Slavery payment part of ‘global reset’
King Charles and British PM Keir Starmer will face demands for the U.K. to pay slavery reparations of $240 billion at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Samoa on Oct. 21.
The gathering will be the first time that Charles has presided over a meeting of the Commonwealth, an informal club of some 56 nations broadly linked through colonial-era ties, as its head.
The Mail reports that 15 Caribbean governments want to discuss slavery payments as part of a “global reset.” The Mail quotes Barbados’ Prime Minister Mia Mottley, who met the king in London earlier this month in advance of the gathering.
Mottley previously praised Charles’ comment two years ago that slavery is “a conversation whose time has come.”
Campaigners feel the wind may be in their sails following a change of government in the UK over the summer: Starmer recently handed control of the far-flung Chagos Islands to Mauritius, and Foreign Secretary David Lammy has described “the twisted lies of imperialism” and said his ancestors were “stolen from their homes in shackles and turned into slaves.”
Queen Elizabeth: petrolhead with ‘no ego’
Samantha Cohen, Queen Elizabeth’s former assistant private secretary, has been dishing on her long, and extremely close, professional relationship with the former monarch who, Cohen said, had “no ego.”
While “a shy person” the queen “wanted to be a family woman [as well the Queen]. It was important to her,” Cohen told the Sunday Times of spending time at Balmoral. “She loved hosting everybody for summer, allocating the rooms and checking them herself.” The queen’s love of speed behind the wheel could unnerve some of those in the passenger seat. “She was gutsy. She would drive her cars fast around Balmoral.”
Cohen was speaking as King Charles prepared to head Down Under (and Samoa) on a trip this coming week. It was revealed that cancer-hit Charles was traveling with two doctors (as well as having a supply of his own blood in case he needs a transfusion), and would have medical support in Australia and Samoa.
Cohen worked for the queen for 18 years, working first in the Buckingham Palace press office, then as the queen’s communications secretary, before becoming her assistant private secretary. She did three Australian tours with the queen in 2002, 2006 and 2011.
While a former courtier described Cohen and the queen’s bond as “unique,” Cohen modestly describes it as bond “very respectful. There were no favorites. I felt my job was to make her life as easy as possible.”
“It always struck me that in a world of celebrity, where we had all sorts of celebrities coming into the palace, the queen was the antithesis of celebrity,” Cohen said. “She was the maestro. She understood this was her role. She took it very seriously and performed it to perfection. But she knew it was separate to her as a person. She was never intoxicated by the allure, never showed off, was never tempted to preen. I loved that so much about her, because she had no ego.”
“The queen was an incredible boss,” Cohen said who “went out of her way” to accommodate Cohen’s family (she has three children), with housing them when Cohen traveled between the queen’s properties, and personally addressed Christmas gift tags.
“Some mornings I’d be getting the cereal for breakfast, and the kids would go, ‘Mum! The Queen just rode past on her horse,’” Cohen said, recalling their times at Balmoral. “Other times they’d bump into her on their bicycles. The kids loved swimming in the rock pools. The Queen loved families having a nice time and hearing what everyone was doing.”
Prince Philip loved Cohen’s Aussie accent. “He always used to say to me, ‘Say “no”,’ and I’d say ‘no’ and he’d laugh. ‘Say it again.’ I’d say ‘no’. He just couldn’t get over it.”
Meghan: ‘one of the most bullied people in the world’
Meghan Markle reportedly told a group of girls about her experience of being “one of the most bullied people in the world.”
Vanity Fair said she made the remarks, while visiting Girls Inc. of Greater Santa Barbara, to help out with a new digital-wellness program called Social Media U, who are partnering with responsible-tech advocacy group #HalfTheStory to expand the program nationwide.
“We did an activity where we talked through a bunch of scenarios, and Meghan talked about being one of the most bullied people in the world,” Larissa May, the founder of #HalfTheStory, told Vanity Fair. “We had girls wave these little emoji signs and talk about how each one of these scenarios would have impacted them emotionally.”
However, sources told the New York Post that Meghan “talked about her experience with online bullying but never claimed she was the most bullied person in the world.”
The expansion of the program will be funded by Meghan and Prince Harry’s Archewell Foundation, along with the Oprah Winfrey Charitable Foundation, and Melissa French Gates’ Pivotal Ventures.
The programming is designed to help girls socialize without screens, while encouraging the positive uses of technology. “We asked the girls, like, ‘What does it look like to visualize your dream digital world, where you are empowered rather than disempowered?’” May says.
This week in royal history
This Oct. 15, happy 65th birthday to Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York, Prince Andrew’s ex-wife, whose royal and public rehabilitation has been continuing as Andrew’s own reputation has declined. Her experience of cancer, and TV appearances on shows like This Morning—most recently in segments like “Dial the Duchess”—have returned her to the public eye.
Unanswered questions
How will King Charles’ Australia trip go, and how will his health hold up?
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