BELGRADE, Serbia — Serbia and Russia confirmed Monday that a planned visit by Russia’s foreign minister to the Balkan country will not take place, with Moscow accusing the West of preventing the trip by blocking the envoy’s plane flight.
The announcement followed reports that Serbia’s neighbors — Bulgaria, North Macedonia and Montenegro — had refused to allow Sergey Lavrov’s plane to fly through their airspace to reach Serbia.
“An unthinkable thing has happened,” Lavrov said during an online news conference Monday. “A sovereign state has been deprived of its right to conduct foreign policies. The international activities of Serbia on the Russian track have been blocked.”
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic earlier Monday met with Russia’s ambassador to Serbia who informed him that Lavrov could not come because the Russian government plane was denied necessary flyover permissions, a statement issued after the meeting said.
Vucic expressed “dissatisfaction” over the “circumstances” that prevented the visit and added that “despite all, Serbia will preserve independence and autonomy in political decision-making.”
While formally still seeking European Union membership, Serbia has maintained friendly ties with Russia despite its invasion of Ukraine, refusing to join Western sanctions against Moscow. Many in Serbia view the fellow-Slavic nation as a close ally and Moscow has backed Serbia in its effort to retain its claim on Kosovo.
Lavrov blamed NATO countries for engineering the flight ban — Montenegro, Bulgaria and North Macedonia are all members of NATO — noting that the action showed again that the main purpose of the alliance expansion is to try to isolate Russia.
Lavrov still plans to travel for talks Wednesday in Turkey, where he can fly directly over the Black Sea. Turkey has sought to maintain good relations with both Russia and Ukraine while also trying to help international mediation efforts in the war.
The Russian foreign minister said the West has trampled on the principle of a free choice of foreign policy partners.
“From the Western viewpoint, Serbia mustn’t have any choice, any freedom in choosing its partners,” he said. “The West clearly shows that it would use any base means to apply pressure.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov deplored what what he described as “hostile actions,” but said this “won’t significantly hamper the continuation of our country’s contacts with friendly countries like Serbia.”
In Belgrade, Serbia’s pro-Russian Interior Minister Aleksandar Vulin expressed “deep regret” that a “great and proven” friend of Serbia could not come. Vulin added that “Serbia is proud that it is not part of anti-Russian hysteria, and the countries that are (part of it) will have time to be ashamed.”
Serbia, meanwhile, also is almost fully dependent on Russian gas. Vucic recently talked to Russian President Vladimir Putin on the phone to arrange a new deal on gas supplies for the next three years.
Analyst Slobodan Stupar described Lavrov’s attempted visit to Belgrade as a “show” that would have been used by Moscow to further vilify the West.
“I believe the Russians invited themselves” to Serbia, Stupar told The Associated Press. “They are terribly isolated. … They can now say that Europe and the world are not democratic and won’t allow a simple flyover.”
Stupar said Vucic has placed himself “in between” Russia and the West.
“That is the worst possible position one can imagine,” Stupar said.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is expected in the region later this week.
Suzan Fraser contributed to this report from Ankara, Turkey.
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 06 (IPS) – The United Nations, which has failed to help resolve some of the world’s ongoing and longstanding civil wars and military conflicts—including Palestine, Afghanistan, Yemen, Western Sahara, Myanmar, Syria, and most recently, Ukraine—was rightfully challenged by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during his riveting address to the Security Council last April.
“Where is the peace that the United Nations was created to guarantee? And “where is the security that the Security Council was supposed to guarantee?” he asked, via tele-conferencing.
The UN has also remained helpless—with a divided Security Council in virtual paralysis — in another long-running political issue: the nuclear threat from North Korea, where a Security Council resolution for additional sanctions against DPRK was vetoed last month by Russia and China (even though it garnered 13 out of 15 votes).
The UN’s declining role in geo-politics, however, has been compensated for by its increasingly significant performance as a massive humanitarian relief organization.
These efforts are led by multiple UN agencies such as the World Food Program, the World Health Organization (WHO), the UN children’s fund UNICEF, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) , the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), among others.
These agencies, which have saved millions of lives, continue to provide food, medical care and shelter, to those trapped in war-ravaged countries, mostly in Asia, Africa and the Middle East, while following closely in the footsteps of international relief organizations, including Doctors Without Borders, Save the Children, international Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), CARE International, Action Against Hunger, World Vision and Relief Without Borders, among others.
The UN’s increasing role in humanitarian relief work could perhaps earn the world body a new designation: United Nations Without Borders.
Besides humanitarian assistance, the UN also oversees nearly 90,000 peacekeepers in more than 12 UN peacekeeping operations and several observer missions, mostly in post-conflict situations., “helping countries navigate the difficult path from conflict to peace.”
In an interview with US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield last month, Anne McElvoy of “The Economist Asks” Podcast said “the UN is becoming a giant humanitarian relief organization, …and it’s sort of really retreating from big-time geopolitics simply because this formula of the UN, the format of it and the way its checks and balances work, aren’t sharp or effective enough in the world as it is. Your thoughts?”.
Justifying the existence of the UN as a political body, Thomas-Greenfield said: “The UN is what we have, and we’re all members and we have to work every single day to ensure that this organization functions and that it provides the platform for ending conflict. It is the one place where we can all sit at the table together”.
She also said: “The UN is the one place where we can have discussions on peace and security. And it is the responsibility of the UN to work to prevent the scourge of war. That’s what it was created for. And so, we have not given up on the organization. We’ve not given up on the goals of the organization.”
Last month, the Executive Director of WFP David Beasley said the World Food Programme has fed about 130 million people, mostly in conflict zones, last year. This year, that number is expected to rise to be about 150 million.
At the daily news briefings, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric provides a list of the humanitarian relief provided by UN agencies worldwide, particularly in conflict zones.
As of May 26, Dujarric said the UN and more than 260 of its humanitarian partners in Ukraine have reached 7.6 million people with assistance. Cash support also continues to increase with an additional 1.1 million people reached in May.
From March to May, a total of 1.5 million people have received cash assistance and health care support while around 352,000 people have been provided with clean water and hygiene products.
“We have also reached nearly 430,000 people with protection services, psychosocial support and critical legal services, including support to internally displaced persons,” he added.
In the Horn of Africa, the UN and its partners have provided about 4.9 million people with food while more than two million livestock have been treated or vaccinated, and over 3.3 million people have received water assistance.
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the UN and its NGO partners, have started distributing aid to thousands of people in Nyiragongo territory, including food to some 35,000 people, water, and medicine to at least 10,000 people.
Since January last year, the UN has also reached out to about 1.1 million drought-impacted people in the Grand Sud, Madagascar, with critical assistance, which has played a vital role in averting the risk of famine.
This has been possible due to the generosity of donors, who contributed $196 million out of the $231 million required for the Grand Sud drought response, between January of last year and May of this year.
In an op-ed piece for IPS, Dr Alon Ben-Meir, a retired professor of international relations at the Center for Global Affairs at New York University (NYU), said although the UN has lagged greatly in its intended purpose to maintain international peace and security, it has over the years established many agencies that provide significant humanitarian assistance in many fields.
Among the most important agencies are the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, World Food Program, International Monetary Fund, UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), World Health Organization, High Commissioner for Refugees, and UN Women, he wrote.
“In this respect, the UN has become a massive relief organization,” he declared.
Kul Gautam, a former UN Assistant Secretary-General and ex-Deputy Executive Director at UNICEF, told IPS the UN system has not been as effective as its founders had hoped in preventing wars and maintaining peace and security.
It has also been less effective than what many developing countries had hoped for in helping them tackle the challenges of economic development and social progress.
Its saving grace has, therefore, been largely in the area of humanitarian relief and rehabilitation – an area which is now heavily populated by UN agencies, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and faith-based charities.
“This is not to underestimate the value of the UN’s humanitarian response, as the world today confronts historically unprecedented numbers of refugees, displaced persons, victims of natural and man-made disasters and new forms of violence against women, children and other vulnerable groups”.
But as modern wars, violent conflicts, pandemics and increasingly perilous environmental crises can no longer be contained within national boundaries, but require concerted multilateral action, the need for a stronger and more effective UN is more urgent today than ever before, said Gautam, author of “My Journey from the Hills of Nepal to the Halls of the United Nations”. www.kulgautam.org.
Andreas Bummel, Executive Director, Democracy Without Borders, told IPS the UN’s humanitarian activities are essential. This is where the UN has the most immediate impact.
In the field of peace and security it should not be forgotten that the UN was created as a tool of its member states, he pointed out.
“State sovereignty is the UN’s most glorified principle. The UN has no independent authority and no means of enforcement. Even if it had, it is difficult to imagine how it could interfere in a conflict that involves one of the big powers”.
The UN was not intended to wage war against any of them, he argued, “That’s why the veto right was created. The veto is being misused though for political purposes. This is not in line with the purpose of the UN and the spirit of its Charter,” he declared.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has sparked the largest refugee crisis in Europe since World War II. In just over a hundred days, close to 7 million Ukrainians have fled across their nation’s borders, with the vast majority finding sanctuary within the European Union. Ukraine counts four E.U. member states as its neighbors, all of whom opened their borders for what was a mass exodus.
In an unprecedented move following the Russian attack, the European Union as a bloc invoked an emergency power not used since it was conceived two decades ago and granted Ukrainians a kind of blanket protection. The “temporary protection directive,” as it’s known, gives those who receive it an extended right to move freely within the European Union, as well as permissions to work and access to health care, education and housing.
It is “a very generous offer, far beyond the classical asylum protections,” Margaritis Schinas, vice president of the European Commission, told me last week during a visit to Washington. “I would say it’s Europe at its best.”
Schinas, whose portfolio includes coordinating the European Union’s continental approach to asylum and migration policy, thinks that many of these refugees may in the long run not return to their homeland. “I anticipate that this offer is so generous that regardless of the evolution of the war, at least 2.5 million to 3 million people will stay,” he said.
That’s a figure multiple times larger than the number of Syrian and Afghan war refugees given asylum by the E.U. in recent years. For Schinas, it’s a positive development. He described many of the Ukrainian refugees as “highly educated and skilled people” who “can immediately incorporate into our systems,” especially when the continent as a whole faces demographic decline and a significant skills gap in certain critical sectors.
Many of the refugees have tapped into networks of the Ukrainian diaspora and found housing and accommodation, while tens of thousands of citizens across the European Union, Britain and the United States, among other countries, have registered to host or sponsor Ukrainian refugees. Ukrainian schoolchildren are able to access their curriculums digitally. And though coronavirus vaccination rates in Ukraine were relatively low, the surplus stock of vaccines in the European Union means there’s plenty to go around.
All of this, Schinas observed, has led to the continent’s traditional opponents to immigration on the far right being relatively muted about this major Ukrainian influx, which, for now, appears to have caused minimal strains in host nations.
But onlookers elsewhere are less impressed. The reception for Ukrainians stands in stark contrast to how Europe on the whole has viewed asylum seekers from other parts of the world. The slow-burning crisis provoked by the war in Syria in 2015 left deep political scars on the continent: E.U. member states clashed over how to shoulder the burden of the influx, while the arrivals of hundreds of thousands of non-White, non-Christian migrants inflamed the nationalist far right across Europe.
Even last year after the fall of the Afghan government in Kabul to Taliban militants, a statement from E.U. interior ministers prioritized thwarting “illegal migration from the region” and “[reinforcing] border management capacity”over protections for the Afghan people, who bore witness to two decades of a failed Western military adventure in their country.
“The Russian-Ukrainian war revealed the ugly face of Europe. It showed their racism against Arab and African immigrants despite all the human rights slogans,” wrote Marwa El-Shinawy in a column for Daily News Egypt, adding that European governments “seem to believe that the protection of refugees is a right for Europeans only and that the rest of the races are not human beings.”
Perhaps one pointed illustration of this can be seen in Poland, whose right-wing nationalist government had fumed over the prospect of resettling a handful of Syrian refugees but has opened its doors for millions of Ukrainians from next door. In 2015, “the refugees were dark-skinned Muslims, and Warsaw slammed its borders shut,” wrote Andreas Kluth, former editor in chief of Handelsblatt Global, a publication based in Germany. “Now they’re fellow Christians and Slavs, and Poland has warmly welcomed more than half of the 6.7 million Ukrainians who’ve fled abroad.”
Schinas is aware of the criticism but rejects accusations of racism. To those who “somehow imply that skin color is a factor in European migration policy, let me be crystal clear,” he said. “It is not.”
The Brussels official argued that the war in Ukraine — on the E.U.’s immediate doorstep — is a unique circumstance that triggered a different legal mechanism than the earlier waves of migrants. “We give protection to people who flee from war,” he said. “This does not translate to an automatic right of admission for everyone who comes to the European Union.”
But Schinas added that the 2015 migration crisis was a “catalyst,” which “galvanized the European Union into some sort of belief that migration was a common issue.” Compared to seven years ago, the bloc has far greater funding and capacity to absorb migrant influxes and monitor borders.
But no matter the consensus around welcoming Ukrainians, the E.U. still lacks political unity for setting a policy on asylum seekers. Schinas thinks one will emerge soon, which will require unanimity among the bloc’s 27 member states.
“It is mind blowing that Europe has the biggest single market in the world, we account for 20 percent of the world’s GDP,” said Schinas, and can pursue major policy goals, including issuing shared debt and instituting the world’s most aggressive climate goals.
Yet, Schinas lamented, “this Europe still does not have a migration policy. It’s sad, in a way.”
TORONTO — Jacob Hoggard, the frontman for the Canadian band Hedley, was convicted Sunday of sexual assault causing bodily harm to an Ottawa woman but acquitted of the same charge involving a teenage fan.
Hoggard, 37, was also found not guilty of sexual interference, a charge alleging the sexual touching of someone under 16, in an incident involving the same teen fan when she was 15.
The singer hugged his wife in the courtroom after the jury’s verdict was read.
Prosecutors alleged Hoggard groped the teen after a Hedley show in Toronto in April 2016, and then raped her in a Toronto-area hotel room later that year after she turned 16. They alleged he raped the Ottawa woman in a Toronto hotel in November 2016.
Both complainants testified they were left bleeding and bruised. They each said that among other things, Hoggard slapped them, spit in their mouths and called them derogatory names, and that he restricted their breathing at one point.
During the roughly month-long trial, Hoggard testified his memory of the encounters wasn’t clear, but he said that he had consensual, “passionate” sex with the complainants and that he didn’t touch the teen sexually until after she turned 16.
“I knew when she turned 16,” Hoggard testified, adding he made sure “to be responsible and not break the law. ”
He denied choking or restricting the complainants’ breathing, but said some of the other things they described were among his sexual preferences and therefore could have happened.
The jury began deliberating Tuesday and twice indicated it was deadlocked on “some” counts. Each time, jurors were asked to keep trying. They went on to replay the bulk of the testimony given by the two complainants and Hoggard and also asked several questions on legal issues, including the definition of consent.
Hoggard’s band, Hedley, rose to fame after he came in third on the reality show “Canadian Idol” in 2004.
The devastating harm caused by explosive weapons falling on population centres has been seen again and again, from Syria to Ethiopia, Myanmar and Iraq. The flood of images coming out of Ukraine have shocked many. On top of the deaths, the use of these weapons is a cause for long-term harm, destroying livelihoods, and vital infrastructure such as health care facilities.
Secretary-General António Guterres has been consistently advocating for nations to adopt a commitment to avoid the use of explosive weapons in populated areas.
Below we examine the effect that these weapons have on civilian populations, and some of the ways in which nations, the UN, and partners around the world are working to reduce the humanitarian impacts.
Explosive weapons are systems that use munitions or devices whose primary destructive effect is caused by the detonation of a high explosives creating a blast and fragmentation zone. There are many different types of explosive weapons in use by national military forces and non-State armed groups.
Examples include indirect fire weapons, such as artillery, rockets, and mortars; weapons that fire in salvos, such as multi-launch rocket systems; large air-dropped and sea-launched bombs; surface-to-surface ballistic missiles; and improvised explosive devices.
Explosive weapons with “wide area effects” form a major subset of explosive weapons. They include weapons that use munitions with a large destructive radius, that fire in salvos or that deliver multiple munitions over a wide area.
Armed conflicts are increasingly fought in population centres. This urbanization of warfare has resulted in devastating and well documented impacts on civilians, often due to the use of weapons systems that are designed for traditional open battlefields.
Many of these weapons have foreseeable and indiscriminate effects when used in populated areas and result in increased civilian casualties and devastating humanitarian impacts.
OCHA/Giles Clarke
Children walk through a damaged part of downtown Craiter in Aden, Yemen. The area was badly damaged by airstrikes in 2015 as the Houthi’s were driven out of the city by coalition forces.
2. What are the humanitarian impacts and consequences of the use of these weapons in populated areas?
When used in villages, towns, cities, or other populated areas, explosive weapons create a consistent pattern of immediate and longer-term harm to civilians, destroying lives, livelihoods, and vital infrastructure.
In addition to immediate impact, many civilians are affected by the indirect and often long-term impact of the weapons – also referred to as reverberating effects. Children are particularly vulnerable to various forms of psychological or emotional trauma.
Health-care facilities are hit, hampering the delivery of medical care. Housing and essential infrastructure, such as drinking water and wastewater treatment plants and electricity supply systems, are damaged or destroyed, increasing the risk and spread of disease and further burdening the healthcare system.
Schools are blown up, interrupting or halting access to education, posing considerable risk to children and often exposing gender inequalities. The use of these weapons in populated areas can also contribute to large scale displacement, forcing people to leave their homes, often for long periods and in precarious conditions.
The use of these weapons virtually always leaves explosive remnants of war that can kill and injure civilians, particularly children, long after hostilities have ended. The remnants can also prevent or delay reconstruction work or agricultural production, as well as the return of refugees and displaced persons.
A child rides a toy car as people celebrate Eid al-Fitr, in east Ghouta, Syria.
3. What are the UN and partners doing to reduce the civilian death toll?
Since 2009, UN chief António Guterres, and his predecessors, have repeatedly called on parties to conflict to avoid their use, notably through his Agenda for Disarmament, which commits to supporting UN Member States in developing a political declaration that addresses the use of explosive weapons in populated areas, as well as limitations, common standards, and operational policies, in line with international humanitarian law.
In 2019, together with the President of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Mr. Guterres appealed to parties to conflict to employ strategies and tactics that take combat outside populated areas and “try to reduce urban fighting altogether”.
Fully documenting the short and long-term humanitarian impact of the use of explosive weapons in populated areas, including collecting data on civilian casualties, is key to taking appropriate action.
The United Nations, the International Committee of the Red Cross and NGOs across the globe have published numerous studies to inform debate and to improve military policies and practice.
Some military forces have adopted policies to avoid or restrict the use of certain explosive weapons in certain situations in order to better protect civilians, such as the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan and the African Union Mission in Somalia.
Children walk past damaged buildings in Benghazi in Libya.
4. What else is happening at a global level?
Over the last decades, coalitions of governments and civil society have successfully campaigned for the conclusion of new instruments that address humanitarian harm, such as the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention, the Convention on Cluster Munitions and the Safe Schools Declaration.
Since 2010, humanitarian actors, including civil society, have led efforts to raise awareness about the indiscriminate and severe humanitarian impact of the use of explosive weapons in populated areas.
A consultation process for the development of an international political declaration addressing the humanitarian harm arising from the use of explosive weapons in populated areas – led by Ireland – has been ongoing since 2019, following years of steadfast advocacy efforts. After a hiatus due to the pandemic, States reconvened last April to negotiate a political declaration, which is expected to conclude in June.
The Secretary-General has expressed his full support for this process, and continues to advocate for a political declaration that includes a clear commitment to avoid the use of explosive weapons in populated areas.
Children sit in a former classroom in a destroyed school in Saada City, Yemen. They now attend school in nearby UNICEF tents.
5. What difference could a political declaration make?
The adoption of a political declaration on the use of explosive weapons in populated areas could go a long way towards reducing the associated humanitarian harm, by recognizing that conflict cannot be fought in populated areas in the same way it is fought in open battlefields.
States should commit to develop operational policies based on a presumption against the use of explosive weapons in populated areas to foster behavioural change, promote concrete steps to protect civilians and ultimately enhance compliance with International Humanitarian Law.
LONDON — Queen Elizabeth II said she felt “humbled” after shedelighted crowds on Sunday with a surprise appearance on the balcony of Buckingham Palace, closing out the celebrations on the final day of her jubilee.
On a day that saw Brits celebrate the queen with a pageant and picnics, the queen made an unscheduled appearance on the balcony wearing a bright green dress and hat. She smiled and waved at the crowd below as she stepped out alongside Prince Charles and his wife, Camilla, Prince William and his wife, Kate, and their children, George, Charlotte and Louis. It was, in a single frame, a snapshot of the Windsor dynasty.
The Royal Marines Band played the national anthem, “God Save the Queen,” with the crowd singing along while the queen looked out at the vast throng, stretching as far as the eye could see.
As the jubilee long weekend came to a close, the queen sent a message of thanks.
In a statement from the palace, signed Elizabeth R., the queen said: “When it comes to how to mark seventy years as your Queen, there is no guidebook to follow. It really is a first. But I have been humbled and deeply touched that so many people have taken to the streets to celebrate my Platinum Jubilee.
“While I may not have attended every event in person, my heart has been with you all; and I remain committed to serving you to the best of my ability, supported by my family,” she said.
The queen was the clear star over the past four days, whether appearing in person or virtually at events. But Charles and William, the next two kings, also played prominent roles — a sign of the ongoing transition of power.
The queen’s Sunday appearance wasn’t scheduled. The queen was last seen in public on Thursday, the first day of celebrations during her record-breaking Platinum Jubilee. After that appearance, also on the Buckingham Palace balcony, the palace issued a statement saying that the queen was pulling out of some events after experiencing “some discomfort.” She returned to Windsor Castle, which is now her main base.
But eagle-eyed royal fans at Buckingham Palace in London on the final day of the four-day celebration noticed that the Royal Standard flag, flown only when the monarch is in residence, was hoisted up above Buckingham Palace in the afternoon.
Crowds had gathered at the palace and nearby streets on Sunday for the Jubilee Pageant, a carnival that snaked through nearby streets and included the Gold State Coach, an elaborate carriage pulled by eight horses. An image of the queen from her coronation was projected onto the windows, making it appear as if she was sitting inside the carriage.
Meanwhile, millions took part in street parties and the “Big Jubilee Lunch” over the weekend, some of which ended early because of, well, British weather. Street parties, a tradition that started after World War I, are a fixture during major royal occasions.
Buckingham Palace said more than 85,000 people had signed up to host Big Jubilee Lunches, with Charles and Camilla putting on the feed bag at the Oval Cricket Ground in London. Some of those picnicking said that they were fans of the royals and that this was a moment to reflect on their popular queen, her long service, and the very real sense that this was a nation celebrating her on a scale that won’t be matched again. Others said that they weren’t really fussed by the monarchy, but did welcome an excuse for a party with bubbly and bunting after the bummer pandemic years. The majority of Brits still approve of the monarchy, but its popularity has dipped in the last decade, especially among young people.
One street party in southwest London had face painting, guitar strumming and a street bake-off on the roster. A local firetruck appeared at one point and firefighters helped youngsters hose down other children, delighting all. The firefighters left when they got a call out from the fire department but later returned for cake.
Looking on at the scene, Kwame Gyamfi, 43, a mechanical design engineer, said that the street parties, which don’t come around that often, “are needed to bring people together. People have been locked up for near enough two years,” he said, referring to the coronavirus pandemic.
Millions across the U.K. attended street parties on June 5 for Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee. Street parties are often held during major royal events. (Video: Karla Adam, Allie Caren/The Washington Post)
In Colchester, a city in southeast England founded by the Romans, there was much partying — in part because as one of the oldest “towns” in England, it was awarded “city” status to mark the jubilee (meaning more money for city coffers).
Lin Gildea, a retired head teacher who organized one of the Big Lunches, smiled with quiet satisfaction as neighbors brought forth plates of poppy cake, Victoria sponge and Chelsea buns, along with cans of beer, bottles of bubbly and pots of proper tea.
And the food kept coming — until the tables groaned.
Gildea thought the Big Lunch was just one more gift from the monarch — a chance for the people to make merry — and talk real estate values and commute times.
“I’m not a massive royalist, but this queen is one in a million,” she said.
COLCHESTER, England — It was a little chilly, sure, with skies the color of cod belly. But it didn’t rain, much. And under the floppy tents it was as snug as a tea cosy, as vast numbers of Britons on Sunday hosted street parties as part of the “Big Jubilee Lunch,” to celebrate the queen’s 70 years on the throne.
ISLAMABAD — Pakistan’s military says security forces killed seven militants in two different operations near the Afghan border on Sunday.
Five militants were killed in raid on a hideout in the Jani Khel area of Bannu district — the gateway to North Waziristan, they said in a statement. Two other militants were killed in a shootout in a tribal district of North Waziristan.
LONDON — A colorful street pageant highlighting Britain’s diversity paraded through central London on Sunday, the final day of a long holiday weekend honoring Queen Elizabeth II’s 70 years on the throne. Royal fans were hoping to see another glimpse of the 96-year-old monarch later at Buckingham Palace, where the parade ends.
With the ringing of bells at Westminster Abbey, a spectacular military parade featuring 200 horses began the ceremony as they marched down the Mall to Buckingham Palace. They flanked the gilded gold state coach, a horse-drawn carriage that transported the queen to her coronation 69 years ago.
The queen wasn’t taking part in the pageant — though a virtual version of her, drawn from archival video from her 1953 coronation, was shown at the coach’s windows.
Thousands of performers were scheduled to parade along a three-kilometer (nearly two-mile) route, telling the story of the queen’s life with dance, vintage cars, vibrant costumes, carnival music and giant puppets.
The keenest royal fans braved the wet, chilly weather and camped out on the Mall overnight to secure the best view of the pageant. Some came for the celebrities who will be performing, while others wanted to be part of a historical moment.
“It’s part of history, it’s never going to happen again. It’s something special, so if you are going to do it you’ve got to go big or go home,” said Shaun Wallen, 50.
The queen hasn’t appeared in public for the Platinum Jubilee events since Thursday, when she smiled and waved on Buckingham Palace’s balcony with her family. She has limited her appearances in recent months due to what the palace describes as “episodic mobility issues.” She also had COVID-19 this spring.
Still, she delighted the country when she appeared in a surprise comedy video that opened a concert Saturday staged in front of Buckingham Palace. In the video, the monarch had tea with a computer-animated Paddington Bear — and revealed that, just like the furry character, she was partial to marmalade sandwiches and liked to keep them in her handbag.
Diana Ross and the rock band Queen headlined the star-studded tribute concert Saturday night, which also featured Rod Stewart, Duran Duran, Alicia Keys and Andrea Bocelli.
The celebrities paid tribute to the queen’s decades of service to the U.K. and the Commonwealth. Prince Charles, her eldest son and heir to the throne, highlighted his mother’s role as a symbol of unity and stability through the decades.
Addressing the queen as “Your Majesty, mummy,” Charles said: “You laugh and cry with us and, most importantly, you have been there for us for these 70 years.”
On Sunday, Charles and his wife, Camilla, mingled with crowds at The Oval cricket ground in London for a “Big Jubilee Lunch.” Millions across the country likewise set out long tables, balloons and picnic fare for similar patriotic street parties and barbeques.
Later Sunday, celebrities including singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran will belt out “God Save The Queen” outside Buckingham Palace as a finale to the pageant. Many hope that the monarch will make a second balcony appearance to cap the weekend of celebrations.
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