Britain’s Queen Elizabeth goes 3D for Olympics tribute

Britain’s Queen Elizabeth will use her traditional Christmas Day message, filmed in 3D for the first time, to pay tribute to the world’s athletes for delivering a “splendid summer of sport” at the London Olympics.

In her personal address to the nation, the monarch will pay tribute to the competitors’ “skill, dedication, training and teamwork”, her office said on Monday.

The 86-year-old head of state provided an Olympic highlight when she made a surprise comic turn with James Bond actor Daniel Craig in a short film for the opening ceremony.

“In pursuing their own sporting goals, they gave the rest of us the opportunity to share something of the excitement and drama,” she will say, according to advance extracts.

Queen Elizabeth missed a church service at her country retreat on Sunday due to a cold, Buckingham Palace said. Her message was pre-recorded and will go out as expected.

It comes at the end of a landmark year for the royal family.

Queen Elizabeth marked 60 years on the throne with the Diamond Jubilee celebrations and her grandson Prince William and his wife Kate are expecting their first baby.

Prime Minister David Cameron issued his own Christmas message in which he talked of Britain’s “extraordinary year”.

“We cheered our queen to the rafters with the Jubilee, showed the world what we’re made of by staging the most spectacular Olympic and Paralympic Games ever and - let’s not forget - punched way above our weight in the medals table,” he said.

The first Christmas broadcast was given by Queen Elizabeth’s grandfather George V in 1932. It has become a Christmas Day tradition for many families to watch it together after lunch.

British Museum lends ancient ‘bill of human rights’ cylinder to US

One of the British Museum’s most iconic objects, the Cyrus Cylinder, will tour five major museums in the US next year.

The cylinder, often referred to as the first bill of human rights, “must be shared as widely as possible”, said museum director Neil MacGregor. It is inscribed with the earliest form of writing - Babylonian cuneiform.

The cylinder has never been taken to the US before and will tour Washington DC in March, going on to Houston, New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles. The inscriptions were made on the clay artefact on the orders of the Persian King Cyrus the Great after he captured Babylon in 539BC. The inscription appears to encourage freedom of worship throughout the Persian Empire and to allow deported people to return to their homelands, according to the museum.

The artefact was found in Babylon, in modern Iraq, in 1879 during a British Museum excavation and has been on display ever since. Seen as a symbol of tolerance and respect for different peoples and different faiths, a copy of the cylinder is on display in the United Nations building in New York.

Alireza Rastegar, chairman of the board of trustees of Iran Heritage Foundation America, said: “The Cyrus Cylinder and its message of respect for diversity and universal human rights carries a timely message about tolerance for all of us today.”

MacGregor added: “Objects are uniquely able to speak across time and space… I am delighted that it will travel to the US and am hugely grateful to both our US partners and the Iran Heritage Foundation for making this possible.”

The exhibition, called, Cyrus Cylinder in Ancient Persia, will feature 16 objects and will showcase innovations under Persian rule in the Ancient Near East between 550 BC and 331 BC.

Hosts include Smithsonian’s Arthur M Sackler Gallery in Washington DC, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco and the J Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, where the tour will culminate in October 2013.

The cylinder was previously lent by the museum to the National Museum of Iran in 2010 - 2011, where it was seen by more than one million people.

Britain to get 4G superfast mobile from October 30

The joint venture between France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom unveiled a new brand, EE, and details of the service last month, but did not announce a start date while the threat of legal action from rivals persisted.

Britain’s other operators had argued that EE had an unfair advantage because it could reuse its existing spectrum for superfast broadband, while they had to wait for new spectrum to be auctioned next year.

That threat receded on Tuesday when the industry, the regulator and the government agreed a deal to speed up the auction and availability of new airwaves.

“We are delighted to announce that the official launch of our new customer brand, EE, offering the UK’s first superfast mobile 4G and fibre broadband service, will take place on 30 October,” EE said in a statement.

“This is a significant milestone for the United Kingdom, and for the people and businesses of our country who will now be able to enjoy the huge advantages of superfast 4G technology for the first time.”

EE will launch 4G in 10 cities on Oct. 30, and will cover 16 cities - a third of the UK population - by the end of the year. It will hope to gain an advantage on its rivals with the offer of the iPhone 5, which launched last month and can run on 4G networks.

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PICTURED ABOVE: British seasons category winner: Snow hare portfolio by Jules Cox Photograph: Julian Cox/BWPA

The British wildlife photography awards celebrate the diversity of the natural history of the British Isles and the talents of all photographers practising in the UK.

See a selection of the winning images here.

Queen Elizabeth II and a former Irish Republican Army commander offered each other the hand of peace Wednesday in a long-awaited encounter symbolizing Northern Ireland’s progress in achieving reconciliation after decades of violence.

The monarch and Martin McGuinness met privately inside Belfast’s riverside Lyric Theatre during a cross-community arts event featuring many of Northern Ireland’s top musicians, poets and artists. Media were barred from seeing their first handshake, but the two shook hands again a half-hour later for a TV camera and two photographers.

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PICTURED ABOVE: Alistair Burt.

Bahrain-British friendship hailed as visit is planned

British Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) state minister for the Middle East and Asia Alistair Burt is set to visit Bahrain to hold talks with officials as part of a GCC tour. His Highness Shaikh Nasser bin Hamad Al-Khalifa today held a telephone conversation with Mr. Burt and discussed historic friendship bonding the Kingdom of Bahrain and the UK and means of boosting bilateral relations. 

Shaikh Nasser hailed British stance in support of the reform process initiated by His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa. He lauded British experts for providing Bahrain with their technical knowhow to promote human rights and police work. He reaffirmed Bahrain’s stance welcoming British expertise, stressing friendship between Bahrainis and British people who worked in the Kingdom. Both sides were unanimous regarding the positive efforts exerted by the Kingdom of Bahrain to continue the march of reform.

They cited particularly the landmark initiative of HM King Hamad regarding the establishment of the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI) and the endorsement of its recommendations, in addition to the National Dialogue initiatives towards consolidating Bahrain’s stability. 

The River Thames became a royal highway Sunday, as Queen Elizabeth II led a motley but majestic flotilla of more than 1,000 vessels in a waterborne pageant to mark her Diamond Jubilee.

In a colorful salute to the island nation’s maritime past, an armada of skiffs and sailboats, rowboats and paddle steamers joined a flower-festooned royal barge down a 7-mile (11-kilometer) stretch of London’s river.

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The banker who saved Britain

As the conservation movement marks a significant anniversary, David Randall looks at its pioneer, Charles Rothschild

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Passion for artisan bread puts wind in the sails of Britain’s mills; As hundreds of traditional millers throw open their doors to the public this weekend, their profession is undergoing a renaissance

A growing appetite for artisan bread produced by Britain’s burgeoning army of small independent bakeries has set the wheels turning again in previously defunct windmills that have stood forlorn for decades. Thanks to Britain’s changing appetites, a new generation of millers is struggling to meet the demand for traditional flour. Tens of thousands of Britons will flock to visit mills this weekend, as hundreds – wind- and water-powered – open their doors to the public.

A number are being brought back into working order, such as the Grade II listed Bunbury Watermill in Cheshire, which reopened in March, after being closed for two years. And last year, Melin Talgarth Mill in Wales reopened for the first time in more than 60 years after major renovation. Moulton Windmill, in Lincolnshire, Britain’s tallest windmill at 100ft high, is now in its final stages of restoration, as is Holegate Windmill in York. And today Bardwell Windmill in Suffolk is set to grind corn commercially for the first time in 100 years.

The Traditional Cornmillers Guild, which promotes artisan flour milling, has seen its membership more than double since it was set up in 1987 with 16 mills as members. It now has 35, and the guild claims more are being brought back into production in Britain than anywhere else in the world. Although still a niche market, it is not insignificant, with some 8,000 tonnes of flour a year now being produced in a tradition stretching back more than 1,000 years. There were around 6,000 mills in England listed in the Domesday Book in 1086. By 1931, there were just 200 working mills left. This number fell to below 10 by the 1960s, ironically a time when Camberwick Green’s resident miller, “Windy”, was being watched by millions of children.

But the efforts of enthusiasts helped to stop them disappearing, aided by tens of millions of pounds in Lottery grants in recent years. There are now more than 30 mills that produce enough flour to run as going concerns, along with more than 100 others that can produce flour. Television programmes such as The Big Bread Experiment and The Great British Bake Off have helped sustain interest in locally produced flour, part of the home-baking market now worth more than £500m a year. Jonathan Cook, chairman of the Traditional Cornmillers Guild, said: “The majority of our members, especially those selling to local artisan bakers, have seen a significant renaissance of interest in their products. And as a working miller myself, my turnover is up by about 20 per cent over the past year.”

Mr Cook, who runs Swaffham Windmill in Cambridge, added: It’s indicative of what we are seeing in wider society, which is about people looking for something that links them to something more profound – something with a local identity.”

The trend is set to continue, according to Michael Stoate, who runs Cann Mills in Dorset: “I see no reason why this trend won’t increase and that old redundant mills can be brought back to life and serve their local community once again.”

Nobel Peace Prize laureate and newly elected lawmaker Aung San Suu Kyi will travel outside Myanmar for the first time in 24 years after accepting invitations to visit Norway and Britain in June, her party said on Wednesday.

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British greenhouse gas emissions down 7 percent in 2011

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What is it about Carlisle that makes it Britain’s happiest city?

The city has been named the most contented place in Britain. Residents say the reasons for their happiness go much deeper – it’s all about people

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Britain’s jobs market shows signs of stabilization

In further good news for cash-strapped Britons, inflation dropped sharply in January.

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Bitterns: the endangered birds whose population is booming at last

The foghorn-like call of one of Britain’s most reclusive species is being heard more and more frequently after a concerted effort to restore its wetland habitat.

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Britain’s waterways are about to receive a boost with an announcement next week by Richard Benyon, the Environment Minister, of a new 15-year funding settlement.

It will help secure the financial future of the new Canal & River Trust, a “national trust” for canals and rivers which takes over from British Waterways in April.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has committed to provide a £460m property endowment and £390m of funding for the next 10 years, but next week’s news is likely to include significantly more money. The trust will give local communities a greater role in caring for Britain’s 2,200 miles of waterways.