LONDON: Britain’s famous parliament clock tower is to be renamed Elizabeth Tower in honor of the queen’s diamond jubilee, officials announced yesterday.
The change comes after dozens of lawmakers signed up to a campaign to change the name of the tower — officially named the Clock Tower but commonly known as Big Ben — in celebration of Queen Elizabeth II’s 60th year on the throne.
Big Ben is technically the name of the huge bell at the top of the 96-meter tower, one of London’s best-loved landmarks.
“The House of Commons Commission welcomed the proposal to rename the Clock Tower Elizabeth Tower in recognition of HM The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, and will arrange for this decision to be implemented in an appropriate manner in due course,” a spokesman said.
Lawmakers have accepted that the iconic tower, which sounds out the hours over central London with distinctive “bongs,” will continue to be known colloquially as Big Ben.
The change mirrors an honor bestowed on queen Victoria — the only other British monarch to celebrate a diamond jubilee back in 1897 — who gives her name to the other tower at the west end of Parliament.
A spokesman for Prime Minister David Cameron said the name change was “a fitting tribute to the queen and the service she has given to our country in this Jubilee year.”
Big Ben bells to toll for Elizabeth
Big Ben bells to toll for Elizabeth
Arundhati Roy pulls out of Berlin film fest amid Gaza row
BERLIN: Award-winning Indian writer Arundhati Roy said this week she was withdrawing from the Berlin Film Festival over jury president Wim Wenders’s comments that he wanted to “stay out of politics” after being asked about Gaza.
Roy said in a statement sent to AFP that she was “shocked and disgusted” by Wenders’ response to a question on Gaza at a press conference on Thursday. “With deep regret, I must say that I will not be attending the Berlinale,” she said.
Roy, whose novel “The God of Small Things” won the 1997 Booker Prize, had been announced as a festival guest to present a restored version of the 1989 film “In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones,” in which she starred and wrote the screenplay.
However, she said that the “unconscionable” statements by Wenders and other jury members had led her to reconsider.
“To hear them say that art should not be political is jaw-dropping,” she said.
When asked about Germany’s support for Israel at the press conference on Thursday, Wenders said: “We cannot really enter the field of politics,” describing filmmakers as “the counterweight to politics.”
In her statement Roy, described Israel’s actions in Gaza as “a genocide of the Palestinian people by the State of Israel.”
“If the greatest filmmakers and artists of our time cannot stand up and say so, they should know that history will judge them,” she said.
