LONDON: Buckingham Palace on Tuesday said it has declined a request from the family of a 19th century Ethiopian prince to repatriate his remains.
Prince Alemayehu was captured aged seven by the British Army and taken to England in 1868, arriving as an orphan after his mother died en route.
He spent the next decade in Britain, and was looked upon kindly by Queen Victoria, who arranged for his education before his death aged 18 in 1879 from pneumonia.
At the reported request of Queen Victoria, he was entombed in the catacombs of St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle, the royal residence west of London.
Ethiopian leaders have previously asked the British royal family for his remains to be returned to his homeland, and his family told the BBC recently that they too had requested the repatriation.
“We want his remains back as a family and as Ethiopians because that is not the country he was born in,” Fasil Minas, one of his descendants, told the British broadcaster.
He said “it was not right” for the prince to remain buried in the UK.
But in a statement, Buckingham Palace said it regretted that due to the need to “preserve the dignity” of others buried at the chapel it had not been possible to agree to the request.
“The Dean and Canons of Windsor are very sensitive to the need to honor the memory of Prince Alemayehu,” it said.
“However, they have been advised that it is very unlikely that it would be possible to exhume the remains without disturbing the resting place of a substantial number of others in the vicinity.”
The statement added that officials had granted requests in recent years from Ethiopian delegations to visit St. George’s and “will continue to do so.”
UK royal family won’t return remains of Ethiopian prince
https://arab.news/rmy4h
UK royal family won’t return remains of Ethiopian prince
- Prince Alemayehu was captured aged seven by the British Army and taken to England in 1868
- Fasil Minas: ‘We want his remains back as a family and as Ethiopians because that is not the country he was born in’
Japan restarts world’s biggest nuclear plant
- Japan wants to revive atomic energy to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels
KARIWA: The world’s biggest nuclear power plant was restarted Wednesday for the first time since the 2011 Fukushima disaster, its Japanese operator said, despite persistent safety concerns among residents.
The plant was “started at 19:02” (1002 GMT), Tokyo Electric Power Company spokesman Tatsuya Matoba said of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant in Niigata prefecture.
The regional governor approved the resumption last month, although public opinion remains sharply divided.
On Tuesday, a few dozen protesters — mostly elderly — braved freezing temperatures to demonstrate in the snow near the plant’s entrance, whose buildings line the Sea of Japan coast.
“It’s Tokyo’s electricity that is produced in Kashiwazaki, so why should the people here be put at risk? That makes no sense,” Yumiko Abe, a 73-year-old resident, told AFP.
Around 60 percent of residents oppose the restart, while 37 percent support it, according to a survey conducted in September.
TEPCO said Wednesday it would “proceed with careful verification of each plant facility’s integrity” and address any issues appropriately and transparently.
Kashiwazaki-Kariwa is the world’s biggest nuclear power plant by potential capacity, although just one reactor of seven was restarted.
The facility was taken offline when Japan pulled the plug on nuclear power after a colossal earthquake and tsunami sent three reactors at the Fukushima atomic plant into meltdown in 2011.
However, resource-poor Japan now wants to revive atomic energy to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels, achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 and meet growing energy needs from artificial intelligence.
Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has voiced support for the energy source.
Fourteen reactors, mostly in western and southern Japan, have resumed operation since the post-Fukushima shutdown under strict safety rules, with 13 running as of mid-January. The vast Kashiwazaki-Kariwa complex has been fitted with a 15-meter-high (50-foot) tsunami wall, elevated emergency power systems and other safety upgrades.
However, residents raised concerns about the risk of a serious accident, citing frequent cover-up scandals, minor accidents and evacuation plans they say are inadequate.
