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King Charles III was formally proclaimed as Britain’s monarch and head of the Commonwealth Saturday, in a ceremony that traces its history back several hundred years.    

Charles became king upon the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, on Thursday. She had been on the throne for 70 years. The royal family announced that her funeral would be September 19 at Westminster Abbey in London.    

Pomp and ceremony 

Elizabeth’s first son, Charles, was proclaimed king in a ceremony at St James’s Palace in London, which was broadcast on television for the first time. Senior politicians, judges and officials — including all six of Britain’s living former prime ministers — gathered for the “Accession Council” to formally recognize the new monarch.   

Using language that drew on centuries of tradition, the clerk of the Privy Council Richard Tilbrook made the historic proclamation.   

“We … do now hereby, with one voice and consent of tongue and heart, publish and proclaim that the Prince Charles Philip Arthur George, is now, by the death of our late sovereign of happy memory, become our only lawful and rightful liege Lord Charles III.”    

“By the grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and of his other realms and territories, king, head of the Commonwealth, defender of the faith, to whom we do acknowledge all faith and obedience with humble affection, beseeching God by whom kings and queens do reign to bless His Majesty with long and happy years to reign over us. God save the King,” Tilbrook said.   

Tribute 

King Charles III then addressed the council and paid tribute to his late mother, Queen Elizabeth II.   

“To all of us as a family, as to this kingdom and the wider family of nations of which it is a part, my mother gave an example of lifelong love and of selfless service. My mother’s reign was unequalled in its duration, its dedication, and its devotion. Even as we grieve, we give thanks for this most faithful life,” Charles said.   

The proclamation was then repeated from the balcony of St James’s Palace and in the City of London, the ancient heart of the British capital. Gun salutes rang out to welcome the new king.   

In Parliament, senior lawmakers, including the new Prime Minister Liz Truss pledged allegiance to the new king.   

Buckingham Palace   

King Charles and his wife, Queen Consort Camilla, then traveled to their new home at Buckingham Palace. Thousands of onlookers cheered their new king.   

“It just felt like a really special moment in history. And it was lovely actually seeing him, I didn’t think I would feel as emotional as I did. Just really special,” said Beverley Nash, who traveled to London from her home in Kent, southeast England to witness the event.   

They are complex emotions for a country undergoing profound historical change: welcoming a new king, while mourning the death of deeply loved queen.   

In Windsor, west of London, royal family feuds were put aside. William and Catherine — the newly appointed Prince and Princess of Wales — and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Harry and Meghan, emerged from the royal residence together to greet well-wishers and inspect floral tributes to the late queen outside Windsor Castle.    

Funeral   

In the coming days Elizabeth II’s body will be taken to Edinburgh and then to London, where she will lie in state in Westminster Hall for several days. The royal family announced that her funeral is to take place September 19 at Westminster Abbey.  

Dozens of world leaders, including U.S. President Joe Biden, are expected to attend. 
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King Charles III was proclaimed as Britain’s monarch and head of the Commonwealth Saturday in a ceremony in London, which traces its history back several hundred years. The royal family announced the queen’s funeral would be September 19, at Westminster Abbey in London. Henry Ridgwell reports
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Turkey and Greece, both NATO members, have been at loggerheads for decades over territorial and airspace claims in and over the Aegean Sea. As the historic rivals escalate their war of words, analysts warn about the risk of current tension spilling into NATO business at a time when there is a need to focus on unity against Russia amid its invasion of Ukraine. 

The latest spat began when Turkey accused its neighbor of locking onto Turkish fighter jets with its Russian-made S-300 anti-aircraft missile systems deployed on the island of Crete. Ankara also said Greek pilots placed Turkish aircraft under a radar lock over the Eastern Mediterranean during a NATO mission last month. 

Athens dismissed Turkish claims and accused the country of violating its airspace.

As both countries lodged complaints with NATO about the incidents, the deletion of a tweet by NATO Allied Land Command (LANDCOM) congratulating Turkey on its Victory Day, following a demarche by Greece, caused fury in Ankara. 

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan doubled down when he spoke earlier this week at Teknofest, an event dubbed as Turkey’s biggest aviation and aerospace festival. 

“Look at history. If you cross the line any further, there will be a heavy price to pay. Don’t forget Izmir,” he said, alluding to a defeat of occupying Greek forces in the western city in 1922. 

He echoed those words earlier this week, warning “Turkey could come all of a sudden one night.”

His remarks were perceived by Greek officials as threats, suggesting Turkey could take military action against the Aegean Sea islands. Athens says it is ready to defend its sovereignty. 

Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias asked NATO, European Union partners and the United Nations to formally condemn what he described as “outrageous and increasingly aggressive talk by Turkish officials” in letters addressed to three international bodies, copies of which were seen by The Associated Press.

In a statement sent to VOA, a State Department representative called on the two allies to resolve their differences diplomatically.

Pointing to the Russian invasion in Ukraine, Washington said statements that could raise tensions between NATO allies are “particularly unhelpful,” adding “Greece’s sovereignty over the islands is not in question.” 

The Pentagon did not comment on Turkish claims that Greece locked its S-300 surface-to-air missiles onto Turkey’s jets last week but said Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin emphasized the need to reduce tensions in the Aegean through constructive dialogue during his previous talks with Turkish and Greek counterparts.

Possibility of war  

Deep-rooted friction brought Turkey and Greece almost to the point of war three times in the last 50 years.

Analysts speaking to VOA say they don’t see a resolution any time soon, noting the troubled history of bilateral relations and the “tight politics” in the two nations’ capitals. 

“It will take a mediator who has the skill and some leverage to be able to come up with something that these two nations can agree with. But I don’t see that on the horizon,” said Jim Townsend, former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense on European and NATO policy. Townsend is currently an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security Transatlantic Security Program. 

Philip Breedlove, a retired U.S. Air Force general who served as NATO supreme allied commander from 2013 to 2016, said the long-standing problems between Turkey and Greece rise and fall over time. 

“The leadership in Turkey is pushing the country in certain directions that have caused these tensions to rise once again as they have over the years,” the former top NATO commander said in a phone interview with VOA on Wednesday.   

Breedlove, who is now a senior fellow with the Middle East Institute, said NATO and the United States have managed similar tensions in the past and the alliance is still up to the task. 

Concerns about disrupting NATO unity 

The recent spat between Turkey and Greece takes place as NATO is focusing on displaying a united front against Russia in the face of its invasion in Ukraine.  

Experts are worried that if the tension escalates to the point of hostilities, Russian President Vladimir Putin can take advantage.  

“Whatever little cracks can appear in European unity, Putin can make them even larger and in fact split the rock. So, it not only undercuts European unity but also can spill over into NATO councils if one or the other country uses NATO as a weapon to hurt the other,” Townsend said.  

He warned that those cracks can be exploited by Moscow as winter approaches; Russia has already cut back on its gas exports to Europe. 

Election dynamics 

Turkey and Greece will both head to the polls for crucial elections next year. 

Turkish President Erdogan is said to be facing a major challenge to his 20-year rule amid the country’s economic woes and immigration problems. 

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, elected in 2019, reportedly suffered a popularity loss to some degree because of rising energy prices partly driven by the war in Ukraine. 

“Rhetoric on both sides has always been part of the problem and it’s something that doesn’t help things,” said Townsend. 

Breedlove agrees. He believes some of this is “playing to an internal audience.”

Balancing act 

The United States is known to have maintained a balance between regional rivals Turkey and Greece, which it says are both important NATO allies. 

Athens and Washington extended a bilateral military agreement for five years and the deal was ratified by the Greek parliament in the summer, days before the Greek prime minister’s visit to Washington in mid-May. The deal gives the U.S. more military access to bases in Greece.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley met with his Greek counterpart, Konstantinos Floros, at the Pentagon in July. “The military leaders discussed mutual items of interest,” said a statement from his office.

That visit was followed by Greek Defense Minister Nikolaos Panagiotopoulos’ visit to the Pentagon July 18 to meet with Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. The two discussed the “growing defense partnership between the United States and Greece and the close cooperation on basing, [and] defense modernization,” according to a statement from the Pentagon.

They also discussed “the need to reduce tensions in the Aegean through constructive dialogue.” 

Austin spoke with his Turkish counterpart, Hulusi Akar, July 25, discussing “the need for continued efforts to reduce tensions in the Aegean through constructive dialogue.”

Turkish and Greek defense requests

Greece is seeking to acquire F-35 fighter jets from the United States. The country formally requested the fighter jets in June.  

Turkey was kicked out of the F-35 program because of its purchase of an advanced S-400 missile system from Russia. Ankara wants to buy F-16s and modernization kits from Washington. U.S. weapons sales to foreign countries are subject to congressional approval.

Analysts argue that Turkey’s decision to buy the Russian S-400 system was a huge blow to defense cooperation between Washington and Ankara, which they say has traditionally been very strong. 

Townsend, who spent 30 years at the Pentagon working on Turkey issues, tells VOA that he “mourns the loss of [the] close working relationship with Turkey,” hoping it can be restored again. 

He is hopeful that the United States will be able to provide the F-16s requested by Turkey, saying he thinks the administration — working with Congress — will be able to allow that transfer to happen. 

Retired U.S. Air Force General Breedlove maintains the same hope.

Focusing on ‘common threat’

The former NATO commander argues that Turkey made some security decisions that aligned it more closely with “NATO’s enemy,” in reference to its S-400 purchase from Russia, which was identified as the most significant and direct threat to the allies’ security in NATO’s strategic concept document. 

“The enemy is not Greece versus Turkey and Turkey versus Greece. It is NATO versus Russia. I would want Turkey to have that if they can’t have the F-35. We need to understand who the enemy is,” Breedlove tells VOA. 

He said the United States would want to move forward with Turkey because it is an incredibly important part of the NATO alliance despite recent lows in the relationship, adding he cannot speak to the policy of the current U.S. government. 

But he also acknowledged that “Greece is a little more aligned with where America wants to go in the area,” saying Washington would want to have the same kind of relationship with Turkey.

He calls on the United States and Turkey to focus on how they can bring back the same level of cooperation rather than growing apart.

Erdogan’s criticism of the West’s Russia policy

Meanwhile, Erdogan has recently accused Western nations of provoking Russia, without naming any.

Speaking at a news conference in Serbia, he suggested the “West’s policy on Russia was based on provocations.”

He vowed to continue Turkey’s balancing policy between Russia and Ukraine, adding Russia is not a country that one can underestimate.

“Russia has cut off natural gas now. Prices in Europe have skyrocketed. Everyone now broods on how they will get through this winter,” Erdogan said.

Turkey supplies Ukraine with combat drones, which are used by Kyiv to destroy Russian targets in the conflict.

Ankara also played a role with the United Nations as a mediator to secure the deal that allowed grain exports to resume from the ports in Ukraine. But it has not joined the Western sanctions against Russia.

This story originated in VOA’s Turkish Service. The service’s Dilge Timocin contributed.
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Australia’s political leaders have laid wreaths at the Federal Parliament Saturday following the death of Queen Elizabeth II. She was Australia’s head of state under the country’s constitutional monarchy.

Queen Elizabeth had an affinity with Australia. She visited 16 times during her long reign, traveling to every state and territory. On a tour in 2000, she said she felt part of Australia, which she described as a “rugged, honest, creative land”. 

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Friday recalled the “sympathy and personal kindness she extended to Australians afflicted by tragedy and disaster,” including floods and bushfires. 

Albanese said there was mutual respect.

“It was clear Her Majesty had a special place in our hearts and we in hers,” he said. “Australian hearts go out to the people of the United Kingdom who mourn today knowing they will feel they have lost part of what makes their nation whole. There is comfort to be found in Her Majesty’s own words, ‘grief is the price we pay for love.’”  

In 1954, she became the first reigning British monarch to visit Australia. It is estimated that about 70% of the population turned out to see her.

In Australia, her popularity has endured, and her death has saddened many people.

“Yes, sad news. Sad news. She has been part of our lives forever. A sad day for everyone and respects will be paid,” said one man.

“Very sad day. Rest in peace. To the royal family my condolences. She was one hell of a lady,” added a woman.

“Yes, it is devastating. It is a big change for the monarch and everything, yes,” said another.

“She was very stoic. She did everything that she thought was right,” said a third woman. 

In New Zealand, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said her country wanted to share its “thanks for an incredible woman who we were lucky enough to call our queen.”

Elizabeth became the first reigning monarch to visit Australia and New Zealand. Both former British colonies are constitutional monarchies, and Elizabeth was their head of state.  

Officials from both will attend her funeral in the U.K., now scheduled for September 19.

All public buildings in New Zealand will fly flags at half-staff. Flags have also been lowered across Australia, including on the Sydney Harbor Bridge and state and federal parliaments.

The monarch’s image was also portrayed on the famous sails of the Sydney Opera House, which she officially opened in 1973.
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Charles, the son of the late Queen Elizabeth II, was publicly proclaimed king Saturday in a ceremony steeped in British pomp and pageantry at London’s St. James’s Palace. 

He automatically became Britain’s king upon the death of his mother on Thursday. He will now be known as King Charles III.

Saturday’s procedure at the Accession Council was the formal proclamation of his sovereignty and was the first time the ceremony had been televised.  

On Friday, Charles paid tribute to his late mother, calling her “darling Mama” during his first address as head of state.  

Charles, who is 73 and the oldest monarch to ascend the throne, said he would serve with “loyalty, respect and love” as his mother had done for more than seven decades until her death Thursday at age 96.

“That promise of lifelong service I renew to you all today,” Charles said Friday in his televised address from Buckingham Palace to a nation in mourning.

He said Elizabeth’s death brought a “sense of loss, beyond measure” and paid tribute to his mother.

“To my darling Mama: As you begin your last great journey to join my dear late Papa, I want simply to say this: thank you. Thank you for your love and devotion to our family and to the family of nations you have served so diligently all these years. May ‘flights of angels sing thee to thy rest,’” Charles said. 

The new king said he would follow the example of his mother. 

“As the queen herself did with such unswerving devotion, I too now solemnly pledge myself, throughout the remaining time God grants me, to uphold the constitutional principles at the heart of our nation,” he said. 

Charles was greeted by well-wishers as he arrived at the palace Friday alongside Camilla, the queen consort, from Balmoral Castle in Scotland where Elizabeth died.

The king also held his first audience Friday with Prime Minister Liz Truss at Buckingham Palace, in only her third day in the job.  

Elizabeth appointed Truss to her new position as prime minister Tuesday.

Parliament held a special midday session Friday to pay its respects to the queen, Britain’s longest-reigning monarch. 

“She was the rock on which modern Britain was built,” Truss told lawmakers.

Around 2,000 people attended a service of remembrance for the queen at St. Paul’s Cathedral Friday, including Truss and other government officials.

Elizabeth’s funeral will be held in coming days at London’s Westminster Abbey, and other royalty and dignitaries are expected to attend.  U.S. President Joe Biden has said he will travel to England for the funeral.   The day will be designated as a National Day of Mourning, which is a public holiday.  

Growing mountains of flowers and tributes to the queen are gathering not only at Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle, but also at British embassies and cathedrals around the world.  

Some information in this report came from Reuters and The Associated Press.
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A global search for alternative sources to Russian energy in light of the war in Ukraine has refocused attention on smaller, easier-to-build nuclear power stations, which proponents say could provide a cheaper, more efficient alternative to older model mega-plants.

U.K.-based Rolls-Royce SMR says its small modular reactors, or SMRs, are much cheaper and quicker to get running than standard plants, delivering the kind of energy security that many nations are seeking. France already relies on nuclear power for a majority of its electricity, and Germany kept the option of reactivating two nuclear plants it will shut down at the end of the year as Russia cuts natural gas supplies.

While Rolls-Royce SMR and its competitors have signed deals with countries from Britain to Poland to start building the stations, they are many years away from operating and cannot solve the energy crisis now hitting Europe.

Nuclear power also poses risks, including disposing of highly radioactive waste and keeping that technology out of the hands of rogue countries or nefarious groups that may pursue a nuclear weapons program.

Those risks have been accentuated following the shelling around Europe’s largest nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, which has raised fears of potential nuclear disaster.

In the wake of the war, however, “the reliance on gas imports and Russian energy sources has focused people’s minds on energy security,” Rolls-Royce SMR spokesman Dan Gould said.  

An SMR’s components can be built in a factory, moved to a site in tractor trailers and assembled there, making the technology more attractive to frugal buyers, he said.

“It’s like building Lego,” Gould said. “Building on a smaller scale reduces risks and makes it a more investible project.”  

SMRs are essentially pressurized water reactors identical to some 400 reactors worldwide. The key advantages are their size — about one-tenth as big as a standard reactor — the ease of construction and the price tag.

The estimated cost of a Rolls-Royce SMR is $2.5 billion to $3.2 billion, with an estimated construction time of 5 1/2 years. That’s two years faster than it took to build a standard nuclear plant between 2016 and 2021, according to International Atomic Energy Agency statistics. Some estimates put the cost of building a 1,100-megawatt nuclear plant at between $6 billion and $9 billion.  

Rolls-Royce aims to build its first stations in the U.K. within 5 1/2 years, Gould said. Similarly, Oklahoma-based NuScale Power signed agreements last year with two Polish companies — copper and silver producer KGHM and energy producer UNIMOT — to explore the possibility of building SMRs to power heavy industry. Poland wants to switch from polluting, coal-powered electricity generation.  

Rolls-Royce SMR said last month that it signed a deal with Dutch development company ULC-Energy to look into setting up SMRs in the Netherlands.  

Another partner is Turkey, where Russia is building the Akkuyu nuclear power plant on the southern coast. Environmentalists say the region is seismically active and could be a target for terrorists.

The introduction of “unproven” nuclear power technology in the form of SMRs doesn’t sit well with environmentalists, who argue that proliferation of small reactors will exacerbate the problem of how to dispose of highly radioactive nuclear waste.

“Unfortunately, Turkey is governed by an incompetent administration that has turned it into a ‘test bed’ for corporations,” said Koray Dogan Urbarli, a spokesman for Turkey’s Green Party.

“It is giving up the sovereignty of a certain region for at least 100 years for Russia to build a nuclear power plant. This incompetence and lobbying power make Turkey an easy target for SMRs,” said Koray, adding that his party eschews technology with an “uncertain future.”

Gould said one Rolls-Royce SMR would generate nuclear waste the size of a “tennis court piled 1-meter high” throughout the plant’s 60-year lifetime. He said initially, waste would be stored on site at the U.K. plants and would eventually be transferred to a long-term disposal site selected by the British government.

M.V. Ramana, professor of public policy and global affairs at the University of British Columbia, cites research suggesting there’s “no demonstrated way” to ensure nuclear waste stored in what authorities consider to be secure sites won’t escape in the future.

The constant heat generated by the waste could alter rock formations where it’s stored and allow water seepage, while future mining activities could compromise a nuclear waste site’s integrity, said Ramana, who specializes in international security and nuclear energy.

Skeptics also raise the risks of possibly exporting such technology in politically tumultuous regions. Gould said Rolls-Royce is “completely compliant” with U.K. and international requirements in exporting its SMR technology “only in territories that are signatories to the necessary international treaties for the peaceful use of nuclear power for energy generation.”

Ramana said, however, there’s no guarantee nations will follow the rules.  

“Any country acquiring nuclear reactors automatically enhances its capacity to make nuclear weapons,” he said, adding that every SMR could produce “around 10 bombs worth of plutonium each year.”  

Rolls-Royce SMR could opt to stop supplying fuel and other services to anyone flouting the rules, but “should any country choose to do so, it can simply tell the International Atomic Energy Agency to stop inspections, as Iran has done, for example,” Ramana said.

Although spent fuel normally undergoes chemical reprocessing to generate the kind of plutonium used in nuclear weapons, Ramana said such reprocessing technology is widely known and that a very sophisticated reprocessing plant isn’t required to produce the amount of plutonium needed for weapons.
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Britain’s former prince of Wales will be formally proclaimed king Saturday at St. James’s Palace in London.

Charles automatically became Britain’s king upon the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, on Thursday. He will be known as King Charles III.

Saturday’s procedure at the Accession Council will be the formal proclamation of his sovereignty and it will be the first time the ceremony will be televised.

On Friday, Charles paid tribute to his late mother, calling her “darling Mama” during his first address as head of state.

Charles, who is 73 and the oldest monarch to ascend the throne, said he would serve with “loyalty, respect and love” as his mother had done for more than seven decades until her death Thursday at age 96.

“That promise of lifelong service I renew to you all today,” Charles said Friday in his televised address from Buckingham Palace to a nation in mourning.

He said Elizabeth’s death brought a “sense of loss, beyond measure” and paid tribute to his mother.

“To my darling Mama: As you begin your last great journey to join my dear late Papa, I want simply to say this: thank you. Thank you for your love and devotion to our family and to the family of nations you have served so diligently all these years. May ‘flights of angels sing thee to thy rest,’” Charles said.

The new king said he would follow the example of his mother.

“As the queen herself did with such unswerving devotion, I too now solemnly pledge myself, throughout the remaining time God grants me, to uphold the constitutional principles at the heart of our nation,” he said.

Charles was greeted by well-wishers as he arrived at the palace Friday alongside Camilla, the queen consort, from Balmoral Castle in Scotland where Elizabeth died.

The king also held his first audience Friday with Prime Minister Liz Truss at Buckingham Palace, in only her third day in the job.

Elizabeth appointed Truss to her new position as prime minister Tuesday.

Parliament held a special midday session Friday to pay its respects to the queen, Britain’s longest-reigning monarch.

“She was the rock on which modern Britain was built,” Truss told lawmakers.

Around 2,000 people attended a service of remembrance for the queen at St. Paul’s Cathedral on Friday, including Truss and other government officials.

Elizabeth’s funeral will be held in the coming days at London’s Westminster Abbey, and that day will be designated as a National Day of Mourning, a public holiday.

Growing mountains of flowers and tributes to the queen are gathering not only at Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle, but also at British embassies and cathedrals around the world.

Some information in this report came from Reuters and The Associated Press.
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From the national anthem to banknotes and coins, stamps and passports, many aspects of daily life in the U.K. will change with the accession of Charles III to the throne. 

Currency and stamps 

The face of the new King Charles III will begin to appear on coins and banknotes in the U.K. and other countries around the world, replacing the profile of Queen Elizabeth II.

His effigy will also appear on several other currencies used in the Eastern Caribbean, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Ditto in the Channel Islands of Jersey, Guernsey, on the Isle of Man as well as in Gibraltar, Saint Helena and in the Falklands, islands and territories controlled by the British crown.

In 1936, during the reign of King Edward VIII, which lasted 326 days, coins had been minted, but the monarch abdicated before they came into circulation.

The face of Elizabeth II also appears on the stamps, while the letters EIIR, for Elizabeth II Regina, are affixed to the post boxes, so this will need to be changed. The insignia on police helmets will also change.

Anthem and passports 

The British national anthem will become “God Save the King,” with a masculinized version of the lyrics.

A habit that will undoubtedly be difficult for the British, who have been singing “God Save the Queen” since 1952. It is also one of the two national anthems of New Zealand and the royal anthem in Australia and Canada— which have their own national anthems.  

Wording on the inside cover of U.K. passports, issued in the name of the crown, will need to be updated, as will similar text that appears inside Australian, Canadian and New Zealand passports.

When you raise your glass during official meetings, you should no longer say “the queen” but “the king.” In the Channel Islands, the unofficial formula “La reine, notre duc” pronounced in French when toasting will become “Le roi, notre duc.”

Politics and rights 

The names of Her Majesty’s Government (“Her Majesty”), Treasury and Customs will change to “His Majesty.”

It will be the speech of the king (“the king’s speech”) and not that of the queen that will present to the parliament the program of the government, opening the parliamentary session.

The Queen’s Guard, immortalized by tourists in front of Buckingham Palace, will also change its name.

The police will no longer preserve the peace of the queen but that of the king and the experienced lawyers will pass from the status of QC (“queen’s counsel”) to that of KC (“king’s counsel”).

Prisoners will no longer be held at the pleasure of “her majesty,” but will continue their terms of imprisonment at the pleasure of “his majesty,” the king.

In the army, new recruits will no longer take “the queen’s shilling,” when enlisting, as the formula indicates. Nor will they have to submit to the queen’s regulations.

The name of “Her Majesty’s Theatre” in London’s West End theater district, where The Phantom of the Opera has been performed since 1986, will also be masculinized.

And those who aspire to speak “the queen’s English” will now have to strive to speak like Charles III: “the king’s English.”  
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Britain’s King Charles III has addressed the nation and the Commonwealth — a day after ascending to the throne upon the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, on Thursday. As Henry Ridgwell reports from London, Charles must lead a nation that shares his sense of loss and sadness.
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US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with NATO’s secretary-general to discuss Ukraine’s recent military gains and how European countries will get through the coming winter with less Russian gas and oil. VOA Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports from the State Department.
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Ukraine is bracing for a new wave of Russian cyberattacks likely aimed at freezing its citizens in coming months and crippling its spending power.

The attacks, according to an assessment shared Friday by a top Ukrainian cyber official, are expected to include precision cyber strikes, combining virtual efforts against key systems with physical action targeting critical infrastructure as winter approaches.

“We saw this scenario before,” Deputy Minister of Digital Transformation Georgii Dubynskyi told reporters on the sidelines of a cybersecurity conference in Washington.

“They [Russia] are trying to find a way how to undermine, how to defeat our energy system and how to make circumstances even more severe for Ukrainians,” he said. “We are preparing.”

Dubynskyi is not the first Ukrainian official to sound alarms about Russia’s efforts in cyberspace.

A number of Ukraine officials have described the war with Russia as the world’s first cyber war.

And in August, Victor Zhora, the deputy head of Ukraine’s State Special Communications Service, told an online conference that the pace of the Kremlin cyberattacks was relentless.

“We continue registering new cyber incidents almost every day,” said Zhora at the time, estimating there have been at least 1,600 major incidents since the start of the year.

Moscow has consistently denied involvement in offensive cyberattacks, including some that targeted Ukraine on the eve of the Russian invasion.

A report issued Thursday by the U.S.-based cybersecurity firm Check Point Software found that since February, cyberattacks on Ukrainian government and military websites “more than doubled, increasing by a staggering 112%.”

It also found that corporate networks in Ukraine are being hit by more than 1,500 attacks each week, an increase of 25% since the war began.

Check Point’s researchers believe there is more reason to worry.

“For the first time, we’ve also seen coordination between cyberattacks and kinetic, military assaults,” the report said, citing a March 1, 2022, Russian missile attack on a television transmission tower in Kyiv that was accompanied by a cyberattack designed to knock out all of the city’s broadcasting capabilities.

Dubynskyi on Friday warned that Russia is actively developing various types of malware that he described as cyberweapons, for use in Ukraine and maybe even beyond.

“We cannot compare it with nuclear weapons, but the effectiveness of that is enough,” he said.

Making matters worse, Dubynskyi alleged Russia has help on the inside.

“They are developing classical operations, using not only cyber, not only software, also using some human resources,” he said. “Using some traitors.”

Ukrainian officials say they are working to root out any spies and are focused on integrating cybersecurity officials — trained on what to do in the case of a severe cyberattack — into regional and local governments.

They also say they are getting considerable help from the U.S. and other Western allies, though there are ongoing requests for more aid and more training.

Despite the concern expressed by some Ukrainian officials, not all experts see Russia’s cyber exploits during the war as insurmountable.

“Some of the things they’ve done … was impactful,” said Dmitri Alperovitch, the founder of the Silverado Policy Accelerator and the former chief technology officer of cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, at the Billington CyberSecurity Summit on Friday.

“But they have tried a lot of stuff and clearly much of it is not working because of the resilience and the preparation that was taking place [in Ukraine],” he said.

And Ukraine believes the Kremlin’s efforts to recruit and use cyber gangs or hackers for hire may also be suffering because of Russia’s military setbacks on the battlefield.

“We believe that many of them are scared and that many of them are scared [of] what is going on in Russia,” Dubynskyi said, citing Russian President Vladimir Putin’s propensity to rule with an increasingly iron fist.

“For hackers and IT experts, freedom is one of the dimensions of their existence,” he said. “This atmosphere also is not productive, neither for IT experts nor even for hackers.”
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For the Baltic states in northeastern Europe, the dream of increased prosperity through trade and investment from China has run its course, analysts tell VOA.

“This was the debate that happened in Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania around 2016, that we should get some investment from China, we should attract this ‘One Belt, One Road’ initiative, as well as railway cargo from China, but those voices have gone down,” said Martins Hirss, a political scientist teaching at the University of Latvia, in a phone interview from Riga.

Latvia and Estonia’s recent exit from a Beijing-led grouping known informally as the 16+1, comprising 16 European countries plus China at its inception in 2016, is a tell-tale sign that that debate is over as far as the Baltic countries are concerned, Hirss said. “Since 2019, 2020, the whole discussion about China has changed,” he said.

While Chinese authorities’ conduct towards citizens in Hong Kong and the Muslim population in Xinjiang have raised eyebrows, Beijing’s conduct overseas, including in the Baltic nations, also aroused concerns.

The Latvia state security service published a report in 2020 “essentially saying that Chinese activities in Latvia are very similar to Russian intelligence activities,” Hirss said. By then, Chinese investments no longer stood for “unlimited economic opportunities,” he added. “Quite the contrary.”

Hirss said China’s image in the region took a further blow last year when Beijing imposed stiff punitive measures against Latvia’s Baltic neighbor Lithuania, after that country became the first to leave the China-Central and Eastern European Cooperation (China-CEEC) forum and later expanded trade ties with Taiwan.

“If our southern neighbor has been targeted by China, political leaders and also regular people took notice,” Hirss said. “Countries in this part of the world, we’ve had our experiences with the Soviet Union, with this entity that dictated how to live, what to think; and if someone behaves similarly as the Soviet Union did, then it immediately triggers people from this region, you can say.”

The Latvian government maintained a diplomatic approach when announcing the country’s exit from the China-CEEC forum last month, saying it was still quite interested in maintaining ties with China. But a statement issued by Latvia’s foreign ministry made clear that membership in the Beijing-led group fell far short of expectations, starting with the economics.

“The format since its inception, as well as Latvia’s subsequent participation, was introduced as a means of strengthening economic cooperation with China,” read a statement provided to VOA by the Latvian Embassy in Washington. “Latvia viewed it as an opportunity to increase and diversify its exports to China, attract direct Chinese investments and be integrated into Europe-Asia connectivity chains.”

Latvia embraced the chance to get closer to Beijing and hosted the 16+1 summit in Riga in 2016. However, six years later, Latvia’s exports to China constituted only 4.4% of the country’s total exports in 2021 On top of that, Latvia is running a significant trade deficit with China and has not been able to “shift the structure of exports towards higher value-added products and services,” the official statement said.

Hirss, the political scientist at the University of Latvia, noted that Latvia also had to wrestle with China on maintaining EU standards for investments in the country. China offered to build a high-speed rail in the Baltics but backed out after the Latvian government insisted that it go through a competitive bidding process. There were “a couple of occasions similar to this,” he told VOA.

A Romania-based analyst thinks Latvia and Estonia’s exit from the Beijing-led China-CEEC forum, a year after Lithuania departed the group, signals an end to what he calls “China’s global charm offensive.”

Going forward, “I think China will work in a more ‘targeted’ way, enhancing its profile where it already exists in a positive manner, for example, Hungary, Serbia,” said Horia Ciurtin, an expert with the Bucharest-based New Strategy Center and an independent consultant on political risk and international investment law, in a written interview.

Beijing, he says, “will try to create a success story” in countries like Hungary and Serbia, “stirring up some dilemmas to the reluctant players, such as Romania or Poland. I do not think China is any longer on an all-across-the-globe charm offensive.”

He added that “some countries — such as the Baltics — have made it clear” that the charm offensive wasn’t bought.
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