SYDNEY: Hundreds of well-wishers greeted Britain’s King Charles and Queen Camilla in Sydney on Sunday as the royal couple attended church, with the king saying it was a “great joy” to return to Australia in his first visit to an overseas realm as sovereign.
Charles’ 16th official visit to Australia, where he attended school for six months as a teenager in 1966, is also his first major foreign trip since being diagnosed with cancer.
“What a great joy it is to come to Australia for the first time as sovereign and to renew a love of this country and its people which I have cherished for so long,” he said in a speech at the New South Wales parliament.
New South Wales state lawmaker Kellie Sloane, whose electorate covers some of Sydney’s most famous beaches, wrote on social media platform X after chatting with the king that he “sends his best to the ‘amazing’ surf clubs at Bondi Beach.”
The royal couple were earlier greeted at St. Thomas’ Anglican Church by the archbishop of Sydney, Kanishka Raffel, and children from the church’s Sunday school who waved Australian flags.
Camilla was given a flower bouquet by the minister’s wife, Ellie Mantle, who asked if they had recovered from jet lag after the long flight to Australia on Friday. “Sort of,” Camilla replied.
Inside the church, Charles and Camilla signed two bibles, including one that belonged to Australia’s first minister and chaplain of the First Fleet of ships that took convicts from Britain to the penal colony of Australia in 1788.
Outside, the royal couple shook hands and chatted with a large crowd of cheering fans, some singing “God Save the King.”
It was the public’s first opportunity to meet Charles and Camilla since they arrived in Australia’s biggest city on Friday night, and several hundred well wishers outnumbered a dozen protesters.
Traveling across Sydney Harbor, Charles visited the New South Wales parliament, marking the 200th anniversary of Australia’s oldest legislature.
The king presented the lawmakers with an hour glass to time their speeches, and highlighted the fundamental role of strong parliaments to democracies that serve today’s diverse societies.
“Democracy has, I believe, an extraordinary capacity for innovation, compromise and adaptability as well as stability,” he said.
The royal couple will travel to Canberra on Monday to meet Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at the national parliament and visit the Australian War Memorial.
Albanese met the couple on Friday at Admiralty House, the historic government harborside residence where they are staying, for what he said was an informal drink and chat.
The king will attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Samoa after the six-day Australia tour.
Charles had made a significant personal donation to create a skills program to tackle climate change and boost higher education in small island states, including the Pacific Islands, the Association of Commonwealth Universities said on Sunday.
Mid-career professionals and civil servants will benefit from the fellowships, in a program that aims to retain talent in small island states and bolster resilience to the impacts of climate change such as rising sea levels.
Britain’s King Charles meets cheering Australian crowds, says ‘great joy’ to return
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Britain’s King Charles meets cheering Australian crowds, says ‘great joy’ to return
- Charles’ 16th official visit to Australia is also his first major foreign trip since cancer diagnosis
US Justice Department official eyes cases against Cuba leaders as Trump floats ‘friendly takeover’
- “Working group” formed to build cases against people connected to the Cuban government
- Trump’s has increasingly displayed aggressive stance against Cuba’s communist leadership
MIAMI: The top Justice Department prosecutor in Miami is considering criminal investigations of Cuban government officials, according to people familiar with the matter. The inquiry comes as President Donald Trump has raised the possibility of a “friendly takeover” of the communist-run island.
Jason Reding Quiñones, the US attorney for the Southern District of Florida, has created a “working group” that includes federal prosecutors and officials from the Drug Enforcement Administration and other agencies to try to build cases against people connected to the Cuban government and its Communist Party, according to one of the people. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the effort.
It was not immediately clear which Cuban officials the office is targeting or what criminal charges prosecutors may be looking to bring.
The Justice Department said in a statement Friday that “federal prosecutors from across the country work every day to pursue justice, which includes efforts to combat transnational crime.”
The effort is taking place against the backdrop of Trump’s increasingly aggressive stance against Cuba’s communist leadership.
Emboldened by the US capture of Cuba’s close ally, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, Trump last month said his administration was in high-level talks with officials in Havana to pursue “a friendly takeover” of the country. He repeated those claims this week, saying his attention would turn back to Cuba once the war with Iran winds down.
“They want to make a deal so bad,” Trump said of Cuba’s leadership.
While Cuba has faded from Washington’s radar as a major national security threat in recent decades, it remains a priority in the US Attorney’s office in Miami, whose political, economic and cultural life is dominated by Cuban-American exiles.
The FBI field office has a dedicated Cuba group that in 2024 was instrumental in the arrest of former US Ambassador Victor Manuel Rocha on charges of serving as a secret agent of Cuba stretching back to the 1970s.
In recent weeks, several Miami Republicans, in addition to Florida Sen. Rick Scott, have called on the Trump administration to reopen its criminal investigation into the 1996 shootdown of four planes operated by anti-communist exiles.
In a letter to Trump on Feb. 13, lawmakers including Reps. Maria Elvira Salazar and Carlos Gimenez highlighted decades-old news reports indicating that former President Raúl Castro — the head of Cuba’s military at the time — gave the order to shoot down the unarmed Cessna aircraft.
“We believe unequivocally that Raúl Castro is responsible for this heinous crime,” lawmakers wrote. “It is time for him to be brought to justice.”
While no indictment against Castro has been announced, Florida’s attorney general said this week that he would open a state-level investigation into the crime.
The Trump administration has also accused Cuba of not cooperating with American counterterrorism efforts, adding it alongside North Korea and Iran to a select few nations the US considers state sponsors of terrorism.
The designation stems from Cuba’s harboring of US fugitives and its refusal to extradite several Colombian rebel leaders while they were engaged in peace talks with the South American nation.
