EXCITING NEWS: TNG WhatsApp Channel is LIVE…
Subscribe for FREE to get LIVE NEWS UPDATE. Click here to subscribe!
Queen Elizabeth on Thursday while formally declaring open the 2018 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) at Buckingham Palace in Central London, urged Commonwealth heads of governments to allow her son, Prince Charles, succeed her.
TheNewsGuru reports Queen Elizabeth is pushing Prince Charles becomes the group’s next head in advance amid expectation that the 53 heads of government presently attending the CHOGM18 will discuss succession on Friday.
“It is my sincere wish that the Commonwealth will continue to offer stability and continuity to future generations, and will decide that one day the Prince of Wales [Prince Charles] should carry on the important work started by my father in 1949,” the queen, 91, told the leaders at the opening of a biennial summit.
Although the Queen took over from her father, King George VI, who died of lung cancer in 1952, the position of the queen or king of England is said to be not hereditary.
“We are one of the great convening powers… and we seem to by growing stronger year by year,” the queen told the 53 heads of government, including British Prime Minister Theresa May and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
She highlighted Commonwealth initiatives including a “blue charter” to protect the marine environment, saying the British royal family was “proud to play a part” in them.
Earlier, May paid tribute to the queen’s “service and dedication” to the Commonwealth, which Elizabeth has headed since 1952.
“You have been true to the deepest values of the Commonwealth – that the voice of the smallest member country is worth precisely as much as that of the largest; that the wealthiest and the most vulnerable stand shoulder to shoulder. For your service, for your dedication, for your constancy – we thank you,” May said in a speech.
May earlier urged the other nations at the two-day summit to follow Britain’s plan to end the sale of plastic straws, drink stirrers and plastic-stemmed cotton buds.
“Plastic waste is one of the greatest environmental challenges facing the world, which is why protecting the marine environment is central to our agenda at the Commonwealth heads of government meeting,” she said.
Most of the 53 states in the Commonwealth, which was formed in 1949, were once ruled directly or indirectly by Britain.
The summit which was originally to be hosted by Vanuatu at the end of 2017 was moved to the UK as Vanuatu was no longer able to host the event due to the damage done by Cyclone Pam to the island nation’s infrastructure.
The meeting was postponed to the spring of 2018 due to other international commitments.
The position of Commonwealth Chair-in-Office, held by the government leader of the CHOGM host country, will be transferred at the summit from the Prime Minister of Malta to the Prime Minister of the UK who will hold the post until the 26th CHOGM expected in 2020.
The theme of the summit is “Towards a Common Future”.
The British hosts have set out four main goals for the summit.
These are prosperity; boosting intra-Commonwealth trade and investment security; increasing cooperation across security challenges including global terrorism, organized crime and cyber attacks fairness, and promoting democracy.
Others are fundamental freedoms and good governance across the Commonwealth sustainability; building the resilience of small and vulnerable states to deal with the effects of climate change and other global crises
Under consideration will be a Commonwealth Blue Charter on ocean governance, a Commonwealth connectivity agenda for trade and investment, a declaration on cybercrime, and revised Commonwealth guidelines on election observation in member countries.[
This will be the first CHOGM held following the UK’s decision to withdraw from the European Union, a decision which has resulted in calls for Britain to strengthen its economic ties with and play a greater role in the Commonwealth.
The Commonwealth currently is responsible for one-tenth of British trade compare to the EU with which the UK currently conducts half of its trade.
Intra-Commonwealth trade, overall, is expected to increase by at least 17 per cent around 700 billion dollars by 2020.
The summit ends on Friday.