Public warned of rising fraud - Oman Daily Observer
Public warned of rising fraud - Oman Daily Observer
Public warned of rising fraud - Oman Daily Observer
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12<br />
UNITED KINGDOM<br />
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 10, 2013<br />
‘Iron Lady’ mourned, but<br />
opponents celebrate<br />
Britain sets funeral<br />
for April 17<br />
LONDON — Britain will hold the funeral <strong>of</strong> former prime minister Margaret Thatcher<br />
on Wednesday April 17 with Queen Elizabeth II leading the mourners, <strong>of</strong>icials said, as<br />
the country wrestled with deeply divided views <strong>of</strong> the "Iron Lady."<br />
As fresh tributes were paid around the world, the British government on Tuesday<br />
announced the date <strong>of</strong> the ceremonial funeral at St Paul's cathedral in central London,<br />
the second highest honour after a state funeral.<br />
But Thatcher remained as pola<strong>rising</strong> in death as in life, with six police <strong>of</strong>icers injured<br />
at one <strong>of</strong> a number <strong>of</strong> parties across the country celebrating the death <strong>of</strong> a woman<br />
whose critics accuse <strong>of</strong> destroying British industry.<br />
Thatcher, Britain's irst woman prime minister and an icon internationally for her<br />
role in defeating communism and ending the Cold War, died at the Ritz Hotel in London<br />
on Monday aged 87 after suffering a stroke.<br />
"It was agreed this morning at the government coordination meeting with the<br />
Thatcher family and Buckingham Palace that the funeral service <strong>of</strong> Lady Thatcher will<br />
take place on Wednesday 17 April at St Paul's Cathedral," current prime minister David<br />
Cameron's Downing Street <strong>of</strong>ice said in a statement.<br />
Queen Elizabeth and her husband Prince Philip will attend, in an unusual move,<br />
Buckingham Palace said.<br />
The queen does not usually attend funerals or memorial services <strong>of</strong> non-royals. Lawmakers<br />
have been recalled to parliament this Wednesday to pay tribute to Thatcher, the<br />
longest serving prime minister <strong>of</strong> the 20th century.<br />
A private ambulance accompanied by police motorcycle outriders arrived in the early<br />
hours <strong>of</strong> Tuesday at the luxury Ritz hotel in central London where Thatcher spent<br />
the last days <strong>of</strong> her life, a photographer said.<br />
Undertakers erected a green screen at the back door <strong>of</strong> the hotel before removing<br />
her body at around 12:20 am.<br />
Thatcher, a Conservative, speciically did not want a full state funeral <strong>of</strong> the kind given<br />
to monarchs and to World War II premier Winston Churchill, thinking it was "not<br />
appropriate", her spokesman Lord Tim Bell said.<br />
Thatcher also requested that she not get a ly-past by military aircraft as it would be<br />
a "waste <strong>of</strong> money". His comments came after several Conservative lawmakers called<br />
for her to be given a state funeral.<br />
Ceremonial funerals have in the past been given to the Queen Mother — the mother<br />
<strong>of</strong> current monarch Queen Elizabeth II who died in 2002 — and to Princess Diana who<br />
died in a car crash in Paris in 1997.<br />
Taiwan, Thai TV stations<br />
sorry for photo gaffes<br />
TAIPEI — A Taiwanese cable news<br />
channel apologised yesterday for running<br />
a photo <strong>of</strong> Queen Elizabeth II<br />
when reporting the death <strong>of</strong> Margaret<br />
Thatcher, while a Thai station showed<br />
a photo <strong>of</strong> actress Meryl Streep.<br />
Taiwan's CTI TV, in footage Monday<br />
night, showed the queen dressed in<br />
a green coat and waving at the crowd<br />
with a caption reading "Former British<br />
prime minister Thatcher passed away,<br />
the Iron Lady is missed".<br />
In Thailand, army-run Channel 5 TV<br />
station also apologised after it showed<br />
a photo <strong>of</strong> Streep playing Thatcher in<br />
the 2011 semi-biographical ilm "The<br />
Iron Lady" during its report on the<br />
death <strong>of</strong> the former premier.<br />
"We apologise for the mistake over<br />
the use <strong>of</strong> the photo during the report<br />
on Margaret Thatcher which caused<br />
misunderstanding. Our team will try<br />
harder and be more careful," it wrote<br />
on its <strong>of</strong>icial Facebook page.<br />
A source at the channel said the job<br />
<strong>of</strong> inding the picture had been outsourced<br />
to another company. "The<br />
news anchor noticed the mistake and<br />
solved the problem by saying her story<br />
was made into a Hollywood movie<br />
played by Meryl Streep," he said.<br />
Thatcher, dubbed the "Iron Lady,"<br />
died <strong>of</strong> a stroke on Monday in London<br />
aged 87.<br />
Meanwhile, six British police <strong>of</strong>icers<br />
were injured, one <strong>of</strong> them seriously,<br />
as they tried to break up a street party<br />
apparently celebrating the death <strong>of</strong> exprime<br />
minister Margaret Thatcher, police<br />
said Tuesday.<br />
The incident in Bristol, southwest<br />
England, happened at one <strong>of</strong> a number<br />
<strong>of</strong> impromptu events across the country<br />
held by critics <strong>of</strong> the so-called “Iron<br />
Lady”.<br />
Police said about 200 revellers in<br />
Bristol refused police requests to disperse.<br />
“Bottles and cans were thrown at <strong>of</strong>-<br />
icers, six <strong>of</strong> whom suffered injuries,”<br />
Chief Inspector Mark Jackson <strong>of</strong> Avon<br />
and Somerset Constabulary said.<br />
LONDON — Admirers <strong>of</strong> Margaret Thatcher<br />
yesterday mourned the "Iron Lady" who as<br />
Britain's longest serving prime minister in over<br />
a century pitched free-market capitalism as the<br />
only medicine for her country's crippled economy<br />
and the crumbling Soviet bloc.<br />
World leaders past and present, from former<br />
Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to US President<br />
Barack Obama, led tributes to the grocer's<br />
daughter who sought to arrest Britain's decline<br />
and helped Ronald Reagan broker an end to the<br />
Cold War.<br />
"The world has lost one <strong>of</strong> the great champions<br />
<strong>of</strong> freedom and liberty, and America has<br />
lost a true friend," said Obama.<br />
While world leaders praised the most powerful<br />
British prime minister since her hero Winston<br />
Churchill, the scars <strong>of</strong> bitter struggles during<br />
her rule left Britain divided over her legacy.<br />
Opponents celebrated in London, the English<br />
city <strong>of</strong> Bristol and the Scottish city <strong>of</strong> Glasgow,<br />
cheering her death and toasting to the death <strong>of</strong><br />
"the witch" with champagne and cider.<br />
"We've waited a long time for her death,"<br />
said Carl Chamberlain, 45, unemployed, sporting<br />
a grey ponytail and sipping on a can <strong>of</strong> cider<br />
in Brixton, London, the scene <strong>of</strong> riots in 1981.<br />
Loathed and loved, Thatcher crushed trade<br />
unions, privatised swathes <strong>of</strong> British industry,<br />
clashed with European allies and fought a war<br />
to recover the Falkland Islands from Argentina.<br />
Tuesday's newspapers told the story: "The<br />
Woman Who Saved Britain", declared the <strong>Daily</strong><br />
Mail while the <strong>Daily</strong> Mirror, led on "The Woman<br />
Who Divided A Nation" in an article which questioned<br />
the grand, ceremonial funeral planned<br />
for next week.<br />
Thatcher's body was removed overnight in<br />
a transit van with police escort from the Ritz<br />
Hotel where she had died on Monday morning<br />
following a stroke.<br />
From across Europe, admirers lay<br />
lowers at Thatcher’s doorstep<br />
LONDON — Outside Margaret Thatcher's plush<br />
central London townhouse, a slow but steady<br />
stream <strong>of</strong> well-wishers laid lowers yesterday in<br />
tribute to the late British premier.<br />
The creamy-white four-storey home where<br />
a frail Thatcher spent her quiet inal years is<br />
on Chester Square, a plush oasis <strong>of</strong> calm two<br />
streets away from London's busy Victoria railway<br />
terminus.<br />
Its reinforced black door, with a brass lion<br />
knocker, is reminiscent <strong>of</strong> the famous front door<br />
<strong>of</strong> 10 Downing Street, just 2.5 kilometres away,<br />
from where Thatcher governed Britain from<br />
1979 to 1990.<br />
Two police <strong>of</strong>icers guard the doorway as<br />
sympathisers quietly lay their tributes to the<br />
"Iron Lady", who died Monday aged 87 whilst<br />
recuperating at the Ritz Hotel.<br />
Thatcher's home is a few minutes' walk from<br />
London's main bus terminal, where countless<br />
newcomers from the new democracies <strong>of</strong> eastern<br />
Europe irst set foot on British soil.<br />
Among those who came to lay lowers were<br />
immigrants from such countries, which Thatcher<br />
steadfastly fought to liberate from communism.<br />
From Ostrava in the eastern Czech Republic,<br />
Martin Wolf, 37, works at the upmarket Mandarin<br />
Oriental hotel in London where Thatcher<br />
staged her 80th birthday party.<br />
He thought it was partly down to Thatcher's<br />
inluence that people from eastern Europe are<br />
free to live and work in Britain.<br />
"She was very friendly with our country and<br />
Thatcher's inal journey on April 17 will take<br />
her from a chapel inside the Palace <strong>of</strong> Westminster<br />
— where she deployed fearsome and forensic<br />
debating skills — to a St Paul's Cathedral<br />
where she will arrive on a gun carriage drawn<br />
by horses from Queen Elizabeth's artillery.<br />
The Queen and her husband, the Duke <strong>of</strong> Edinburgh,<br />
will attend the funeral, which is likely<br />
to be the grandest funeral for a British politician<br />
since Churchill's state funeral in 1965. Though<br />
accorded full military honours, Thatcher did not<br />
want a state funeral. She will be cremated.<br />
Parliament will return from recess for a special<br />
session in her honour yesterday.<br />
The unyielding, outspoken Thatcher led her<br />
Conservative party to three election victories,<br />
governing from 1979 to 1990, the longest continuous<br />
term in <strong>of</strong>ice for a British premier in<br />
over 150 years.<br />
She struck up a close relationship with Reagan<br />
taking a hostile view <strong>of</strong> the Soviet Union,<br />
backed the irst President George Bush during<br />
the 1991 Gulf War, and was the irst major<br />
Western leader to discover that Gorbachev was<br />
a man she could "do business with".<br />
"Very few leaders get to change not only the<br />
political landscape <strong>of</strong> their country but <strong>of</strong> the<br />
world. Margaret was such a leader. Her global<br />
impact was vast," said Tony Blair, whose term<br />
as Labour prime minister from 1997-2007 he<br />
acknowledged owed a debt to the former leader<br />
<strong>of</strong> his Conservative opponents.<br />
Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron<br />
cut short a visit abroad and lags lew at half<br />
mast. "The real thing about Margaret Thatcher<br />
is that she didn't just lead our country, she<br />
saved our country," Cameron said.<br />
Mourners laid roses, tulips and lilies on the<br />
doorstep <strong>of</strong> her house in Belgravia, one <strong>of</strong> London's<br />
most exclusive areas. One note said: "The<br />
greatest British leader" while another said to<br />
"The Iron Lady", a soubriquet bestowed by a<br />
Soviet army newspaper in the 1970s and which<br />
Thatcher loved.<br />
But, in a mark <strong>of</strong> lingering anger at a woman<br />
who explained her belief in private endeavour<br />
by declaring "there is no such thing as society",<br />
someone also left a bottle <strong>of</strong> milk. To many<br />
Britons she remained "Maggie Thatcher, Milk<br />
Snatcher" for scrapping free milk for schoolchildren<br />
when she was education minister in 1971.<br />
Having retreated into seclusion after<br />
being deposed by her party, the death <strong>of</strong> her<br />
businessman husband Denis in 2003 and creeping<br />
dementia had kept her out <strong>of</strong> the public<br />
eye for years. She had been in poor health for<br />
months.<br />
The abiding domestic images <strong>of</strong> her premiership<br />
will remain those <strong>of</strong> conlict: huge police<br />
confrontations with mass ranks <strong>of</strong> coalminers<br />
whose year-long strike failed to save their pits<br />
and communities; Thatcher riding a tank in a<br />
white headscarf; and lames <strong>rising</strong> above London's<br />
Trafalgar Square in riots over a deeply<br />
unpopular "poll tax" which contributed to her<br />
downfall.<br />
To those who opposed her she was blunt to<br />
a degree.<br />
"The lady's not for turning," she told Conservatives<br />
in 1980 as some urged a "U-turn" on<br />
the economy in the face <strong>of</strong> <strong>rising</strong> job losses and<br />
crashing poll ratings.<br />
She stuck to her plans to pare state spending<br />
but could thank victory in the Falklands —<br />
known in Argentina as Las Malvinas — in 1982<br />
for helping her bounce back to re-election.<br />
Argentinians were less moved to praise her<br />
than Falklanders who called her "our Winston<br />
Churchill". In South Africa, too, there was a coolness<br />
after her death as its new, democratic leaders<br />
recalled her prevarication on apartheid.<br />
— AFP<br />
Flowers and mementos left by members <strong>of</strong> the public and admirers sit outside the home <strong>of</strong> Margaret Thatcher in central London yesterday.<br />
went there after the communist time," he said.<br />
"I'm very sad. I'm interested in everything<br />
about her life. She was, for me, a great, great<br />
woman. She is a big icon.<br />
"People <strong>of</strong> course remember her in the Czech<br />
Republic."<br />
He was dismayed at how some left-wing<br />
Britons have been celebrating her death.<br />
"I'm shocked. How is this possible? Maybe<br />
she wasn't right all the time but I think this is<br />
horrible," he said.<br />
As a van delivered another impressive bouquet,<br />
Diaconu Dumitru, 33, from Craiova in<br />
southern Romania, who works as a chef in a<br />
Vietnamese restaurant, also laid lowers by the<br />
black wrought-iron fence in front <strong>of</strong> the house.<br />
"It's a sad day because she was a great lady.<br />
A good politician. She had a lot <strong>of</strong> very brilliant<br />
ideas. She put a big value on ending the Cold<br />
War. I have read a lot <strong>of</strong> things about her," he<br />
said.<br />
A media pen has been erected on the other<br />
side <strong>of</strong> the street, where a dozen camera crews,<br />
plus photographers and journalists from around<br />
the world document the scene.<br />
Several satellite trucks are parked amongst<br />
the Ferraris and Porsches lining the road.<br />
With their Mary Poppins-style chimney tops,<br />
houses around Chester Square's well-manicured<br />
private garden are on the market for more than<br />
£14 million ($21 million, 16 million euros).<br />
Russian tycoon Roman Abramovich was<br />
among Thatcher's neighbours.