘Hotel Rwanda’ hero Paul Rusesabagina arrives in US
  • Paul Rusesabagina’s arrival in San Antonio was announced by his daughter Carine Kanimba
  • Rusesabagina was credited with sheltering more than 1,000 ethnic Tutsis at the hotel he managed during Rwanda’s 1994 genocide
Updated 30 March 2023
AP

HOUSTON: The man who inspired the film “Hotel Rwanda” and was freed by Rwanda last week from a terrorism sentence returned Wednesday to the United States and joined his family after being held for more than two years.
Paul Rusesabagina’s arrival in San Antonio was announced by his daughter Carine Kanimba, who tweeted that “our family is finally reunited today.”
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan tweeted that “we’re glad to have him back on US soil.”
Rusesabagina’s plane first touched down in Houston and the 68-year-old would visit a military hospital in San Antonio, according to a person familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal planning.
Rusesabagina, a US legal resident and Belgian citizen, was credited with sheltering more than 1,000 ethnic Tutsis at the hotel he managed during Rwanda’s 1994 genocide in which over 800,000 Tutsis and Hutus who tried to protect them were killed. He received the US Presidential Medal of Freedom for his efforts.
Rusesabagina disappeared in 2020 during a visit to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates and appeared days later in Rwanda in handcuffs. His family alleged he was kidnapped and taken to Rwanda against his will to stand trial.
In 2021, he was sentenced to 25 years in prison after being convicted in Rwanda on eight charges including membership in a terrorist group, murder and abduction following the widely criticized trial.
Last week, Rwanda’s government commuted his sentence after diplomatic intervention on his behalf by the United States. On Monday, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said that Rusesabagina was in Doha, Qatar, and would make his way back to the US.
Rusesabagina had been accused of supporting the armed wing of his opposition political platform, the Rwandan Movement for Democratic Change. The armed group claimed some responsibility for attacks in 2018 and 2019 in southern Rwanda in which nine Rwandans died.
Rusesabagina testified at trial that he helped to form the armed group to assist refugees but said he never supported violence – and sought to distance himself from its deadly attacks.
Rusesabagina has asserted that his arrest was in response to his criticism of longtime President Paul Kagame over alleged human rights abuses. Kagame’s government has repeatedly denied targeting dissenting voices with arrests and extrajudicial killings.
Rusesabagina became a public critic of Kagame and left Rwanda in 1996, first living in Belgium and then the US.
His arrest was a source of friction with the US and others at a time when Rwanda’s government has also been under pressure over tensions with neighboring Congo and Britain’s plan to deport asylum-seekers to the small east African nation.
Rights activists and others had been urging Rwandan authorities to free him, saying his health was failing.
In October, the ailing Rusesabagina signed a letter to Kagame that was posted on the justice ministry’s website, saying that if he was granted pardon and released to live in the US, he would hold no personal or political ambitions and “I will leave questions regarding Rwandan politics behind me.”
Last year, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Kagame in Rwanda and discussed the case.
Kirby, the White House National Security Council spokesman, had said Sullivan personally engaged in the case, “really doing the final heavy lifting to get Paul released and to get him on his way home.”

Topics: Paul Rusesabagina Rwanda

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Pope Francis to spend ‘few days’ in hospital due to respiratory infection

Pope Francis to spend ‘few days’ in hospital due to respiratory infection
Updated 30 March 2023
Reuters

Pope Francis to spend ‘few days’ in hospital due to respiratory infection

Pope Francis to spend ‘few days’ in hospital due to respiratory infection
  • The 86-year-old Argentine pontiff has the infection but did not have COVID-19
  • Francis is sometimes short of breath and generally more exposed to respiratory problems
Updated 30 March 2023
Reuters

VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis has a respiratory infection and will need to spend “a few days” in hospital for treatment, the Vatican said in a statement on Wednesday, amid concern for the 86-year-old’s condition.
The 86-year-old pontiff was taken to Rome’s Gemelli hospital after complaining of breathing difficulties over the past few days, the statement said. Tests showed he had the infection but did not have COVID-19, it said.
“Pope Francis is touched by the many messages received and expresses his gratitude for the closeness and prayer,” the Vatican said.
Francis, who this month marked 10 years as pope, is sometimes short of breath and generally more exposed to respiratory problems. He had part of one lung removed in his early 20s when training to be a priest in his native Argentina.
His latest hospitalization comes ahead of a Palm Sunday service on April 2 that marks the start of a hectic week of ceremonies leading to Easter Sunday on April 9, throwing into doubt whether he would be able to lead them as customary.
Francis’ health has attracted increased scrutiny in the past two years, during which he has undergone colon surgery and begun using a wheelchair or a walking stick due to chronic pain in one knee.
The Vatican had initially said the pope had gone to hospital on Wednesday for a scheduled check-up. But Italian media reported he arrived in an ambulance after canceling a television interview at the last minute.
Francis had attended his weekly general audience in St. Peter’s Square in the morning, appearing in good health.
In Argentina, the faithful offered prayers for the recovery of the pope, who has not returned to his homeland since leaving for the Vatican a decade ago.
“If the Pope could listen to us, I would tell him that we need him because the reform that he faced is not finished,” said Marcela Mazzini, a professor at Inmaculada Concepcion Seminary in Buenos Aires, where the pope, then called Jorge Mario Bergoglio, studied.
The son of Italian immigrants, the future pope lived modestly when he was archbishop of Buenos Aires, traveling by public transport and keeping a low profile when he visited the poor in shanty towns, where many still remember him.
The leader of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics suffers from diverticulitis, a condition that can infect or inflame the colon, and was operated on at the Gemelli hospital in 2021 to remove part of his colon.
He said in January that the condition had returned and that it was causing him to put on weight, but that he was not overly concerned. He did not elaborate.
Francis said in an interview last year that he preferred not to have surgery on his troublesome knee because he did not want a repeat of long-term negative side effects from anesthesia that he suffered after the 2021 operation.
Last July, returning from a trip to Canada, Francis acknowledged that his advancing age and his difficulty walking might have ushered in a new, slower phase of his papacy.
But since then he has visited Kazakhstan and Bahrain and made a trip last month to Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan.
He has also committed to visiting Hungary in late April, Portugal in August and the French city of Marseille in September. He has said, if it can be arranged, he would want to then fly from Marseille to Mongolia.
After praising his late predecessor Benedict XVI’s historic decision to resign on health grounds in 2013, Francis has indicated he would follow the example only if he were gravely incapacitated.

Topics: Pope Francis

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Pakistan militants kill 4 police officers, hurt 6 in attacks

Pakistan militants kill 4 police officers, hurt 6 in attacks
Updated 30 March 2023
AP

Pakistan militants kill 4 police officers, hurt 6 in attacks

Pakistan militants kill 4 police officers, hurt 6 in attacks
  • Group known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP is separate but allied with Afghanistan’s Taliban
  • TTP has been emboldened since the Afghan Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in 2021
Updated 30 March 2023
AP

PESHAWAR, Pakistan: Taliban militants killed four police officers by targeting a police vehicle with a roadside bomb and wounded six in an attack on a police station in northwest Pakistan early Thursday, police and the insurgents said.
The bomb killed four officers in a police vehicle carrying reinforcements sent to respond to the attack on a police station in Lakki Marwat, a town in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan. Six officers were wounded in the attack at the police station.
Local police officer Ashfaq Khan said a search was underway for the militant suspects who attacked the police station in Lakki Marwat and later targeted the police vehicle with a bomb.
The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for both attacks. The group known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP is separate but allied with Afghanistan’s Taliban. There has been an uptick in attacks in Pakistan after the Pakistani Taliban ended a cease-fire with the government of Pakistan.
TTP has been emboldened since the Afghan Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in 2021 when US and NATO troops were leaving the country after 20 years of war. Many TTP leaders and fighters have found sanctuaries in Afghanistan since the Taliban takeover.
Pakistan has seen innumerable militant attacks in the past two decades but there has been an uptick since November, when the TTP ended a monthslong Afghan Taliban-brokered cease-fire with the government of Pakistan.

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Death toll in Philippine ferry blaze rises to 31: governor

Death toll in Philippine ferry blaze rises to 31: governor
Updated 33 min 53 sec ago
AP
AFP

Death toll in Philippine ferry blaze rises to 31: governor

Death toll in Philippine ferry blaze rises to 31: governor
  • MV Lady Mary Joy 3 enroute to Jolo island from the southern port city of Zamboanga when it caught fire midway off Basilan close to midnight, says governor
Updated 33 min 53 sec ago
AP AFP

MANILA: The number of people killed in a fire that ripped through a ferry in the southern Philippines has risen to 31, the local governor said Thursday, after more bodies were found inside the burned-out wreckage.

“We initially have 13 deaths recorded, then we have 18 new deaths, so it’s now 31 deaths,” Basilan governor Jim Hataman-Salliman said.

Many of those rescued had jumped off the ferry in panic at the height of the fire and were plucked from the sea by the coast guard, navy, another ferry and local fishermen, said Hataman-Salliman. The search and rescue effort was continuing Thursday.

The governor said most of those onboard the MV Lady Mary Joy 3 were rescued overnight but authorities were double-checking the numbers from different rescue teams, suggesting the figures could change.

The ferry was enroute to Jolo town in Sulu province from the southern port city of Zamboanga when it caught fire midway off Basilan close to midnight, he said.

The dead included at least three children, who apparently were separated from their parents, and at least 23 passengers were injured and brought to hospitals, he said.

“Some of the passengers were roused from sleep due to the commotion caused by the fire. Some jumped off the ship,” Hataman-Salliman said by telephone.

Most of those who died drowned and were recovered at sea, officials said.

The burned ferry has been towed to Basilan’s shoreline and an investigation was underway, Hataman-Salliman said.

Sea accidents are common in the Philippine archipelago because of frequent storms, badly maintained boats, overcrowding and spotty enforcement of safety regulations, especially in remote provinces.

In December 1987, the ferry Dona Paz sank after colliding with a fuel tanker, killing more than 4,300 people in the world’s worst peacetime maritime disaster.

Topics: Basilan Philippines

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