King Jigme and Queen Jetsun of Bhutan Send Condolences to Mrs. Abe and Japan

On Facebook, King Jigme and Queen Jetsun of Bhutan sent condolences to Mrs. Abe and the people of Japan.

We are deeply saddened by the tragic loss of Japan's former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe San.

He was a dear friend of Bhutan, and he will be remembered by the world as a visionary and distinguished leader, who served his country and people with great distinction.

We send our deepest condolences to Mrs. Abe and the people of Japan. Our thoughts and prayers are with you.

Their Majesties, The King and Queen of Bhutan

Zara Phillips Engaged to Mike Tindall

Her engagement was announced via Twitter and Facebook yesterday. Zara Phillips will wed her beau of seven years Mike Tindall. In response, royal family members tweeted their congratulations.Below is the statement released by the press secretary to the Queen.

The Princess Royal and Captain Mark Phillips are pleased to announce the engagement of their daughter Zara Phillips to Mr Mike Tindall, son of Mr Phillip and Mrs Linda Tindall.

Zara Phillips is the second grandchild of Queen Elizabeth II.
Photos: © Press Association, Reuters

Rania and Elizabeth Move Up on Forbes Most Powerful Women List

What marks a woman with influential power? According to Forbes magazine, it is visibility and leadership. Well, Rania and Elizabeth have made the cut again. Forbes placed them on the list of 100 Most Powerful Women which was released on Wednesday.

Queen Rania was ranked at number ninety-six last year. Since that time, she has garnered more exposure in the past few months by launching her Twitter and Facebook pages. Furthermore, the Jordanian queen was recognized by YouTube for her visionary efforts to open dialogue and dispel the negative stereotypes permeating cultures across the globe. Besides networking on the internet, she has continued to advocate for women, children and education. Forbes currently ranks her influence at number seventy-six.

Queen Elizabeth II is still radiating power and influence. She was listed at number fifty-eight the previous year. Now, she is ranked at number forty-two. The queen has reigned since 1952. She has yet to surpass Queen Victoria’s record of longest reigning monarch, but she is the oldest reigning British monarch; a record she fulfilled in December 2007. Despite her years, Elizabeth bears a formidable schedule with Prince Philip joining her on many occasions seemingly indefatigable by her side. She is always kept up to date on the latest technology; her British Monarchy website evolving with the times such as updating on Twitter. The monarch is patron to six hundred and twenty-seven organizations and her favourite pastimes are horses, Labradors, walking in the countryside and Scottish country dancing.

Photos: Petra, © Press Association

CNBC Interview with Queen Rania

Queen Rania of Jordan recently appeared on a special edition of CNBC’s Gateway to the Middle East. She was interviewed by CNBC reporter Louise Bojesen. Several of the questions posed to the queen included Pope Benedict’s visit to Jordan, the economic progress of her country and her decision to utilize global networking through YouTube, Twitter and Facebook.

Below is the CNBC special edition of Gateway to the Middle East interview with Queen Rania of Jordan.

Queen Rania Ventures into Social Networking

Queen Rania of Jordan recently linked up to the Twitter website to discuss the issue of education and tweet about some of the latest things that had occurred in her engagement diary. Now, she is taking Facebook by storm and encouraging dialogue on social change, education and cross-cultural issues.

Besides making inroads into the social networking community, she began her quest for dialogue to disseminate stereotypes on her YouTube channel two years ago. The queen shared her YouTube channel dialogue success in a NPR interview last month and said, “YouTube was an incredible platform for me to be able to interact and to hear the points of view unedited, unfiltered, you know, to just see - to get the real information…the idea was to create the debate. And people did talk. They did bring out a lot of issues. There was a lot of discussion, and there were a lot of friendships forged. And a lot of these stereotypes were exposed. And it's not until you really interact with the side, where you try to see things from their eyes that you start to empathize and understand.”

Photo: Petra