My1sttoday News — Countries lowered their flags to pay tribute to Queen Elizabeth II. Britain’s longest-reigning monarch.
The British government said yesterday all official flags, which include Union Flags and any national flag, are to be ‘half-masted on all UK government buildings as soon as possible’. They will fly like this from now until 8am on the morning after Her Majesty’s funeral.
Any non-official flags – for example the rainbow flag or Armed Forces flag – should be taken down and replaced with a Union Flag flying at half mast, guidance from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport says.
The Union flag on Buckingham Palace is at half mast today, while a framed plaque announcing the 96-year-old’s death was placed on the front gates by royal household staff.
Similarly, flags at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh were lowered to half-mast, along with those at the Scottish Parliament and at Scottish Government buildings.
American flags at the White House and throughout the US at are half-mast after Joe Biden paid tribute, saying the Queen ‘defined an era’.
Along with First Lady Jill Biden, the US leader described her as ‘more than a monarch’.
The president signed a proclamation for flags to be flown at half-mast ‘upon all public buildings and grounds, at all military posts and naval stations… throughout the United States and its Territories and possessions until sunset, on the day of internment’.
Meanwhile, pictures from Commonwealth countries that shared the Queen as Sovereign and Head of State also showed flags at half-mast.
New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told reporters she was awoken in the early hours of the morning by a police officer shining a torch into her bedroom to tell her the news of the Queen’s death.
She said the Queen was an extraordinary woman who she would remember for her laughter.
‘The last days of the Queen’s life captures who she was in so many ways – working until the very end on behalf of the people she loved’, Ms Ardern added.
French President Emmanuel Macron hailed the queen’s ‘immutable moral authority’, her intimate knowledge of and the stability she brought ‘across the fluctuations and upheavals of politics, a permanence with the scent of eternity’.
Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness, who announced this year the British commonwealth intended to become fully independent, said: ‘We are saddened that we will not see her light again, but we will remember her historic reign.’
Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said the Queen was ‘the very heart and soul of the United Kingdom’ and that her passing was greatly mourned by everyone in the city-state.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro decreed three days of mourning and tweeted that she ‘wasn’t the queen for the British only; she was a queen for all of us’.
The United Arab Emirates announced that the flags in the public and private sectors and in the country’s embassies abroad will fly at half-mast, starting today, Friday, for a period of three days. Mourning the death of Queen Elizabeth II, according to the Emirates News Agency, WAM.
The presidential office in the UAE said that the flags will fly at half-mast for three days, ending next Monday, September 12.
The Court expressed its deepest condolences to King Charles III, the royal family, and the British people on the death of Queen Elizabeth II.
The King of Bahrain, Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, issued an order to fly the flags at half-mast in the Kingdom of Bahrain for a period of three days to mourn the death of Queen Elizabeth II.
The announcement of this decision came in a news item published by the Bahrain News Agency “Banna”, in which it stated that King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa expressed his sincere condolences to the new British King Charles III on the death of Queen Elizabeth II.
His Highness Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, Emir of the State of Qatar, mourned with great sadness Queen Elizabeth II, expressing his deepest condolences to His Majesty King Charles III of the United Kingdom, the Royal Family, the Government of the United Kingdom and its friendly people on the great late.
His Highness Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, the Emir of the country, ordered the flags to be flown at half-mast in the country for a period of three days.
The Kuwait Municipality announced that the state flag for the death of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II will fly at half-mast for a period of three days.
She explained that based on the Emiri Diwan’s decision and the directives of His Highness the Prime Minister Sheikh Ahmad Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, it was decided to fly at half-mast for a period of three days, with the mourning ending next Monday, September 12.
