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Princess Madeleine and her husband Christopher O'Neil have decided that their child will be born in the US, the Swedish Royal Court has announced. Madeleine reveals royal baby's gender: report (30 Oct 13) Pregnant Princess to attend Nobel alone (19 Oct 13) Royal baby on the way for Swedish princess (03 Sep 13) "After careful consideration and in consultation with the King and Queen, Princess Madeleine and Mr. Christopher O'Neill have decided that their child will be born in New York," Svante Lindqvist at the Royal Court wrote in a statement. The baby, set to become fifth in line to...

On Christmas Day I watched the Queen's 2013 Christmas message on the BBC. It would have been nice, if she hadn't told two lies, one by action and one by omission. The former was: "For Christians, as for all people of faith, reflection, meditation and prayer help us to renew ourselves in God's love, as we strive daily to become better people." It's quite obvious that not in all faiths believers strive to become better people, unless we consider as self-improvement perfectioning suicide-bombing and beheading skills in order to impose one's faith - to be specific, Islam - to...

Cape Town (AFP) - The tribal royal house in South Africa of which Nelson Mandela was a member on Sunday expressed concern at "instability" in the icon's family and urged calm as his estate is settled. The AbaThembu royal family called the meeting in Qunu where Mandela was buried on December 15 and "shared their concern" amid reports of internal strife and warring over his estate. ... The meeting also backed Mandela's grandson Mandla as head of the family, dismissing as "disrespectful" his ex-wife Winnie Madikizela-Mandela's naming of his surviving daughter Makaziwe in the position.

Prince Charles has said he is “deeply troubled” by the plight of Christians in the Middle East. In an address on Tuesday at London’s Clarence House, the Prince of Wales said that Christians in the Middle-East were being persecuted by “Islamist fundamentalist militants,” and he called upon the followers of Christianity, Judaism and Islam to unite to end the suffering. Prince Charles said: “I have for some time now been deeply troubled by the growing difficulties faced by the Christian communities in various parts of the Middle East. “It seems to me that we cannot ignore the fact that Christians...

Christians in parts of the Middle East are being deliberately targeted by Islamist militants in a campaign of persecution, Prince Charles has said. The Prince of Wales made his comments after visiting the British branches of churches based in the region. The prince heard accounts of Christians being murdered and families forced from their homes. The upheavals of the Arab Spring have left many religious minorities vulnerable to accusation and attack.Deeply troubled Charles, accompanied by Prince Ghazi of Jordan, visited the Egyptian Coptic Church centre in Stevenage and the Syriac Orthodox cathedral in west London. The two royals met church...

TOKYO: Japan's royal couple left Tokyo for India on Saturday, starting the first-ever official visit there by a Japanese emperor. The trip is the first by any Japanese emperor to India although Akihito, 79, visited there in the early 1960s when he was crown prince. Japan's emperor is the nominal head of state and does not enjoy political powers. But customarily, the emperor's visit to any country is highly significant and signals a peak in bilateral ties.

There will be no ‘Mary I and her People’ exhibitions to match that of Elizabeth I currently showing at the National Gallery. While Elizabeth I is regularly voted our most popular ever monarch her Catholic elder half sister remains associated with her late seventeenth century sobriquet, ‘Bloody Mary’. It is assumed she was hated in her lifetime. In fact she was a popular queen, and one from whom Elizabeth learned much. Mary’s accession to the throne in 1553 was not a smooth one. Her half brother, Edward VI, was a passionate Protestant, and when, aged fifteen, he fell gravely ill...

Dutch King: Say goodbye to welfare state AMSTERDAM (AP) — King Willem-Alexander delivered a message to the Dutch people from the government Tuesday in a nationally televised address: the welfare state of the 20th century is gone. In its place a "participation society" is emerging, in which people must take responsibility for their own future and create their own social and financial safety nets, with less help from the national government.

Prince Alwaleed bin Talal said that fracking in the US has lessened demand for their oil, and that they need to begin to find other income sources. In a letter to oil minister, Ali al Naimi and other top government officials, Alwaleed said that fracking was responsible for the declining demand for oil from OPEC. Alwaleed recommends that the oil rich country, should diversify immediately before the impact gets to be out of hand. He says that the Saudi's dependence on oil income is, "a truth that has really become a source of worry for many".

Not only was Richard III one of England’s most despised monarchs, but it now turns out the hunchback king was probably infected with parasitic worms that grew up to a foot in length. Researchers who dug up Richard III’s skeleton underneath a parking lot in Leicester last year now report they discovered numerous roundworm eggs in the soil around his pelvis, where his intestines would have been. They compared that to soil samples taken close to Richard’s skull and surrounding his grave. There were no eggs near the skull and only traces of eggs in the soil near the grave....

The Pope has once again shown his willingness to break with tradition by bowing to Muslim royal Queen Rania of Jordan. As leader of the world's 1.2billion-strong Catholic community, protocol usually dictates that visitors bow to him when they meet him at the Vatican. But when Rania came to the Holy See with her husband King Abdullah II on Thursday, he inverted that formality by lowering his head to her. He made no discernible bow toward her husband, the king. The Jordanian royals were leaving following a private audience with the pope in his library. 'Francis behaves as he did...

Syrians in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta say Saudi Arabia provided chemical weapons for an Al-Qaeda linked terrorist group which they blame for the August 21 chemical attack in the region, a Mint Press News report says. The article co-authored by a veteran AP reporter, said interviews with doctors, residents, anti-government forces and their families in Ghouta suggest the terrorists in question received chemical weapons via Saudi spymaster Saudi Arabia's intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan Al Saud. The report quoted the father of a militant as saying that his son and 12 others were killed inside a tunnel used...

One of the Queen's swans has been found killed and barbecued on the riverbank near to Windsor Castle. The cooked swan's carcass was dumped near Baths Water, and was discovered by Wendy Hermon, 46, a volunteer for charity Swan Lifeline, which cares for sick and injured birds. She described the scene as 'sickening', and admitted she would have been distraught if her young son was with her when she made the grisly discovery after being called out by a council warden last Sunday.

(CNN) -- First came the dramatic discovery of the long-lost remains of King Richard III.Now, there's the mystery of the coffin within the coffin.Archaeologists working at the site in central England where Richard III's body was found underneath a parking lot are currently puzzling over a sealed lead coffin containing the remains of a yet-to-be-identified person.The lead coffin was found encased in a larger stone coffin.The smaller coffin is intact "except for a hole at one end of the casket through which we could tantalizingly see someone's feet," said Mathew Morris, the fieldwork director at the site.New discovery just as...

Why does everyone assume that the royal baby born last week will one day become King? It seems most unlikely to me that the British Monarchy will last that long. I am a keen monarchist myself and am sorry that an institution I love and revere is dying. But there is no point in pretending things are better than they are. What actually holds it up? All the major parties long ago drove the hereditary nobles from the House of Lords. They implicitly accepted that inheritance didn’t entitle anyone to any office. It is only a matter of time before...

Baby Cambridge now has a name: George Alexander Louis. The name of Prince William and Kate's son was announced Wednesday by Kensington Palace, two days after he was born.

He is going to be 'George Alexander Louis'

The royal prince is barely a day old, but already lefties are crossing their fingers in hopes that he’s gay. Huffington Post hyped what may be the dumbest polling ever this morning – a survey claiming that a majority of Brits would react favorably if the son born yesterday to Prince William and Kate Middleton would come out as a homosexual in the future. The survey was conducted by the “lesbian, gay, and bisexual advocacy group Stonewall” (because, of course, they’d have an unbiased and objective viewpoint). Yet even the results of the survey are questionable if used to tout...

After months of waiting, Kate Middleton has finally done her royal duty and popped out a future monarch of Great Britain. The tiny tot was a disappointment even before being born, forcing an eager public to wait weeks past a due date which was never officially confirmed in the first place.