Britain’s Prince Harry and Duchess Meghan expecting second child

Britain’s Prince Harry and his wife Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, are expecting their second child. (@misanharriman)
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Updated 14 February 2021
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Britain’s Prince Harry and Duchess Meghan expecting second child

  • Prince Harry and his wife Meghan are expecting their second child
  • The couple stepped back from royal duties in January 2020 and moved with their first son Archie to Southern California

LONDON: Britain’s Prince Harry and his wife Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, are expecting their second child, a spokesperson for the couple said on Sunday.
Harry, 36, and Meghan, 39, stepped back from royal duties in January 2020 and moved with their first son Archie to Southern California to live a more independent life and escape the British media.
“We can confirm that Archie is going to be a big brother. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are overjoyed to be expecting their second child,” the spokesperson said.
The announcement was accompanied by a black and white photograph of a visibly pregnant Meghan lying on grass with one hand on her stomach and her head resting on the smiling prince’s leg. The photo was taken by longtime friend and photographer Misan Harriman.

Archie was born in May 2019.
Since ending their royal duties, Harry and Meghan have continued charity work and signed TV and other media deals, launching their debut podcast in December.
Last year, Meghan revealed that she had a miscarriage in July, in an extraordinarily personal disclosure coming from a high-profile British royal.
The couple married in a glittering ceremony in 2018 that captured the world’s attention but later gave up their official royal roles following disagreements with other family members and in the face of huge media attention.
Their relationship with the British press swiftly soured and the couple have launched legal cases against several newspapers.
Last week Meghan won a privacy claim against the paper for printing extracts of a letter she wrote to her father.

 


China says Philippines distorted facts about incident near disputed atoll

Updated 58 min 6 sec ago
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China says Philippines distorted facts about incident near disputed atoll

  • The Chinese ministry defended its coast guard’s actions as “reasonable, lawful, professional and restrained”

BEIJING: China’s defense ministry accused the Philippines on Wednesday of distorting the facts about an incident involving the Chinese coast guard and Filipino fishermen near a South China Sea shoal, a charge Manila strongly rejected.
The Philippine coast guard said over the weekend that three Filipino fishermen were injured and two fishing vessels damaged when Chinese coast guard ships cut their anchor lines and fired water cannon near the Sabina Shoal on Friday, actions the Philippine defense secretary denounced as “dangerous” and “inhumane.”
The Chinese ministry defended its coast guard’s actions as “reasonable, lawful, professional and restrained,” and vowed to “take strong and effective measures” in response to “all acts of infringement and provocation,” according to a statement released on its social media account.
“The Philippine side amassed a large number of ships in an organized and premeditated manner to illegally intrude” into the atoll’s lagoon, the ministry said. “Philippine personnel even threatened Chinese coast guard on site with a knife,” it added.
Philippine defense ministry spokesperson Arsenio Andolong maintained that Manila has evidence to counter China’s assertions.
“The facts are not distorted. They are documented, timestamped, and corroborated by video recordings, vessel logs, and on-site reporting by the Philippine Coast Guard,” Andolong said in a statement.
“The Philippines is not hyping the issue, the facts speak for themselves. These are aggressive and excessive actions of an encroaching state,” he added.
Sabina Shoal, which China refers to as Xianbin Reef and the Philippines as the Escoda Shoal, lies in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone 150 km (95 miles) west of Palawan province.
China claims almost the entire South China Sea, a waterway supporting more than $3 trillion of annual commerce. The areas Beijing claims cut into the exclusive economic zones of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam.
An international arbitral tribunal ruled in 2016 that Beijing’s sweeping claims had no basis under international law, a decision China rejects.