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Pomp, pageantry and solemn religious significance: The coronation of King Charles

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Updated 05 May 2023
Reuters
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Pomp, pageantry and solemn religious significance: The coronation of King Charles

  • Charles will be crowned with the historic St Edward’s Crown used since the coronation of King Charles II in 1661
  • Crown is made of a solid gold frame set with rubies, amethysts, sapphires, garnet, topazes and tourmalines
Updated 05 May 2023
Reuters

King Charles became monarch of the United Kingdom and 14 other realms on the death of his mother Queen Elizabeth in September, but on May 6 he will be crowned in a ceremony full of pomp, pageantry and solemn religious significance.

Westminster Abbey
For the best part of 1,000 years, the kings and queens of England and Britain have been crowned at London’s Westminster Abbey in a ceremony that has changed little throughout the centuries.

There have been 38 monarchs crowned at the Abbey - Edward V, one of two young princes believed to have been murdered in the Tower of London in the 15th century, and Edward VIII, who abdicated to marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson, were not crowned.

The coronation ceremony will begin at 1000 GMT following a procession from Buckingham Palace. It is set to be shorter than that for Charles’ mother 70 years ago at about two hours long, compared to almost four hours.

A much larger procession will depart the Abbey, made up of armed forces from Britain and across the Commonwealth. The king and queen will travel in the gold state coach which was commissioned in 1760.

Coronation chair

The coronation service is a solemn, religious occasion full of symbolism. Charles will take an oath to uphold the law and the Church of England.

Sitting on the historic Coronation Chair, known as St Edward’s Chair and containing the Stone of Destiny, he will be anointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the spiritual leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion, with holy oil consecrated in Jerusalem.

The chair has featured in coronation ceremonies since 1308, and has been the chair used to crown monarchs since Henry IV in 1399, according to Westminster Abbey.

The centrepiece of the ceremony sees the crown placed on the head of the monarch sitting on the oak chair, which was originally covered in gold leaf gilding and elaborately decorated with coloured glass. The chair is being cleaned ahead of this year’s ceremony for King Charles.

Crowns

Charles will be crowned with the historic St Edward’s Crown that has been used since the coronation of King Charles II in 1661 after the monarchy was restored following the 10-year republic of Oliver Cromwell. It was removed from the Tower Of London in December for modifications for May’s ceremony.

The crown, which weighs about 2.2 kg (4 lb 12 ounces), is made up of a solid gold frame set with rubies, amethysts, sapphires, garnet, topazes and tourmalines, and has a velvet cap with an ermine band.

Charles will leave the Abbey wearing a different crown, the Imperial State Crown, illustrated below.

The Imperial Crown is the headware regularly used by British monarchs for official occasions such as the State Opening of Parliament.

Made for the coronation of Charles’ grandfather George VI in 1937, it is set with 2,868 diamonds in silver mounts including the 105-carat Cullinan II, the second biggest stone cut from the Cullinan Diamond, which was given by the government of the Transvaal in South Africa to Edward VII on his birthday in 1907.

The crown also features the large “Black Prince’s Ruby,” along with 17 sapphires, 11 emeralds and 269 pearls, including some of which are said to have been bought as earrings by Tudor monarch Queen Elizabeth I.

Regalia

A key moment of the ceremony will be when Charles is given regalia, from bejewelled orbs and sceptres to swords and a ring.

Sovereign's sceptre with cross

The Cullinan 1 diamond, also known as the Star of Africa, which weighs in at 530 carats and is the world's largest colourless cut diamond, was set in the bejewelled golden sceptre which has been used in every coronation since 1661.

The sceptre, which has undergone a number of alterations over the centuries, represents the sovereign's temporal power and is associated with good governance.

Sovereign's sceptre with dove

This is the second sceptre used in the ceremony, representing the sovereign's spiritual role. It also dates from 1661. It is made from a gold rod in three sections, mounted with diamonds, rubies, emeralds, sapphires and spinels. At the top is an enamelled dove with outspread wings, which represents the Holy Ghost.

The sovereign's orb

The Sovereign's Orb, another item commissioned for Charles II's coronation, is a globe of gold with a cross mounted on top, surrounded by a band of diamonds, emeralds, rubies, sapphires and pearls with a large amethyst at the summit. It is a representation of Christian sovereignty.

Coronation ring

The Coronation ring, known as "The Wedding Ring of England" and composed of a sapphire with a ruby cross set in diamonds, was made for the coronation of King William IV in 1831. Worn at every coronation since then, it symbolises kingly dignity.

Swords and maces

A number of swords will feature in the coronation procession.

These include the Sword of State, which symbolises royal authority and was made in about 1678, and was used at Charles' investiture as Prince of Wales in 1969. Also to feature will be the Sword of Temporal Justice, the Sword of Spiritual Justice and the Sword of Mercy, which were first used in the coronation of Charles I in 1626.

The bejewelled Sword of Offering, made for the coronation of George IV in 1821, is one of the objects used during the coronation ceremony.

Two maces, made of silver gilt over oak and date from between 1660 and 1695, will also feature. These are the ceremonial emblems of authority which are carried before the sovereign at events such as the State Opening of Parliament.

Ampulla

The golden ampulla, which dates from 1661, is a flask in the shape of an eagle that holds the holy oil, which was consecrated in Jerusalem in March and will be used to anoint the king.

Coronation spoon

The silver-gilt spoon is the oldest piece in the regalia, probably made for Henry II or Richard I in the 12th century. It was used to anoint King James 1 in 1603, and has featured at every coronation since.

Bracelets

Two armills, golden bracelets representing sincerity and wisdom, are placed on the sovereign's wrists. They are thought to relate to ancient symbols of knighthood and military leadership.

They date back to 1661 and have been used at every coronation from King Charles II’s until King George VI’s in 1937, with new armills specially prepared for Queen Elizabeth in 1953.

Topics: King Charles Coronation

German president urges unity after ‘dark shadow’ of Christmas market attack

Updated 24 December 2024
AFP
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German president urges unity after ‘dark shadow’ of Christmas market attack

  • Steinmeier recognized that there was a “great deal of dissatisfaction about politics” in Germany but insisted that “our democracy is and remains strong”
Updated 24 December 2024
AFP

BERLIN: Germany’s president said Tuesday that a deadly car-ramming attack on a Christmas market had cast a “dark shadow” over this year’s celebrations but urged the nation not to be driven apart by extremists.
In his traditional Christmas address, President Frank-Walter Steinmeier sought to issue a message of healing four days after the brutal attack in the eastern city of Magdeburg killed five people and left over 200 wounded.
“A dark shadow hangs over this Christmas,” said the head of state, pointing to the “pain, horror and bewilderment over what happened in Magdeburg just a few days before Christmas.”
He made a call for national unity as a debate about security and immigration is flaring again: “Hatred and violence must not have the final word. Let’s not allow ourselves to be driven apart. Let’s stand together.”
His words came a day after the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) held what it called a memorial rally for the victims in Magdeburg, where one speaker demanded that Germany “must close the borders.”
Nearby an anti-extremist initiative was held under the motto “Don’t Give Hate a Chance.”
Steinmeier recognized that there was a “great deal of dissatisfaction about politics” in Germany but insisted that “our democracy is and remains strong.”
A Saudi doctor, Taleb Al-Abdulmohsen, 50, was arrested Friday at the scene of the attack in which a rented SUV plowed at high speed through the crowd of revellers, bringing death and chaos to the festive event.
His motive still remains unclear, days after Germany’s deadliest attack in years.
Abdulmohsen has in his many online posts voiced strongly anti-Islam views, anger at German authorities and support for far-right conspiracy narratives on the “Islamization” of Europe.
News outlet Der Spiegel reported he wrote on social media platform X in May that he expected to die “this year” and was seeking “justice” at any cost.
Investigators found his will in the BMW that he used in the attack, the outlet said — he stated that everything he owned was to go to the German Red Cross, and it contained no political messages.
Die Welt daily, citing unnamed security sources, said that Abdulmohsen had been treated for a mental illness in the past, thought this was not immediately confirmed by authorities.
The attack has fueled an already bitter debate on migration and security in Germany, two months before national elections and with the far-right AfD party riding high in opinion polls.
The government is facing mounting questions about possible errors and missed warnings about Abdulmohsen, who was arrested next to the battered BMW sports utility vehicle.
Saudi Arabia said it had repeatedly warned Germany about its citizen, who came to Germany in 2006 and was granted refugee status 10 years later.
A source close to the Saudi government told AFP that the kingdom had sought his extradition.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government has pledged to fully investigate whether there were security lapses before the attack.
The Saudi suspect has been remanded in custody in a top-security facility on five counts of murder and 205 of attempted murder, prosecutors said, but not so far on terrorism-related charges.
German Christmas markets have been specially secured since a jihadist attacker rammed a truck through a Berlin Christmas market in 2016, killing 13 people.
The Magdeburg event too had been shielded by barricades, but the attacker managed to exploit a five-meter gap when he steered the car into the site and then raced into the unsuspecting crowd.
Steinmeier offered his condolences for relatives of those injured and killed “in such a terrible way” — when the attack killed a nine-year-old boy and four women aged 45 to 75.
“You are not alone in your pain,” he told the hundreds of affected families. “The people throughout our country feel for you and mourn with you.”

Topics: Germany Christmas market Frank-Walter Steinmeier

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Legendary drug lord Fabio Ochoa is deported to Colombia after spending two decades in US prisons

Updated 24 December 2024
AP
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Legendary drug lord Fabio Ochoa is deported to Colombia after spending two decades in US prisons

  • Ochoa’s name has faded from popular memory as Mexican drug traffickers take center stage in the global drug trade
Updated 24 December 2024
AP

BOGOTÁ, Colombia: One of Colombia’s legendary drug lords and a key operator of the Medellin cartel has been deported back to the South American country, after serving 25 years of a 30-year prison sentence in the United States.
Fabio Ochoa arrived in Bogota’s El Dorado airport on a deportation flight on Monday, wearing a grey sweatshirt and carrying his personal belongings in a plastic bag.
After stepping out of the plane, the former cartel boss was met by immigration officials in bullet proof vests. There were no police on site to detain him — an indication he may not have any pending cases in Colombian courts.
In a brief statement, Colombia’s national immigration agency said Ochoa should be able to enter Colombia “without any problems,” once he is cleared by immigration officers who will check for any outstanding cases against the former drug trafficker.
Ochoa, 67, and his older brothers amassed a fortune when cocaine started flooding the US in the late 1970s and early 1980s, according to US authorities, to the point that in 1987 they were included in the Forbes Magazine’s list of billionaires.
Living in Miami, Ochoa ran a distribution center for the cocaine cartel once headed by Pablo Escobar. Escobar died in a shootout with authorities in Medellin in 1993.
Ochoa was first indicted in the US for his alleged role in the 1986 killing of Barry Seal, an American pilot who flew cocaine flights for the Medellin cartel, but became an informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration.
Along with his two older brothers, Juan David and Jorge Luis, Ochoa turned himself in to Colombian authorities in the early 1990s under a deal in which they avoided being extradited to the US
The three brothers were released from prison in 1996, but Ochoa was arrested again three years later for drug trafficking and was extradited to the US in 2001 in response to an indictment in Miami naming him and more than 40 people as part of a drug smuggling conspiracy.
He was the only suspect in that group who opted to go to trial, resulting in his conviction and a 30-year sentence. The other defendants got much lighter prison terms because most of them cooperated with the government.
Ochoa’s name has faded from popular memory as Mexican drug traffickers take center stage in the global drug trade.
But the former member of the Medellin cartel was recently depicted in the Netflix series Griselda, where he first fights the plucky businesswoman Griselda Blanco for control of Miami’s cocaine market, and then makes an alliance with the drug trafficker, played by Sofia Vergara.
Ochoa is also depicted in the Netflix series Narcos, as the youngest son of an elite Medellin family that is into ranching and horse breeding and cuts a sharp contrast with Escobar, who came from more humble roots.
Richard Gregorie, a retired assistant US attorney who was on the prosecution team that convicted Ochoa, said authorities were never able to seize all of the Ochoa family’s illicit drug proceeds and he expects that the former mafia boss will have a welcome return home.
“He won’t be retiring a poor man, that’s for sure,” Gregorie told The Associated Press earlier this month.

Topics: Fabio Ochoa drug lord cocaine US prisons

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Bill Clinton is hospitalized with a fever but in good spirits, spokesperson says

Updated 24 December 2024
AP
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Bill Clinton is hospitalized with a fever but in good spirits, spokesperson says

  • “He remains in good spirits and deeply appreciates the excellent care he is receiving,” Urena said
Updated 24 December 2024
AP

WASHINGTON: Former President Bill Clinton was admitted Monday to Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington after developing a fever.
The 78-year-old was admitted in the “afternoon for testing and observation,” Angel Urena, Clinton’s deputy chief of staff, said in a statement.
“He remains in good spirits and deeply appreciates the excellent care he is receiving,” Urena said.
Clinton, a Democrat who served two terms as president from January 1993 until January 2001, addressed the Democratic National Convention in Chicago this summer and campaigned ahead of November’s election for the unsuccessful White House bid of Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.

 

 

Topics: Former President Bill Clinton US

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Greek lawyers call for further investigation into 2023 deadly shipwreck

Updated 24 December 2024
Reuters
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Greek lawyers call for further investigation into 2023 deadly shipwreck

  • “The case file contains serious gaps and omissions,” they said in a statement, adding that the captain and the crew of the coast guard vessel monitoring the migrant ship had been summoned by the court, but not the coast guard officials supervising them
Updated 24 December 2024
Reuters

ATHENS: Greek lawyers representing the survivors and victims of a deadly 2023 shipwreck said on Monday a naval court needed to examine more evidence after a preliminary investigation failed to shed light on the case.
Hundreds died on June 14, 2023, when an overcrowded fishing trawler, monitored by the Greek coast guard for several hours, capsized and sank in international waters off the southwestern Greek coastal town of Pylos.
A local naval court, which opened a criminal investigation last year, has concluded a preliminary investigation and referred the case to a chief prosecutor, the lawyers said on Monday, adding they had reviewed the evidence examined by the court so far.
“The case file contains serious gaps and omissions,” they said in a statement, adding that the captain and the crew of the coast guard vessel monitoring the migrant ship had been summoned by the court, but not the coast guard officials supervising them.
Evidence, including the record of communications between the officials involved in the operation, was not included in the case file, they added.
“The absence of any investigation into the responsibilities of the competent search and rescue bodies and the leadership of the Greek coast guard is deafening,” they said.
The chief prosecutor will decide if and how the probe will progress.
Under Greek law, prosecutors are not allowed to comment on ongoing investigations.
The vessel, which had set off from Libya, was carrying up to 700 Pakistani, Syrian and Egyptian migrants bound for Italy. Only 104 people were rescued and 82 bodies found.
Greece’s coast guard has denied any role in the sinking, which was one of the deadliest boat disasters in the Mediterranean Sea.

 

Topics: Greek migrants shipwreck

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Mozambique death toll from Cyclone Chido rises to 120

Updated 23 December 2024
AFP
AP
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Mozambique death toll from Cyclone Chido rises to 120

  • The cyclone not only ravaged Mayotte’s fragile infrastructure but also laid bare deep-seated tensions between the island’s residents and its large migrant population
Updated 23 December 2024
AFP AP

MUPATO: The death toll from Cyclone Chido in Mozambique rose by 26 to at least 120, the southern African country’s disaster risk body said on Monday.

The number of those injured also rose to nearly 900 after the cyclone hit the country on December 15, a day after it had devastated the French Indian Ocean archipelago of Mayotte.

The cyclone not only ravaged Mayotte’s fragile infrastructure but also laid bare deep-seated tensions between the island’s residents and its large migrant population.

Thousands of people who have entered the island illegally bore the brunt of the storm that tore through the Indian Ocean archipelago. Authorities in Mayotte, France’s poorest territory, said many avoided emergency shelters out of fear of deportation, leaving them, and the shantytowns they live in, even more vulnerable to the cyclone’s devastation.

Still, some frustrated legal residents have accused the government of channeling scarce resources to migrants at their expense.

“I can’t take it anymore. Just to have water is complicated,” said Fatima on Saturday, a 46-year-old mother of five whose family has struggled to find clean water since the storm.

Fatima, who only gave her first name because her family is known locally, added that “the island can’t support the people living in it, let alone allow more to come.”

Mayotte, a French department located between Madagascar and mainland Africa, has a population of 320,000, including an estimated 100,000 migrants, most of whom have arrived from the nearby Comoros Islands, just 70 kilometers away.

The archipelago’s fragile public services, designed for a much smaller population, have been overwhelmed.

“The problems of Mayotte cannot be solved without addressing illegal immigration,” French President Emmanuel Macron said during his visit this week, acknowledging the challenges posed by the island’s rapid population growth,

“Despite the state’s investments, migratory pressure has made everything explode,” he added.

The cyclone further exacerbated the island’s issues after destroying homes, schools, and infrastructure.

Though the official death toll remains 35, authorities say that any estimates are likely major undercounts, with hundreds and possibly thousands feared dead. Meanwhile, the number of seriously injured has risen to 78.

Topics: Cyclone Chido Mozambique cyclone

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