C2
WORLD
» SEE MORE ONLINE AT WWW.REDDEERADVOCATE.COM
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
Royals show off their newborn son BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS LONDON — A beaming Prince William and his wife, Kate, emerged from a London hospital on Tuesday with their newborn baby boy, presenting the world with a first glimpse of the prince who is third in line to the British throne. The royal couple, both 31, looked happy and relaxed as they waved at the crowds of journalists and onlookers gathered outside London’s St. Mary’s Hospital, posing for photographs and joking with reporters. Kate, wearing a baby blue polka dot Jenny Packham dress, smiled and waved as she stepped out from the hospital doors with the future monarch in her arms. “It’s very emotional. It’s such a special time. I think any parent will know what this feeling feels like,” she told journalists. Kate then gave the baby to her husband, who, cradling their child, said: “He’s got her looks, thankfully. He’s got a good pair of lungs on him, that’s for sure.” William added: “He’s a big boy. He’s quite heavy,” and laughed when a reporter asked him about the baby’s hair. “He’s got way more than me, thank God,” he said. The couple also revealed that William has had a go at changing the infant’s first diaper. “He’s very good at it,” Kate said. The new parents drew whoops and excited applause from well-wishers as they revealed the newest member of Britain’s royal family. William said they’re still trying to decide what to name the little prince. The couple re-entered the hospital to place the child in a car seat before re-emerging to get into an SUV. William drove them away — palace officials said they will head to an apartment in Kensington Palace and spend the night there. The young family’s first public appearance together has been the moment that the world’s media and crowds of onlookers camped outside the hospital had long been waiting for, and the photographs snapped Tuesday are likely to be reprinted for decades as the baby grows into adulthood and his role as a future king. The appearance recalls a similar one three decades ago, when Princess Diana and Prince Charles carried a newborn William out to pose for photographs on the same steps in 1982. Katie Allan, 26, was elated to witness the 2013 edition. “William gave us a wave as they drove away so it was perfect. Days like this really bring the country together,” she said. Earlier, William’s father, Charles, and his wife, Camilla, as well as Michael and Carole Middleton — Kate’s parents — visited the young family at the hospital. Charles called the baby “marvelous,” while a beaming Carole Middleton described the infant as “absolutely beautiful.”
Photo by THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Safe in the hands of the Duchess of Cambridge, the Royal couple and their son who was born Monday, leave the Lindo Wing of St Mary’s Hospital in west London Tuesday. It was not immediately clear when Queen Elizabeth II would meet the newborn heir. The couple’s Kensington Palace office said Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge, gave birth to the 8 pound, 6 ounce (3.8 kilogram) baby boy at 4:24 p.m. Monday. The news was greeted with shrieks of joy and applause by hundreds of Britons and tourists gathered outside the hospital’s private Lindo Wing and Buckingham Palace. Revelers staged impromptu parties at both locations, and large crowds crushed against the palace gates to try to catch a glimpse — and a photograph — of the golden easel placed there to formally announce the birth. Hundreds were still lining up outside the palace gates Tuesday to get near the ornate easel.
In London, gun salutes were fired, celebratory lights came on, and bells chimed at Westminster Abbey, where William and Kate wed in a lavish ceremony that drew millions of television viewers worldwide. Halfway around the world, royalist group Monarchy New Zealand said it had organized a national light show, with 40 buildings across the islands lit up in blue to commemorate the royal birth, including Sky Tower in Auckland, the airport in Christchurch, and Larnach Castle in the South Island city of Dunedin. A similar lighting ceremony took place in Canada; Peace Tower and Parliament buildings in the capital, Ottawa, were bathed in blue light, as was CN Tower in Toronto.
Al-Qaida’s Iraqi Pope visiting shrine to ‘black Mary’ branch takes credit for prison raids BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
BAGHDAD — Al-Qaida’s branch in Iraq claimed responsibility Tuesday for audacious raids on two high-security prisons on the outskirts of Baghdad this week that killed dozens and set free hundreds of inmates, including some of its followers. The statement from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, the al-Qaida affiliate in Iraq, was posted on an online jihadist forum. It said months of planning went into the highly co-ordinated assaults on the prisons in Abu Ghraib and Taji that began late Sunday. The attacks, among the most stunning in Iraq since a surge in violence began in April, have drawn sharp criticism from opposition lawmakers and ordinary Iraqis over government efforts to keep the country safe. The spike in bloodshed is intensifying fears of a return to the widespread sectarian killing that pushed the country to the brink of civil war after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. In its statement, al-Qaida in Iraq said the prison operation involved 12 car bombs, military-style barrages of rockets and mortar shells, suicide bombers and help from prisoners who had managed to obtain weapons on the inside. Iraqi officials have said at least 25 members of the Iraqi security forces were killed in the attacks, along with at least 21 prisoners and 10 militants. Al-Qaida boasted that its men killed more than 120 government forces, and claimed that on its side, only the suicide bombers died in clashes that raged for hours. Frank Finver, a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, said the U.S. is “deeply concerned” by the attacks and the overall levels of violence in Iraq. He said the U.S. is in contact with the government of Iraq to help improve its ability to weaken or defeat al-Qaida inside Iraq, but he gave no specific details on counter-terrorism cooperation. Iraq’s central government has not provided a clear account of what happened or said how many prisoners escaped Sunday night. The Interior Ministry has said several prisoners broke out from Abu Ghraib, the infamous prison in Baghdad’s western suburbs .
40% OFF FRAMES With purchase of lenses.
(Limited time only. Some restrictions apply)
10% off in stock sunglasses
Check out our new website at:
consumersoptical.ca BOWER PLACE SHOPPING CENTRE Ph:
403-347-3370
Toll Free: 1-800-547-9209
Eye Exams Arranged
52328G3-29
BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
APARECIDA, Brazil — The image of Brazil’s patron saint, the dark-skinned Virgin of Aparecida, emblazons bumper stickers, presides over shops and dangles from gold chains around women’s necks all over this continent-sized country. Replicas of the thin clay statue hang in places of pride on the walls of both the most sumptuous of mansions and the humblest of shacks. On Wednesday, Pope Francis, the first pontiff from the Americas, will fly over farmland and sugar cane fields to visit the mammoth basilica that holds the statue of this particular Brazilian Mary. On the pontiff’s first day in Brazil, it’s also where police found a homemade explosive in a nearby public restroom. It didn’t appear to have been aimed at the pope. The Vatican says the Argentine pontiff personally insisted the trip be added to his agenda. Millions of grassroots Catholics who worship Aparecida’s image will be watching. Rio de Janeiro taxicab driver Wellington Damiao is one of those who’s placed his faith in the Virgin. He keeps an inches-tall plastic figurine of Aparecida on his cracked dashboard. “My mother was a devotee, I’ve been one all my life and now I’m teaching it to my children,” Damiao said. “I’ve never asked anything of her because I believe we have to give thanks, not just ask for things all the time.” Revered across the width and breadth of Brazil, Aparecida’s appeal has transcended the church’s legions of faithful in the world’s biggest Catholic coun-
try. She’s been syncretized with the goddess of love and maternity in a Brazilian religion with roots in west Africa, and her dark complexion has endeared her to blacks and those with a mix of black and white heritage, both of whom make up about half of Brazil’s population. “Her face is the face of the Brazilian people,” said Father Jose Arnaldo Juliano dos Santos, a chaplain and researcher in Sao Paulo. “She’s the great unifier of Brazil, who reaches across all sorts of divisions of race, class, region and religion and brings us all together as a people.” Standing atop a crescent moon adorned with an angel, Aparecida lifts her hands to her chest in prayer, a slight smile on her upturned lips and several flowers in her hair. Her gown and cloak fall in elaborate folds, and she wears a strand of pearls around her neck. The diminutive statue stands just 39 centimetres tall (15 inches tall), though the gold crown and blue velvet cape she now wears give her a bit of added height and bulk. Reverence for the figure of the Virgin Mary, known as Marian devotion, is common in much of the Christian world, popular in the Greek and Russian Orthodox churches as well as in Catholic southern Europe, where major shrines such as Lourdes in France and Fatima in Portugal are dedicated to the Virgin. Marian devotion also runs particularly deep in Latin America. The Virgin of Guadalupe, another dark-complexioned Mary, is the patron saint of Mexico, and the Virgin of Charity of Cobre, who’s often associated with Aparecida, is widely revered in Communist Cuba.