Headline
UK Marks First Anniversary Of Queen Elizabeth II’s Death

Britain’s King Charles III on Friday thanked the public for their support in his first year as monarch, as he marked the one-year anniversary of the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II.
In a short statement, the 74-year-old British head of state recalled the “great affection” for his mother, her life and public service.
“I am deeply grateful, too, for the love and support that has been shown to my wife and myself during this year as we do our utmost to be of service to you all,” he added.
Commemorations will be low key on Friday, with the king — who is at his sprawling Scottish Highland estate of Balmoral — not expected at any official engagement.
He and wife Camilla will attend nearby Crathie Kirk, the late queen’s place of worship, for private prayers and a moment of reflection.
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His mother, who was on the throne for a record-breaking 70 years, died at Balmoral aged 96 after a period of declining health.
Throughout her reign she did not publicly mark her accession, as it was also the anniversary of her own father King George VI’s death in 1952.
Last year, when she began her Platinum Jubilee year on February 6, she spent the day in private at her Sandringham estate in Norfolk, eastern England.
– Gun salutes –
In London, the King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery will mark Charles’s accession by firing a 41-gun ceremonial salute in Hyde Park from 12:00 pm (1100 GMT).
Members of the Honourable Artillery Company — the oldest regiment in the British Army — will fire a 62-gun salute from the Tower of London from 1:00 pm.
Both regiments were involved in firing the Death Gun salutes to mark the queen’s death, and the Proclamation salutes to mark Charles’s new reign.
The king’s eldest son and heir, Prince William, and his wife, Catherine, will commemorate the anniversary with a small private service at St Davids Cathedral in west Wales.
William’s estranged younger brother, Prince Harry, was in the UK for a charity event on Thursday but was not expected to meet members of his family.
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“As you know, I was unable to attend the awards last year as my grandmother passed away,” Harry told the charity event.
“She would have been the first person to insist that I still come to be with you all instead of going to her, and that’s precisely why I know exactly one year on that she is looking down on all of us tonight, happy we’re together.”
Relations between Harry and his father and brother have been strained since he and his wife, Meghan, quit royal life and moved to North America in 2020.
Ties have been frayed further by their criticisms of the family in television interviews, a docuseries and Harry’s autobiography.
– Memorial –
Elizabeth II’s death was a seismic event in British life. For most Britons alive, the queen was the only monarch and head of state they had ever known.
During the 10-day official mourning period, tens of thousands of people queued for up to 25 hours to file past her flag-shrouded coffin as it lay in state in Westminster Hall at the Houses of Parliament.
Even more packed the streets of London and the route west to Windsor Castle for the state funeral, which was beamed around the world to a television audience of millions.
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The queen was interred in the King George VI Memorial Chapel, Windsor, alongside her late husband, Prince Philip, who died in 2021, her father and mother and the ashes of her younger sister, Princess Margaret.
Earlier this week, the government announced that a national memorial to the late monarch will be commissioned “in due course”.
In London on Thursday, there were mixed views about Charles’s first year.
Some felt he had been right not to introduce sweeping reform too early. “He’s got a hard act to follow but he will I think change things,” Joanne Hughes, 61, told AFP outside Buckingham Palace.
But despite 161 official engagements and tours of all four nations of the United Kingdom, others were indifferent about the new king — and the monarchy in general.
“The monarchy is dying,” said nursing student Mimi Jaffer-Clarke.
“If he wants it to not die, then he needs to try to get the younger generation to like him — and we just don’t.”
Headline
White House Slams Trump’s Nobel Prize Snub
The White House lashed out at the Norwegian Nobel Committee on Friday after it awarded the peace prize to Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado and overlooked US President Donald Trump.
“The Nobel Committee proved they place politics over peace,” White House Director of Communications Steven Cheung said on X.
“President Trump will continue making peace deals, ending wars, and saving lives. He has the heart of a humanitarian, and there will never be anyone like him who can move mountains with the sheer force of his will.”
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Since returning to the White House for his second term in January, Trump had repeatedly insisted that he deserved the Nobel for his role in resolving numerous conflicts — a claim observers say is broadly exaggerated.
Trump restated his claim on the eve of the peace prize announcement, saying that his brokering of the first phase of a ceasefire in Gaza this week was the eighth war he had ended.
But he added on Thursday: “Whatever they do is fine. I know this: I didn’t do it for that, I did it because I’ve saved a lot of lives.”
Nobel Prize experts in Oslo had insisted in the run-up to Friday’s announcement that Trump had no chance, noting that his “America First” policies run counter to the ideals of the Peace Prize as laid out in Alfred Nobel’s 1895 will creating the award.
AFP
Headline
Transgender Woman Jailed For Deceiving Man About Gender In UK
A British court has sentenced a transgender woman, Ciara Watkin, to 21 months in prison for deceiving a man into sexual activity by falsely claiming to be a biological female.
According to a BBC report on Friday, the victim told Durham Crown Court he would not have consented to the sexual encounter had he known Watkin was biologically male.
The court heard that Watkin, 21, from Thornaby in Stockton-on-Tees, was found guilty of sexual assault after jurors rejected her claim that the man “would have realised” her gender identity.
Recorder Peter Makepeace KC said he was “certain” the victim “fully believed from start to finish” that Watkin was a woman due to her “lies and deception.”
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Watkin, who was born male and had used the name Ciara since childhood, had not undergone any medical transition or surgery, the BBC reported.
Both Watkin and the victim were 18 when they met on Snapchat, where she used a female cartoon character as her profile picture. They later met in person, leading to sexual contact. Prosecutor Paul Reid told the court that Watkin even claimed to be menstruating to stop the man from touching her below the waist.
When Watkin later confessed to being biologically male, the man said he was “physically sick” and immediately reported the matter to the police.
“He said he was shocked and upset about being deceived, adding that he felt ashamed, embarrassed, and had been ridiculed online due to Watkin’s actions and deception,” the report stated.
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The victim, who described himself as heterosexual, told the court he felt “part of his masculinity was taken away.”
Defence counsel Victoria Lamballe argued that Watkin’s actions were not “predatory or sadistic” but stemmed from “shame and a deep sense of discomfort” with her own body.
She said Watkin, who has been diagnosed with gender dysphoria, identified as female from primary school and had endured years of bullying.
“It is hardly surprising that Watkin built up a façade and presented almost as a caricature of herself to mask the inner turmoil she feels at having been born into the wrong body,” Lamballe said, adding that Watkin “simply wanted to be loved.”
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However, Recorder Makepeace ruled that the victim was “totally deceived,” saying Watkin had lied to “get away” with her deception and was aware the man would not have consented if he knew her biological sex.
The judge also criticised Watkin’s attitude during the trial, describing her as “flippant, disinterested, and bored,” showing “not a shred of remorse.”
He said, “At the heart of this case was your frustration at wanting sexual experiences with heterosexual males, which, by definition, you needed to deceive to achieve.”
Watkin will serve her sentence in a male prison, where authorities said protective measures would be taken to ensure her safety. She will also remain on the sex offenders register for 10 years and has been issued a lifetime restraining order preventing contact with the victim.
Detective Constable Martin Scotson of Cleveland Police said Watkin “purposely concealed her sex in order for the sexual activity to take place,” adding that he hoped the conviction would allow the victim to “move forward with his life.”
Headline
Burkina Rejects US Deportees, Calls Trump’s Proposal Indecent
Captain-Ibrahim-Traore
Burkina Faso, ruled by a junta hostile to the West, has refused to take in people kicked out of the United States, in a snub to one of President Donald Trump’s signature migration policies.
Since Trump’s return to the White House, his administration has made deporting people to third countries — often to nations they have no connection to — part of a sweeping immigration crackdown.
In Africa, Eswatini, Ghana, Rwanda and South Sudan have all accepted people expelled from the United States in recent months. But late on Thursday, Burkina Faso’s foreign affairs minister said the west African country had refused Washington’s overtures.
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“Naturally, this proposal, which we considered indecent at the time, runs completely contrary to the principle of dignity,” Karamoko Jean-Marie Traore said on national television.
Hours earlier, the US embassy in the capital Ouagadougou announced the suspension of regular services for most visas for people living in Burkina Faso.
Instead, Burkinabe citizens will now have their services handled in Lome, the capital of neighbouring Togo.
“Is this a way to put pressure on us? Is this blackmail? Whatever it is… Burkina Faso is a place of dignity, a destination, not a place of expulsion,” Karamoko Jean-Marie Traore said.
READ ALSO:US Deportations ‘Profoundly Disturbing” — UN Official
Burkina Faso’s leader, Captain Ibrahim Traore, styles himself as an anti-imperialist Pan-African strongman.
Since seizing power in a coup in September 2022, he has shunned former colonial master France and the wider West, forging closer ties with Russia instead.
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