London: British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and his wife Akshata Murty hosted a Coronation Big Lunch at Downing Street here on Sunday for community heroes to celebrate the crowning of King Charles III and Queen Camilla as part of the country’s long celebratory weekend.
The invitees included US first lady Jill Biden and British Sikh entrepreneur Navjot Singh Sawhney, who won the UK PM’s Points of Light Award earlier this year for his eco-friendly hand-cranked Washing Machine Project, which is benefitting over 1,000 families without access to an electric machine in underdeveloped countries or refugee camps.
The event was one of an estimated 50,000 Big Lunches or street parties being organised up and down the United Kingdom to celebrate the Coronation at Westminster Abbey in London on Saturday. Ukrainians forced to flee the war-torn country amid its conflict with Russia were also present at the lunch.
“Come rain or shine, thousands of friends and neighbours are coming together this weekend to put up the bunting, pour the tea and cut the cake at street parties and community events across the UK,” said Sunak.
“I am proud to welcome Ukrainians forced to flee their homes and some incredible community heroes to Downing Street for our very own Coronation lunch to celebrate this historic moment. In England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and across our Overseas Territories and the wider Commonwealth people are marking this momentous occasion in the spirit of unity and hope for the future,” he said.
The British Indian leader made history at the Coronation ceremony on Saturday when he read a passage from a biblical book at the Abbey as the head of government of the host nation.
Akshata Murty, the daughter of Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy and the UK’s Indian First Lady, marched in with him as part of a Commonwealth Realms procession.
Sunday marks the designated Big Lunch element of the Coronation weekend, a nationwide initiative to bring neighbours and communities together to celebrate the historic event.
Downing Street has been adorned with bunting featuring the official Coronation emblem and the Union Flag. Crockery was donated by Emma Bridgewater the award-winning ceramics company based in Stoke-on-Trent including a limited-edition King Charles III teapot.
Besides Sawhney, several other recipients of the Points of Light Award volunteers that have made an outstanding contribution to their community were invited to attend the event.
“Winning the Points of Light award and getting recognised by the Prime Minister is a phenomenal privilege. The Washing Machine Project’s mission is to alleviate the burden of unpaid labour, mainly on women and children,” said Sawhney of his work.
Attendees enjoyed food sourced from across the UK, including Loch Duart salmon from Sutherland in North West Scotland and soda farl from Northern Ireland. Beef came from Gloucestershire in South West England and ice cream was sourced from Chilly Cow, a company based in Ruthin, Wales.
Ukrainians fleeing the Russia-Ukraine conflict and their UK-based sponsors also joined the event.
They include Olga Breslavska who travelled to the UK as part of the Homes for Ukraine scheme and is currently studying an intensive English course. Caroline Quill a Homes for Ukraine sponsor has been instrumental in matching 250 families across East Sussex and Kent and will also join the lunch.
Young people from organisations such as UK Youth and the National Association of Boys and Girls Clubs were also invited to mark the occasion.
Members of Britain’s royal family will also attend some community events and street parties during the day before seeing the likes of pop stars Katy Perry and Take That perform at Windsor Castle at the Coronation Concert on Sunday evening. Bollywood star Sonam Kapoor Ahuja is among those scheduled to make an appearance at the concert.
London: A 65-year-old man has been jailed for five months for mailing a threatening letter to former Home Secretary Priti Patel after admitting to sending a grossly offensive letter to the Indian-origin ex-minister at a hearing.
Pooneeraj Canakiah was sentenced by the Westminster Magistrates’ Court in London last week.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) in England said the letter, which was addressed to Patel and had the words “personal letter” handwritten upon it, was opened by a member of her staff on January 22 last year when she was still the Home Secretary.
Patel did not see the letter personally, and forensic testing was used to trace the writer.
“The content of the letter was grossly offensive and abusive. Canakiah thought that he would not be caught, however, forensic analysis proved that he wrote the letter,” said Senior Crown Prosecutor Lauren Doshi, from the Complex Casework Unit of the Crown Prosecution Service in London South.
“This conviction and sentence sends a clear message, that threats of this nature are taken very seriously and will not be tolerated. The CPS will not hesitate to prosecute such offences whenever our legal test is met,” she said.
The forensic tests revealed that a letter to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) had been written by Canakiah on top of the paper used for the letter to Patel.
Analysis of indentations in the paper revealed Canakiah’s name and address, and further analysis of the handwriting on the envelope and letter proved that he was the author.
When interviewed by the police, Canakiah – a healthcare sector worker from east London – denied having written the letter but eventually pleaded guilty to one offence of sending a letter conveying an indecent or offensive message in March last year.
London: Rishi Sunak will read from the biblical book of Colossians at the Coronation of King Charles III in keeping with the recent tradition of British Prime Ministers giving readings at State occasions, the office of the Archbishop of Canterbury revealed as part of the official Liturgy for the religious ceremony at Westminster Abbey here on May 6.
Sunak, Britain’s first Prime Minister of Indian heritage and a practicing Hindu, reading from a biblical book will resonate with the multi-faith theme being struck for the Christian ceremony.
Lambeth Palace, the office of the Archbishop of Canterbury Reverend Justin Welby, said that members of other faith traditions will play an active role in the service for the first time.
“The Archbishop of Canterbury has selected a new Epistle for this Coronation, which will be Colossians 1:9-17. This passage has been chosen to reflect the theme of service to others, and the loving rule of Christ over all people and all things, which runs through this Coronation Liturgy,” Lambeth Palace said.
“Following recent tradition of British Prime Ministers giving readings at State occasions as Head of the host Nation’s government this will be read by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak,” it said.
By longstanding tradition, the Archbishop of Canterbury authorises a new Liturgy or the form according to which a public religious worship takes place for every Coronation. The three oaths by the King at the heart of the service remain unchanged, including the promise to maintain “the Protestant Reformed Religion”.
The overall theme of the Liturgy is “Called to Serve”, which is intended to reflect the commitment that the King will make to serve God and the people of the United Kingdom.
“I am delighted that the service will recognise and celebrate tradition, speaking to the great history of our nation, our customs, and those who came before us. At the same time, the service contains new elements that reflect the diversity of our contemporary society,” said Welby.
His office said the service has been designed to reflect the changes in the UK since Charles’ mother Queen Elizabeth II’s Coronation in 1953, the character of Britain as it is today, and the Church of England’s role in contemporary society. As one of the newer elements, the 74-year-old monarch will pray aloud in the Abbey using words specially written for the occasion that reflect the “duty and privilege of the Sovereign to serve all communities”.
Lambeth Palace confirmed that the Presentation of the Regalia will be made by Members of the House of Lords and for the first time, some of the items which have no Christian meaning or symbolism will be presented by peers who belong to different faith traditions: Judaism, Islam, Hinduism and Sikhism.
Buckingham Palace had previously confirmed that Lord Narendra Babubhai Patel, 84, will represent the Hindu faith and hand over the Sovereign’s Ring to Charles. While Lord Indrajit Singh, 90, will represent the Sikh faith and present the Coronation Glove, Lord Syed Kamall, 56, of Indo-Guyanese heritage, will represent the Muslim faith and present the Armills or a pair of bracelets.
“At the end of the procession at the close of the service, before His Majesty proceeds to the Gold State Coach, the King will receive and acknowledge a spoken greeting delivered in unison by Representatives from Jewish, Hindu, Sikh, Muslim and Buddhist communities,” Lambeth Palace said.
The thousands congregated at the Abbey and millions expected to be watching on screens as the ceremony is telecast live will be invited to say the words: “I swear that I will pay true allegiance to Your Majesty, and to your heirs and successors according to law so help me God”.
The five elements of the historic “English Coronation Rite” will take place in their traditional order: The Recognition; The Oath; The Anointing; The Investiture and Crowning; and The Enthronement and Homage.
These elements will take place within the traditional structure of a service of Holy Communion, including prayers and Bible readings, and King Charles and Queen Camilla will receive Holy Communion during the service.
Buckingham Palace’s picture gallery contains some of the greatest paintings of western civilisation: 16th-century Titians, 17th-century Rembrandts, as well as works by Rubens and Van Dyck, and that rare thing, a Vermeer. Also on display are some of the most spectacular Canaletto vistas of 18th-century Venice.
It is a fine collection to have on the walls if you are member of the royal family. But access is far more limited for the public.
Outside the brief summer season during which it is officially open to the public, an “exclusive guided tour” of the palace provides visitors with about 5-10 minutes in the gallery itself to enjoy the paintings. The cost of a ticket is £90.
Six Canaletto Venice paintings on display at Buckingham Palace during the 2017 Canaletto and the Art of Venice exhibition at The Queen’s Gallery. Photograph: Dominic Lipinski/PA
The accession of King Charles throws a new spotlight on the royal collection.
Acquired by monarchs over generations, it is the last of the European royal art treasure troves to remain more or less intact in the hands of a sovereign. Similar collections in France, Spain, Austria, the Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark have been largely ceded to state ownership and to palaces open to the public, or to more freely accessible national museums, either by revolution or by mutual agreement.
Charles III is known for his love of the arts. He has now become owner of the royal collection as king, but not as a private individual. The Windsor family does own a valuable private collection of art, composed in part of pieces that were bought by the Queen Mother or Prince Philip. But the royal collection is “held in trust by The King in right of the Crown for his Successors and the Nation” – or so the Royal Collection Trust (RCT), the charitable body set up in 1993 to manage it, says with a liberal sprinkling of Royal Capital Letters on its website.
We do not yet know what Charles’s promise of a slimmed-down modern monarchy will mean for the royal artworks. The director of the collection, who is appointed as a senior member of the royal household, declined to give an interview. But important questions remain about its status.
Canaletto’s Venice: The Punta della Dogana and S. Giorgio Maggiore, part of the royal collection. Photograph: Royal Collection
According to the RCT website, the collection comprises more than 1m works, ranging from paintings and sculpture to furniture, carpets, china and ornaments. Only about a quarter of that number, roughly 280,000, are so far catalogued in the RCT’s online database – the trust said that it had given priority to the most significant artworks in developing the catalogue. Of the quarter that are catalogued, just 4% (10,407) are entered with a location tag that enables the public to find out where they may be seen.
The royal collection contains a vast range of works of varying interest. Leaving aside the pen wipers, branding irons and bonbon dishes listed in the database, the Guardian has analysed the status, whereabouts and accessibility of the indisputable masterpieces of painting that the collection contains.
Just a quarter of the 5,641 paintings it has are given a location tag, meaning they are on show to the public. And many of those that are tagged are in palaces or residences that are open only for a short time each year.
Jerry Brotton, a historian and author of a book about the chequered history of the royal collection called The Sale of the Late King’s Goods: Charles I and his Art Collection, argues that the public should have much greater access to what is in effect national art. “The royal collection is not ‘heritage’, it’s art. If you treat it as heritage and an adjunct of royalty, it is reduced to a bibelot, a load of trinkets. We don’t even know where a lot of the stuff is.”
Tracking down the treasures
It takes a bit of detective work to find the RCT’s untagged treasures. For example, the royal collection includes the world’s largest and finest holding of work by Canaletto. Famous for their brilliant evocations of light and space, and for shifting perspectives that improved the view, Canaletto’s paintings of Venice were the ultimate picture-postcard souvenir for wealthy British aristocratic travellers on their Grand Tour of European culture in the 1700s. George III bought 52 of Canaletto’s best oils and a significant body of his drawings in 1762.
Of the 52 paintings by Canaletto listed in the RCT catalogue, only 24 are at identified locations: 12 luminous views of the Grand Canal are in a small room down a corridor off the Cumberland Gallery in Hampton Court Palace (adult entry fee £26.10), and another 12 are in Buckingham Palace (£90, or £30 in August and September), although not all of those are in the visitable picture gallery. Others are in rooms closed to the general public. The whereabouts of 28 other great paintings by the Venetian master are not revealed in the online catalogue.
However, the Guardian has managed to track down one. It is rare to get a glimpse inside the royals’ private residences but a promotional photograph taken during a BBC 5 interview revealed that one of these Canalettos has been enjoyed by Edward and Sophie, now Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh, in the drawing room of their private Bagshot Park home.
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An exhibition mounted at Buckingham Palace to mark Charles’s 70th birthday in 2018 revealed that one his favourite paintings in the royal collection was a breathtaking work by Johan Zoffany that took six years to complete between 1772 and 1777. The Tribuna of the Uffizi is a tour-de-force representation of the domed gallery of that name in the Uffizi museum in Florence. In it, Zoffany reproduced dozens of famous paintings and classical sculptures in the style of their master creators through the ages.
Johan Zoffany’s Tribuna of the Uffizi, understood to be in the Grand Corridor at Windsor Castle. Photograph: Royal Collection
The painting has made appearances in exhibitions in 2009 and 2016 and, given its significance, might be expected to be on permanent public view. But the RCT catalogue is silent on the Tribuna’s whereabouts and the trust declined to say where it was. The Guardian understands it is in the Grand Corridor at Windsor Castle, where the king can enjoy it in his private quarters.
With such a surfeit of masterpieces, it is perhaps no surprise that some should hang in private apartments. Robin Simon, an art historian and editor of The British Art Journal, says the question of who has what, and which pieces the public should be permitted to see, is “deliberately very murky”. “A clear distinction was never made between privately owned works and the royal collection … It definitely happens that a royal would like a particular picture and it would go into private rooms to be enjoyed personally. And why not?”
One answer to that “why not” question came in the form of a controversy that erupted in 2016, when the then Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, William and Catherine, hosted the Obamas in the drawing room of their newly refurbished Kensington Palace apartment.
Barack Obama, Prince William, Michelle Obama, Catherine, the then Duchess of Cambridge, and Prince Harry at Kensington Palace in 2016. Aelbert Cuyp’s painting can be seen in the background. Photograph: Stephen Crowley/AFP/Getty Images
The couple had a valuable work by Marco Ricci, a Canaletto contemporary, adorning one wall. Dominating the room on another wall was a vast equestrian landscape from the royal collection by the 17th Dutch master Aelbert Cuyp, featuring a young black boy holding two noblemen’s horses. The painting is known as “the Negro page” from the label in its gilt frame; a pot plant was said to have been placed judiciously in front of the description, but the couple’s choice led to accusations of racial insensitivity. A spokesperson for the palace said the painting had been removed from the apartment several years ago, but declined to say where it was now.
Prince Andrew, although no longer a working royal, also appears to have had the benefit of various royal collection works, including a 19th-century oil portrait of Eugenie, Empress of the French and wife of Napoleon III, by Édouard Boutibonne, which has hung in his Royal Lodge residence. Andrew himself advertised for a maid in 2011 who, for £16,000 a year, would be expected to make beds and draw baths in the lodge, while also dusting “objets d’art” and looking after “picture frames under advice from the royal collection”.
A 19th-century oil portrait of Eugenie, Empress of the French and wife of Napoleon III, by Édouard Boutibonne, which has hung in Prince Andrew’s Royal Lodge residence. Photograph: Royal Collection
It has been reported that the king is considering opening Buckingham Palace for much longer periods to increase access and revenue. Opening it to the paying public for the first time was driven by a need to raise £40m to restore Windsor Castle after a devastating fire in 1992. This royal fundraiser, managed by the RCT, brought in £16.45m in the financial year 2018-19, before Covid closures drove the trust into deficit.
The paying public may have contributed millions of pounds towards the maintenance of the royal inheritance, but resources still appear to be inadequate . One of the most important series of paintings in the royal collection has been out of view for years thanks to a leaky roof.
A ‘dead’ collection?
The series of giant canvases by Andrea Mantegna, which have been described by experts as “the greatest masterpieces of the Italian Renaissance outside Italy” and a “landmark in western art”, were acquired by Charles I, the first great British connoisseur monarch.
Mantegna painted the Triumphs of Caesar series between 1485 and 1506, depicting imagined scenes from the Roman emperor’s triumphal processions. The Mantegnas were taken to Hampton Court Palace by Charles I and have remained there since.
They were housed in recent years in a gallery created in the Orangery, which had to be closed in 2020 and whose roof is leaking. It is not expected to reopen before 2026. Luckily the paintings were not damaged. Historic Royal Palaces, the charity that runs the unoccupied royal palaces, depends on admissions for most of its funding. “We lost most of our income with Covid, so we have to phase expenditure,” a spokesperson explained. It took HRP 12 years to repair the roof in another part of the Tudor palace.
The RCT is sensitive to criticism that the public has too little access to the collection and has put emphasis on increasing educational and loan programmes in recent years.
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After the Guardian’s inquiries about the Mantegnas, the RCT said last week that the king had just agreed to lend six of the nine paintings in the series to the National Gallery to exhibit for a period from this autumn, although the details were still being discussed. Two others in the series have just been put back on show in a new location in Hampton Court and one is with RCT conservators.
Loans are also made from the print room at Windsor Castle, which is home to the royal collection of prints and drawings, including the world’s most important grouping of Leonardo drawings. The room is not open to the public – the 600 priceless Leonardos, along with hundreds of Holbeins, Hogarths, Canalettos and more, have to be kept in an atmosphere-controlled environment to preserve them – but the trust team host student visits, and are expanding the digital catalogue. They also manage the frequent dispatch of fragile works for external exhibitions.
Martin Clayton, the RCT’s head of prints and drawings, is the leading authority on Leonardo drawings. It would be “irresponsible” to have them on permanent public display, he said, because they would rapidly deteriorate. Instead selected works are lent in rotation to major exhibitions and in manageable groups of 10-12 to galleries around the UK, where they had attracted huge audiences and often served to “revitalise local arts venues”, Clayton added.
A spokesperson for The RCT said: “The aims of the trust are the care and conservation of the royal collection, and the promotion of access and enjoyment through exhibitions, publications, short- and long-term loans, educational programmes and digital initiatives.” Funding of its work comes from admissions and sales rather than government and the collection is a living and working one, “spread among some 15 royal residences and former residences across the UK, most of which are regularly open to the public”, the spokesperson added.
For Brotton, the historian, the effect of the collection being held by the sovereign rather than the nation is the opposite, however. He argues that it has become a “dead” collection. “There’s precious little serious new acquisition and no showing of the collection’s art in context, so that the public and art critics can evaluate it, and debate its merits and significance against other art movements in the way that new exhibitions elsewhere shed new light on key artists.” He would like to see Charles III follow the example of Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s consort, who gave priceless Raphael cartoons for tapestries to the V&A museum on permanent loan for the public to see.
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
Only three in 10 Britons think the monarchy is “very important”, the lowest proportion on record, a poll shows as the king’s coronation approaches.
A survey by the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) shows public support for the monarchy has fallen to a historic low. A total of 45% of respondents said either it should be abolished, was not at all important or not very important.
In 2022, the year of the late queen’s platinum jubilee, 35% of respondents gave one of the same three answers. Overall, answers in 2023 displayed a drop in support for the monarchy to roughly the levels last seen in 2021.
The data, based on 6,638 interviews, builds on 40 years of data collected for the annual British Social Attitudes survey. It shows the number of people who say the monarchy is “very important” has fallen to 29%, from 38% in 2022.
This reflects a long-term trend of declining support for the monarchy, with the new research showing the number of those answering “very important” at the lowest level since data collection began in 1983.
But the return to 2021 levels is in keeping with the bump in popularity the Windsors tend to receive during showpiece events such as jubilees, weddings or births, NatCen noted.
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Guy Goodwin, the chief executive of NatCen, said: “Whilst we are observing a downward trend in support for the monarchy, it is clear from the data that important national events and celebrations, such as jubilees, marriages and births, have a clear and positive effect on society’s views towards the monarchy.
“Throughout the 2010s, we saw an increase in support for Britain to continue to have a monarchy, which coincided with the marriage of HRH the Prince of Wales, and the queen’s diamond jubilee celebrations.”
A total of 26% of people surveyed said the monarchy was “quite important”, up two percentage points on 2021. But 20% said it was “not very important”, also up two points since 2021. A quarter of those questioned said the monarchy was “not at all important/should be abolished”, a proportion that has remained unchanged since 2021.
Goodwin said it was an additional concern that just 12% of 18- to 34-year-olds view the monarchy as “very important”, compared with 42% of those aged 55 and older. He said: “The challenge going forward will be for the monarchy to deliver its relevance and appeal to a younger generation to maintain this support.”
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
British American Tobacco (BAT) has agreed to pay more than $635m (£511m) to US authorities after a subsidiary pleaded guilty to charges that it conspired to violate US sanctions by selling tobacco products to North Korea and commit bank fraud.
The tobacco sales at the heart of Tuesday’s settlement took place from 2007 to 2017 to the isolated Communist nation, according to both the company and the Justice Department. North Korea faces an array of US sanctions to choke off funding for its nuclear and ballistic missile program.
“This case and others like it do serve as a warning shot to companies,” Matthew Olsen, assistant attorney general of the Justice department’s National Security Division, told a news conference.
The case represents the “single largest North Korea sanctions penalty” in Justice department history, he said.
BAT, the world’s second-biggest tobacco group, makes Lucky Strike and Dunhill cigarettes.
Its annual report for 2019 said the group has operations in a number of nations that are subject to various sanctions, including Iran and Cuba, and that operations in these countries expose the company to the risk of “significant financial costs.”
In a statement, BAT said it has entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the Justice department, while one of its indirect subsidiaries in Singapore – BAT Marketing Singapore – pleaded guilty.
It also separately entered a civil settlement with the US Treasury department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control.
The $635.2m payment to US authorities is the total to cover the three cases, the company said.
“We deeply regret the misconduct arising from historical business activities that led to these settlements, and acknowledge that we fell short of the highest standards rightly expected of us,” the company’s CEO Jack Bowles said in a statement.
In a court filing, the Justice Department said the company also conspired to defraud financial institutions in order to get them to process transactions on behalf of North Korean entities.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is known as a chain smoker – frequently seen with a cigarette in hand in photographs in state media. A US-push for the UN security council to ban exports to North Korea of tobacco and manufactured tobacco was vetoed by Russia and China in May last year.
In addition to the settlement with British American Tobacco, the Justice Department on Tuesday also disclosed criminal charges against North Korean banker Sim Hyon-Sop, 39, and Chinese facilitators Qin Guoming, 60, and Han Linlin, 41, as part of a “multi-year scheme to facilitate the sale of tobacco to North Korea.”
From 2009 through 2019, the Justice department said they bought leaf tobacco for North Korean state-owned cigarette manufacturers and falsified documents to trick US banks into processing at least 310 transactions worth $74m that would have otherwise been blocked due to sanctions.
The government said North Korean manufacturers, including one owned by the North Korean military, were able to reap about $700m in revenue thanks to those illicit transactions.
The three defendants remain at large. The state department is offering rewards for information leading to their capture.
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
I am writing this from Egypt, having completed a chaotic, two-day journey from Khartoum with my husband, children, sister, aunt, cousins and dozens of other people from across the world. The sound of gunfire and shelling is gone. We are safe. But this is no thanks to the UK government or British embassy in Sudan, both of which totally failed us. We are safe because we took matters into our own hands.
Nothing prepares you for the sound of war, which started echoing around us on the morning of Saturday 15 April, as fighting broke out between the Sudanese armed forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. We were based in the suburbs of Khartoum and had access to electricity, running water and wifi. Some of my friends and family were not so lucky; their homes were damaged or even destroyed. Heavy fighting at the main airport meant trying to escape that way was futile.
At first the plan was to look after those in the worst of it, grabbing whoever we could during the pockets of quiet around iftar at dusk, and bringing them to the safety of our home. Then we had to think about saving ourselves. Artillery was landing in the garden and none of the ceasefires seemed to be holding for more than a couple of minutes.
I am a dual-national, British and Sudanese, and my husband and children are British citizens – so we contacted the embassy. We were told it was not possible for the person we had reached out to in Sudan to pass on our details to the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office for data protection reasons. So we were advised to ask someone do this on our behalf from the UK. A kind friend in London spent all day with copies of our passports and pins of our locations – and that seemed to work. Several days later we got an email confirming we had been registered, but that there was no plan: we were to just stay indoors and not to reply to the email as it was not monitored.
Slowly but surely it became apparent that the British response wasn’t working. News that the UK ambassador, his deputy and other senior staff were out of the country didn’t help: our lives were in the hands of a group of people who thought that during a period of rising tensions it would be fine for the embassy’s senior staff to have some R&R.
In the days that followed, friends texted me sounding thrilled, as the headlines were giving the impression that we would be rescued in hours. In reality we knew nothing, and were getting automated text messages asking us to fill out the same form that we’d already filled out. Some friends joined a UN convoy that was heading to Port Sudan where boats to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia were running. It was chaotic, but they made it. Meanwhile, those “remain indoors” texts were discouraging Britons from joining the convoy.
The final straw for us came on Saturday 22 April when Dutch, French, Italian and Greek citizens – not diplomats – were informed they would be flown back home from an airstrip in Khartoum (this happened on the Sunday and Monday, as the Eid ceasefire was coming to an end). We called the British consulate one last time, wondering if this meant we would be flown out too. We were told in no uncertain terms there were no plans for evacuation, despite what all these other countries were pulling off. Embassy staff and their families were the lucky beneficiaries of the UK’s “complex and rapid evacuation” – as Rishi Sunak put it on Twitter – while ordinary British nationals were left to fend for themselves.
So we felt we had no choice but to book seats on a private bus with friends and family, and make the long drive north to the Egyptian border. We set off late morning on Sunday. My husband, kids and I each carried a small backpack with food that quickly perished in the roasting heat.
We drove past tanks, fires and large groups of soldiers. Men with machine guns got on board the bus twice on our way out of the capital. Outside Khartoum things progressed more quickly and we zoomed up the road. For the first time in over a week, time passed without the sound of bullets and bombs. We went past everything I love about Sudan: palm orchards, sweeping rivers and thousands of people that deserve so much better than any of this.
We drove through the night and reached the Egyptian border on Monday. Butcrossing proved difficult. Visas had to be pre-approved and my sister in London frantically arranged ours from there. We ended up spending the night at the border, sleeping outside until the sun rose. Phone calls were coming from those still in Khartoum, Sudanese and British alike, saying the gunfire was getting worse. I felt intensely grateful to be lying on the pavement, surrounded by those I cared about, safe at last.
Many of our party were denied entry, including some British citizens – the British government again seemed to have made no effort to help its citizens get safe passage to Egypt despite its close ties with the country. On Tuesday morning we started heading for the city of Aswan, and hoped to be flying back to London soon.
You’re hearing a lot about the British government and the coherence of its evacuation plan. Don’t believe a word of it. At the time of writing, its people are stuck in Port Sudan, waiting for a ship. According to the latest headlines, amid a “fragile truce”, the government will finally begin evacuating British nationals from Khartoum today. I’ll believe it when I see it.
At the border, a final ping came from the FCDO telling me to stay indoors and asking me to fill out that form for the sixth time. This time I replied: “Fuck you.”
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
Hyderabad: Virendra Sharma, a British MP of Indian origin, appreciated chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao for the installation of the 125-foot-tall BR Ambedkar statue.
“The construction of the new statue of Dr BR Ambedkar is a great achievement and one I hope you and the entire state are proud of,” he said in a letter.
He said that the history and works of Dr Ambedkar are the story of India. Ambedkar’s ideas espoused and shaped the modern Constitution of India, prioritising development and plurality over outdated notions.
“Themes of tolerance, his stance for equality in society, and his thoughts, actions and extensive writing were way ahead of his time in the UK and India. As author and father of the constitution he drafted the text for the continuation of the nation,” said the UK MP.
Sharma said that Ambedkar had a vision for the future that is not fully realised yet.
“I am proud to work closely with Telangana community organisations in the UK. It is a particular pleasure to work closely with Uday Nagaraju, a son of Telangana, putting himself forward for election in the UK,” he added
He said that the organisations do fantastic work, not just for their own community, but to invigorate and enrich the social and cultural life of the entire United Kingdom and Telangana diaspora.
“I hope you will join us in the UK soon, and share the inspiration for the statue,” said Vijendra Sharma inviting KCR to Britain.
London: UK Home Secretary Suella Braverman remains defiant amid accusations of being racist after she said that an overwhelming majority of sexual grooming gang members in parts of England were British Pakistani men, reiterating that the “truth” cannot be classed as racist.
In an article for The Spectator’ magazine this week, the Indian-origin Cabinet minister stressed that it was necessary to acknowledge the role that ethnicity played in covering up the grooming gangs scandal.
Targeting the Opposition Labour Party, Braverman said “unfashionable facts” such as the ethnicity of those behind such scandals in parts of England were being countered by “fashionable fictions.”
“If we are to address the injustice of the grooming gangs scandal, we must be willing to acknowledge the role that ethnicity played in covering it up,” Braverman writes in the article entitled The truth can’t be racist’.
“To say that the overwhelming majority of perpetrators in towns such as Rotherham, Telford, and Rochdale were British Pakistani and that their victims were white girls is not to say that most British Pakistanis are perpetrators of sexual abuse. The former is a truth, one that made authorities reluctant to confront the issue. The latter is a lie, the speaking of which would be a disgraceful prejudice,” she writes.
She lamented the “politician’s lot” as she admitted that her motives for making the statement will be questioned, but hit back at those “casually” accusing her of racism for speaking plain truths.
“There is something peculiar about this political moment, where those of us advancing unfashionable facts are beaten over the head with fashionable fictions. I suppose the ethnicity of grooming gang perpetrators in a string of cases is the sort of fact that has simply become unfashionable in some quarters. Like the fact that 100 per cent of women do not have a penis,” she notes, alluding to another emotive debate around transgender access to female spaces.
Her intervention comes in the wake of strong objections from within the British Pakistani community, including claims that it has led many to distance themselves from the governing Conservatives since Braverman’s comments earlier this month for the launch of the government’s new Grooming Gangs Taskforce.
Last week, the British Pakistani Foundation (BPF), which claims to represent 18,000 Pakistani heritage members, wrote to British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to ask his cabinet minister to withdraw her “irresponsible words” as it would be perceived as normalising bigotry against the community.
Similar letters were also issued by other British Pakistani groups, with Tory peer Baroness Sayeeda Warsi warning that she feared a backlash against British Muslims due to the remarks.
In a series of television interviews earlier this month, Braverman said that the perpetrators of sexual crimes via grooming gangs are “groups of men, almost all British Pakistani”.
Led by the police and supported by the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA), Downing Street says that data analysts will work alongside the government’s new Grooming Gangs Taskforce using cutting-edge data and intelligence to identify the types of criminals who carry out these offences, including police recorded ethnicity data.
London: A British man arrested at Heathrow Airport over a year ago when he flew back from Pakistan pleaded guilty on Friday to travelling to Syria to join the Islamic State (ISIS) terrorist network.
Shabazz Suleman, who grew up in the High Wycombe area of Buckinghamshire in south-east England, was due to study international relations at university when he vanished while on a family holiday to Turkey in 2014, aged 19.
He was arrested after returning to the UK via Pakistan in October 2021 and charged with a string of terror offences and was due to face trial at the Old Bailey court in London next month. He has now pleaded guilty to preparing acts of terrorism by travelling from the UK to Turkey in order to join ISIS in Syria in August 2014.
Now aged 27, Suleman was also charged with being a member of ISIS, a proscribed organisation, between 2014 and 2017, and receiving training in the use of firearms. Judge Mark Lucraft remanded him in custody until sentencing on May 26.
In an interview with Sky News’ in 2017, Suleman had claimed he spent most of his three years in terrorist territory playing PlayStation and riding his bike.
He spoke about how he’d gone into hiding to try to avoid fighting, sitting in various houses in Raqqa playing Grand Theft Auto or Metal Gear Solid on a PlayStation and having “a normal life in IS territory”.
In Syria, he is said to have assumed the name Abu Shamil al-Britani and is alleged to have carried out guard duty and patrols for ISIS. By June 2015 he had reportedly become disillusioned, saying, “I never thought I was being brainwashed until I saw the way they treat other Sunnis”.
Speaking after leaving ISIS, Suleman told Sky News’: “I take responsibility. I was with ISIS, I was with a terrorist organisation. But I didn’t kill anyone, I hope I didn’t oppress anyone.
“I did have Kalashnikov and a military uniform, but I didn’t hit anyone, I didn’t oppress anyone, if you understand. I was there with military police but like I said, I was in the office.”
Suleman is believed to be among hundreds of British nationals who travelled to the Middle East to join the ranks of ISIS and other terror networks in Syria and Iraq over the years.
