King Felipe Sends Letter of Condolence to Charles

On Twitter, King Felipe of Spain expressed his condolences to Charles upon the death of Queen Elizabeth II.

YOUR MAJESTY, DEAREST CHARLES,

DEEPLY SADDENED BY THE SORROWFUL NEWS OF THE PASSING OF HER MAJESTY QUEEN ELIZABETH II, YOUR BELOVED MOTHER. I WOULD LIKE TO OFFER YOUR MAJESTY AND THE BRITISH PEOPLE ON MY BEHALF AND ON BEHALF OF THE SPANISH GOVERNMENT AND PEOPLE, OUR MOST HEARTFELT CONDOLENCES.

HER MAJESTY QUEEN ELIZABETH HAS UNDOUBTEDLY WITNESSED, WRITTEN AND SHAPED MANY OF THE MOST RELEVANT CHAPTERS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR WORLD DURING THE LAST SEVEN DECADES. HER SENSE OF DUTY, COMMITMENT AND A WHOLE LIFE DEVOTED TO SERVING THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN IRELAND SET AN EXAMPLE FOR ALL OF US AND WILL REMAIN AS A SOLID AND VALUABLE LEGACY FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS.

QUEEN LETIZIA AND I SEND YOUR MAJESTY AND THE WHOLE FAMILY OUR LOVE AND PRAYERS. YOU ARE ALL IN OUR HEARTS AND THOUGHTS. WE WILL MISS HER DEARLY.

WITH ALL MY FRIENDSHIP AND AFFECTION,

FELIPE

The Order of Service For the Marriage of Prince Harry With Meghan Markle

The Royal Family website released this morning the Order of Service for the marriage of Prince Harry with Meghan Markle.

On page nine of the Order of Service, it lists Meghan's father as part of the procession in the following, The Bride, having been greeted by the Dean of Windsor, moves in procession through the Nave where she is joined by her Father, Mr Thomas Markle, to the High Altar. The Bridegroom and his Best Man await. As the programs had already been printed, Kensington Palace tweeted a press release statement on Friday, May 18th that The Prince of Wales would accompany Ms. Markle down the aisle of the Quire of St. George's Chapel on her Wedding Day.

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

Queen Elizabeth II Goes Flickr

Buckingham Palace announced yesterday the launch of the British Monarchy Flickr photo account on its official website. The photostream will feature the latest stills of royal engagements and archive images from the Royal Photograph Collection.

It is the latest addition of social mediums that have been utilized by the British Royal Family. The monarchy also has a YouTube channel and Twitter account.

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

Queen Rania Joins Twitter Ranks

Queen Rania of Jordan continues her quest to connect and encourage dialogue amongst the internet community by interfacing on the Twitter website this week. As she disseminates the stereotypes on her YouTube channel, she steers the conversation on Twitter to focus on the Global Campaign for Education with the desire “to get every child an education.”

Photo: Petra