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09 VISAKHAPATNAM MONDAY 19 09 2022

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PRESIDENT MURMU PAYS TRIBUTE TO QUEEN IN LONDON

Visits Westminster Hall where the body of On a three-day visit to UK, Murmu is also set to Scotland Yard prepares for its biggest-ever
Queen Elizabeth II is lying in state attend the state funeral for the late monarch single-day policing operation in London
LONDON in London for the funeral, to

PRESIDENT Droupadi Mur-

which around 500 royals, heads
of state and heads of govern- Britain gears up for its first
state funeral in 57 years
mu on Sunday visited West- ment from around the globe
minster Hall in London, where have been invited.
the body of Queen Elizabeth II Thousands of people contin-
is lying in state, and offered ued to line up around the clock With the Queen’s state funeral set to take place on Monday, the Scotland
tributes to the late British to file past the queen’s coffin Yard is gearing up for the biggest policing operation its history while
monarch on behalf of the In- as it lies in state at Parlia- London’s transport authority says it’s preparing for around 1 million people
dian government and the peo- ment’s Westminster Hall, brav- to visit the city. These numbers give a sense of how big a day it is for the UK
ple of India. ing chilly overnight tempera-

“The President offered trib-
utes to the departed soul on
her own behalf and on behalf
of the people of India,” Rash-
trapati Bhavan tweeted along
with a video clip of the Presi-
dent at the Hall within the
House of Parliament
complex.
President Mur mu was
joined by Acting High Com-
missioner Sujit Ghosh at Lan-
caster House in London, where
2,000 800
tures and waits of up to 17
hours. The queen’s eight
grandchildren, led by heir to
the throne Prince William, cir- Dignitaries and guests Guests at a committal service
cled the coffin and stood with expected to be in Westminster later in the day at St George’s
heads bowed during a silent Abbey for the the state funeral Chapel in Windsor Castle
vigil on Saturday evening.
The miles-long queue is ex- Air Force: 10,000+ Police officers.
pected to be closed to new ar- 686 Metropolitan Police Deputy
rivals later Sunday so that eve- Assistant Commissioner Stuart
ryone in line can file past the Cundy said the hugely complex
Members of the public file past the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II, lying in state in Westminster Hall, in London on Sunday | AP
coffin before Monday morn-
ing, when it will be borne on a
TOTAL policing operation is the biggest

visiting world leaders are stop-
ping by to sign a book of con-
dolence in memory of Queen
Elizabeth II who died aged 96
in Scotland on September 8.
Murmu, who arrived on Sat-
urday evening, will join more
than 500 world leaders and
worldwide royals in a congre-
gation of around 2,000 expect-
ed at the Abbey for a sombre
ceremony starting at 11am lo-
cal time and concluding with a
two-minute silence around an
hour later.
Ahead of Monday’s funeral
service, the president is invit-
ed to a reception hosted by
King Charles and Queen Con-
sort Camilla at Buckingham
Palace.
All visiting heads of state,
government and official over-
seas guests are expected at
what has been described as an
“official state event’.
Thousands of police, hun-
dreds of troops and an army
of officials made final prepa-
rations Sunday for the state
funeral of Queen Elizabeth II ‘
a spectacular display of na-
tional mourning that will also
be the biggest gathering of
world leaders for years.
US President Joe Biden and
other dignitaries are arriving
5,949
in the London force’s history,
gun carriage to Westminster surpassing the London 2012
Abbey for funeral. Monday Olympics which saw up to 10,000
has been declared a public hol- police officers on duty per day
iday, and the funeral will be
broadcast to a huge television 36 KILOMETERS of barriers
Navy: 847 Army: 4,416 erected in central London alone
audience. Police officers from
the country will be on duty as to control crowds and keep key
5,949 Military personnel areas secure
part of the biggest one-day po- deployed throughout the
licing operation in the United meticulously 1 MILLION the number of people
Kindom’s history. Agencies choreographed operation London transport authorities
that began with the queen’s expect to visit the capital on

China gets thousands of order for UK flags

BEIJING
JUST Ninety minutes after
Queen Elizabeth II died, or-
ders for thousands of British
flags started to flood into a fac-
tory south of Shanghai.
More than 100 employees at
Shaoxing Chuangdong Tour
Articles Co. set aside other
work and put in 14-hour days
starting at 7.30 am (local time)
making nothing but British-
themed flags.
Workers produce British flags at the Shaoxing Chuangdong Tour Articles Co They turned out at least
factory in Shaoxing, in eastern China’s Zhejiang province on Friday | AP 5,00,000 the first week, accord-
ing to general manager of the
company Fan Aiping.
Some are British flags to be
carried by mourners or hung
outside homes.
Others show Elizabeth’s
portrait and the years of her
birth and death.
They range from 21 to 150
centimeters wide and whole-
sale for about 7 yuan each.
The first customer sent an
order at 3 am for tens of thou-
sands, according to Fan. She
said 20,000 the factory had in
stock were sent out that morn-
death on September 8 at Monday. Around 250 extra rail
her Balmoral Estate in the services will run to move people
Scottish Highlands in and out of the city
ing. “The customer came to
our factory directly to grab the
products,” Fan said. “Many of
the flags weren’t even pack-
aged.” The factory had been
making flags for the football
World Cup before the Queen’s
death on September 8.
Chuangdong has been in the
industry since 2005 and pro-
duces flags for the World Cup
and other sports events or na-
tional day celebrations. “There
is a business opportunity be-
hind every news event,” Fan
said. AFP

Ukraine forces find

makeshift jail used
as torture chamber
KYIV

IN a dank basement behind the local supermarket, metal

bars cordon off a corner of the room to form a large cell.
Dirty sleeping bags and duvets show three sleeping spots
on top of sheets of Styrofoam for insulation from the
damp earth floor. In the corner, two black buckets served
as toilets.
A few meters outside the barred cell, three dilapidated
chairs stand around a table, cigarette butts and empty
husks of pumpkin seeds littering the floor around
them.
Ukrainian authorities say this was a makeshift prison
where Russian forces abused detainees before Ukrainian
troops swept through the village of Kozacha Lopan in a
major counteroffensive in the Kharkiv region this
month.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said more than
10 such ‘torture chambers’ have been discovered in the
region since the hasty withdrawal of Russian troops last
week. The claims of what occurred in the room could
not be independently confirmed.
Kozacha Lopan, whose edge lies less than two kilom-
eters from the Russian border, was retaken by Ukrainian
forces September 11.
In a statement posted Saturday on its Telegram chan-
nel, the prosecutor’s office of the Kharkiv region, in
whose jurisdiction Kozacha Lopan lies, said the room
seen by AP journalists was used as a torture cell during
the occupation of the area.
It said Russian forces had set up a local police force
that ran the prison, adding that documents confirming
the functioning of the police department and imple-
ments of torture had been seized. The statement said an
investigation was being conducted.
Images the prosecutors released showed a Russian
military TA-57 telephone with additional wires and al-
ligator clips attached to it.
In his nightly address to the nation Saturday, Zelen-
skyy mentioned another location, at the railway station
in Kozacha Lopan, where he said “a room for torture and
tools for electric torture was found.” AP

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Counterterrorism among India’s

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New York: Counter-terrorism, peacekeeping, reformed
multilateralism, climate action and equitable access to
Covid-19 vaccines will be among the key focus areas for India
during the high-level UN General Assembly session that
begins this week here. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar
will arrive in New York on Sunday to participate in the high-
level 77th session of the UN General Assembly, which kicks
All the news. In just a click.
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Jaishankar will address world leaders from the UNGA podium
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