Monarchy

Live Updates: Grieving Families Prepare for Funerals of Victims of Day Care Rampage

Credit…Lauren Decicca/Getty Images

Thailand has a vibrant medical system, particularly for an upper-middle income nation. But that strength does not extend to mental health services. A string of mass shootings committed by security personnel in recent years has highlighted concerns about the psychological fitness of members of the military and the police, who must hew to strict hierarchies and endure low pay.

Panya Kamrab, 34, who was identified by the Royal Thai Police as the gunman in the mass shooting at the day care center in northeastern Thailand on Thursday, was an officer in the force until he was dismissed in June for drug possession.

A mere 2.3 percent of Thailand’s health expenditures are allocated for mental health, according to the World Health Organization. Thailand, with a population of about 70 million, had only 656 psychiatrists and 422 psychologists in the entire country, according to the W.H.O.’s Mental Health Atlas 2020. The Royal Thai Police alone has roughly 220,000 officers.

Mr. Panya was set to go on trial on Friday, and the 9-millimeter pistol used in the attack was legally owned, the police said.

“He abused drugs and was very stressed and upset about his career, his position, his status,” said Kritsanapong Phutrakul, the chair of the faculty of criminology and justice administration at Rangsit University and a police lieutenant colonel. “To reduce the risk to Thai society, his gun should have been taken away from him when he was fired.”

Military-style hierarchies are imposed on many facets of Thai society, from schools to offices. The chains of command can leave lower rank-and-file people with little recourse if they disagree with superiors’ orders.

Credit…Royal Thai Police, via Getty Images

Outside the security forces themselves, the military’s influence is profound. Prayuth Chan-ocha, the prime minister of Thailand, is a former army chief who took power in a coup. His deputy is also a former army chief.

And the nation is trained to pay obeisance to the Thai royal family. Courtiers crawl along the floor in a submissive pose in front of senior royals. A notoriously tough lèse-majesté law makes it a crime to defame senior members of the monarchy, and a long list of people have been jailed for such offenses.

Dissatisfaction with institutional strictures prompted students to protest in recent years, at first demanding an easing of rules on hairstyles and dress. The rallies expanded to encompass calls for reforms to the government and the monarchy.

The perils of such a rigid society may have helped catalyze what, until Thursday, had been the deadliest mass shooting by a single perpetrator in Thai history. Two years ago, Sgt. Major Jakrapanth Thomma went on a killing spree at a shopping mall and army base, killing 29 people and wounding 58 others. He was angered by a financial dispute with the family of his superior officer, according to the country’s then army chief. Members of that family refused to pay him money he was owed, he told friends. He had run out of options, he told them.

The soldier was shot dead by the authorities, ending the attack. But questions lingered about why he had targeted civilians at a shopping mall after killing people on a military base.

Last month, a police lieutenant general opened fire in a military school in Bangkok, killing two people.

“From a security risk perspective, we have to better check the mental health of people who own guns,” said Lieutenant Colonel Kritsanapong.

View Source

>>> Don’t Miss Today’s BEST Amazon Deals! <<<<

Updates: Service Is Held for Queen Elizabeth II at Windsor, Her Final Resting Place

LONDON — Queen Elizabeth II’s coffin arrived on Monday afternoon at Windsor Castle, where the majesty of her state funeral and procession in London will give way to a more intimate service in St. George’s Chapel before she is interred, next to her husband, Prince Philip, in a private ceremony.

The queen’s arrival, after a 25-mile drive from London on a route lined by tens of thousands of people, was heralded by a grand procession on the Long Walk, the grand tree-lined boulevard that leads to the castle.

Tens of thousands of people watched earlier as the queen’s coffin made its way on a grand procession through the streets of London, flanked by honor guards and accompanied by King Charles III and other members of the royal family, following a solemn funeral service at Westminster Abbey.

The service began at 11 a.m. in the abbey, with King Charles III and his family in the front row, including his wife, Camilla, the queen consort; Prince William, and two of his children, Prince George, 9, and Princess Charlotte, 7.

“Here, where Queen Elizabeth was married and crowned, we gather from across the nation, from the Commonwealth and from the nations of the world,” the Rev. David Hoyle, the dean of Westminster, said to an assembly that included more than 100 world leaders, among them President Biden and Emperor Naruhito of Japan.

With the queen’s coffin before the dean, he called on those gathered “to mourn our loss, to remember her long life of selfless service, and in sure confidence to commit her to the mercy of God our maker and redeemer.”

The meticulously choreographed service included readings by Britain’s new prime minister, Liz Truss, and the secretary general of the Commonwealth, Patricia Scotland.

It is the culmination of 10 days of mourning since the queen died on Sept. 8 in Scotland — a time of unifying grief and disorienting change — and everything about the day will stretch precedents for such gatherings.

Hundreds of world leaders filled the seats in Westminster Abbey. Tens of thousands of people waited along the route the funeral cortege took through London on a grand procession to Windsor Castle. Thousands more will await the queen at Windsor.

Britain has not held a state funeral since 1965, when it buried Winston Churchill, the wartime leader who acted as a mentor to a young Elizabeth after she unexpectedly came to the throne upon the death of her father, King George VI, in 1952.

As with every other ritual since the queen’s death, the funeral was meticulously choreographed. At 10:35 a.m., pallbearers carried the queen’s coffin from Westminster Hall, where it had been viewed by tens of thousands of mourners, including Mr. Biden, to a gun carriage for the short procession to Westminster Abbey.

King Charles III and other members of the royal family walked behind the coffin, flanked by detachments of the queen’s corps of the Gentlemen at Arms, the Yeomen of the Guard and the Royal Company of Archers.

The archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev. Justin Welby, delivered a eulogy, recalling the queen’s speech to the nation during the coronavirus pandemic in which she promised, “We will meet again” — the title of a beloved World War II-era song by Vera Lynn.

After a military bugler played “The Last Post,” signifying the end of the service, the abbey, and the nation, fell silent for two minutes in honor of the queen. The congregation then sang “God Save the King” and the queen’s piper played a lament as her coffin was lifted back onto the carriage.

From there, the cortege, a mile-and-a-quarter long, began a stately roll through the city center, retracing the route it took, in reverse, when her coffin was moved Wednesday from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Hall — a symbolic transfer of the queen, who was 96 at her death, from her family to the British state.

Unlike that stark procession, this one is choreographed to project the full splendor of the monarchy: seven groups, each with their own marching band; detachments from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Royal Ulster Constabulary, and the British armed forces; and mounted soldiers from the Household Cavalry.

Soldiers lined the route from Westminster Abbey to Wellington Arch, which celebrates Britain’s victories in the Napoleonic Wars. It stands next to Hyde Park, where artillery guns were fired during the procession and where visitors were able to watch the proceedings on large screens.

This is also where the queen’s coffin was transferred from the carriage to a hearse for the 25-mile journey to Windsor. Huge crowds were expected to watch as the vehicle travels past Kensington and Hammersmith in west London, before swinging south to pass the runways of Heathrow Airport. As it did last week, the airport halted flights to keep the skies above the cortege still.

View Source

>>> Don’t Miss Today’s BEST Amazon Deals! <<<<

A Welsh Village Embraces Its Bond With the Queen

ABERFAN, Wales — As the days count down to Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral on Monday, Gaynor Madgwick has been of two minds: Should she watch the ceremony from her home in South Wales or join the crowds in London to pay her respects in person?

Her brain says stay. Ms. Madgwick, 64, has feared crowds and confined spaces since an avalanche of slurry — a mixture of debris from a coal mine and water — cascaded down the hillside above her village of Aberfan in 1966. One of the worst civilian disasters in contemporary British history, the avalanche crushed the village school, killed 144 villagers, 116 of them children, and left Ms. Madgwick trapped, but alive, beneath the rubble.

Her heart says go. The queen built an unusually strong relationship with Aberfan, beginning in the days after that very disaster and extending through four visits the queen made to the village.

the death of Queen Elizabeth II — the ever-present backdrop to a century of dramatic social change — has felt like a rug snatched from beneath them, even if they never met or saw her.

reassessment of national identity that, in Wales, includes calls for an independent Welsh state.

Elizabeth arrived in Bonn on the first state visit by a British monarch to Germany in more than 50 years. The trip formally sealed the reconciliation between the two nations following the world wars.

The coffin will be taken by horse-drawn gun carriage Wednesday to the Houses of Parliament to lie in state for four days.

The coffin of Queen Elizabeth II returned to Buckingham Palace on Tuesday evening, making its way through a drizzly London as crowds lined the route for a glimpse of the hearse and to bid her a final farewell.

People parked their cars along a normally busy road, got out and waved as the hearse, with lights inside illuminating the flag-draped coffin, made its way into London. In the city, people pressed in on the road and held their phones aloft as it passed.

Thousands outside the palace cheered, shouted “God save the queen!” and clapped as the hearse swung around a roundabout in front of the queen’s official London residence and through the wrought iron gates. Her son, King Charles III, and other immediate family members waited inside.

The coffin traveled to London from Edinburgh, where 33,000 people filed silently past it in the 24 hours at St. Giles’ Cathedral after it had been brought there from her cherished summer retreat, Balmoral. The queen — the only monarch many in the United Kingdom have ever known — died there Sept. 8 at age 96 after 70 years on the throne.

The military C-17 Globemaster carrying the casket touched down at RAF Northolt, an air force base in the west of London, about an hour after it left Edinburgh. U.K. Prime Minister Liz Truss, Defense Secretary Ben Wallace and a military honor guard were among those at the base for the arrival.

One who stood in the rain waiting for the hearse to pass, retired bus driver David Stringer, 82, recalled watching the queen’s coronation on a newsreel as a boy.

“It’s a great shame,” he said. “I mean, I didn’t think about her every day, but I always knew she was there, and my life’s coming to a close now and her time has finished.”

The coffin will be taken by horse-drawn gun carriage Wednesday to the Houses of Parliament to lie in state for four days before Monday’s funeral at Westminster Abbey.

“Scotland has now bid our Queen of Scots a sad, but fond farewell,” said Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon. “We will not see her like again.”

Charles had returned to London from Northern Ireland, where his visit drew a rare moment of unity from politicians in a region with a contested British and Irish identity that is deeply divided over the monarchy.

The new king is making his own journey this week, visiting the four nations of the U.K. – England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Hundreds gathered around Hillsborough Castle near Belfast, the royal family’s official residence in Northern Ireland, in the latest outpouring of affection following the queen’s death. The area in front of the gates to the castle was carpeted with hundreds of floral tributes.

Charles and his wife Camilla, the Queen Consort, got out of their car to wave to the crowd and sometimes used both hands to reach out to villagers, including schoolchildren in bright blue uniforms. Charles even petted a corgi — famously his late mother’s favorite breed of dog — held up by one person, and some chanted “God save the king!”

“Today means so much to me and my family, just to be present in my home village with my children to witness the arrival of the new king is a truly historic moment for us all,” said Hillsborough resident Robin Campbell.

While there was a warm welcome in Hillsborough, the British monarchy draws mixed emotions in Northern Ireland, where there are two main communities: mostly Protestant unionists who consider themselves British and largely Roman Catholic nationalists who see themselves as Irish.

That split fueled three decades of violence known as “the Troubles” involving paramilitary groups on both sides and U.K. security forces, in which 3,600 people died. The royal family was touched personally by the violence: Lord Louis Mountbatten, a cousin of the queen and a much-loved mentor to Charles, was killed by an Irish Republican Army bomb in 1979.

A deep sectarian divide remains, a quarter century after Northern Ireland’s 1998 peace agreement.

For some Irish nationalists, the monarch represents an oppressive foreign power. But others acknowledge the queen’s role in forging peace. On a visit to Northern Ireland in 2012, she shook hands with Sinn Fein deputy leader Martin McGuinness, a former IRA commander — a once-unthinkable moment of reconciliation. On Tuesday the new king shook hands with Sinn Fein Vice President Michelle O’Neill.

In a sign of how far Northern Ireland has come on the road to peace, representatives of Sinn Fein attended commemorative events for the queen and meeting the king on Tuesday.

Alex Maskey, a Sinn Fein politician who is speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly, said the queen had “demonstrated how individual acts of positive leadership can help break down barriers and encourage reconciliation.”

Charles responded that she had tried to play a role “in bringing together those whom history had separated, and in extending a hand to make possible the healing of long-held hurts.”

He said he would draw on his mother’s “shining example” and “seek the welfare of all the inhabitants of Northern Ireland.”

Still, not everyone was welcoming the new king.

On the Falls Road in Belfast, a nationalist stronghold, several walls are decorated with murals of Bobby Sands, an IRA member who died while on a hunger strike in prison in 1981, and others killed in the Troubles.

“No, he’s not our king. Bobby Sands was our king here,” said 52-year-old Bobby Jones. “Queen never done nothing for us. Never did. None of the royals do.”

Irish leaders attended a service of reflection at St. Anne’s Cathedral in Belfast despite tense relations between Dublin and London over Brexit. Since Britain left the European Union in 2020, the U.K. and the EU have been wrangling over trade rules for Northern Ireland, the only part of the U.K. that shares a border with a member of the bloc.

Before being flown to London, the queen’s oak coffin was carried from St. Giles’ Cathedral to the strain of bagpipes. Crowds lining the Royal Mile through the historic heart of Edinburgh broke into applause as the coffin, accompanied by the queen’s daughter, Princess Anne, was driven to Edinburgh Airport.

“I was fortunate to share the last 24 hours of my dearest mother’s life,” Princess Anne said in a statement. “It has been an honour and a privilege to accompany her on her final journeys. Witnessing the love and respect shown by so many on these journeys has been both humbling and uplifting.”

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

Source: newsy.com

View Source

>>> Don’t Miss Today’s BEST Amazon Deals! <<<<

Monarchy

Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com

Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com

PLAYBOY PRINCE TO PARIAH

Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com