29.4.11

Royal wedding: Irish theme for William and Kate’s special day

Today's Royal wedding will have a distinctly Irish feel. Prince William will be married in red — wearing the famous tunic of an Irish Guards officer rather than his RAF uniform.

He holds the honorary rank of Colonel of the Irish Guards and will honour the regiment by walking down the aisle with his bride in the dashing scarlet uniform.

He will also be wearing his Garter sash and star, Royal Air Force ‘wings’ and Golden Jubilee medal.

The decision is unexpected as the Prince is a Flight Lieutenant in the RAF working as a search and rescue helicopter pilot, and could have worn the uniform of the Air Force. The last major Royal wedding to feature a groom marrying in red was Captain Mark Phillips, at the time an officer with the 1st Queen's Dragoon Guards who married the Princess Royal in 1973.

The Irish Guards — one of only five regiments charged with securing Royal residences — will be heavily involved in today’s ceremony.

Their soldiers will be running the Queen’s Guard within the palace and will be part of the mounted guard prior to Catherine leaving Buckingham Palace.

Sergeant Glen Stevenson, who is from Northern Ireland and recently returned from Afghanistan, said it was an “unbelievable honour” for the Guards to be involved in the pageantry of the occasion.

“We have inspected the kit numerous times to make sure everything is 100% and the way we need it to be so we stand out on Buckingham Palace forecourt when the service is going on,” he added. Meanwhile, David Rodgers from Maghera has been hand-picked to play his bagpipes at the Royal event. The soldier served with the Irish Guards in Bosnia and Kosovo and spent six months in Iraq in 2010.

The Colour Sergeant will play to hundreds of guests and the Prince and his new bride as they make their way to the reception following the service at Westminster Abbey. David had to submit a list of music to be approved by Prince William.

William will travel to Westminster Abbey with his brother and best man wearing an Irish Guards mounted officer's uniform in guard of honour order and with a forage cap.

The Prince will wear a gold and crimson sash, and gold sword slings — both worn in the presence of a member of the Royal family — but he will not carry a sword.

The tunic, in Guards' red, features the regiment's distinctive arrangement of buttons in groups of four.

They feature the Harp of Ireland surmounted by the Crown Imperial and the arrangement of buttons on the uniform denotes the Irish Guards' position in the Order of Battle as the fourth regiment out of the five Foot Guards regiments — Grenadier, Coldstream, Scots, Irish and Welsh.

The insignia of the Irish Guards on the forage cap is the eight-pointed Star of the Most Illustrious Order of St Patrick, and features the Regiment's motto Quis Separabit? — ‘Who shall separate us?’

The uniform was fitted by Kashket and Partners — military and civilian tailors who hold a royal warrant from the Queen.

The Irish Guards are based in Victoria Barracks, Windsor. The battalion is made up of five companies with a variety of supporting arms and is currently on operational deployment in Helmand province, Afghanistan. The Irish Guards recruit in Northern Ireland and across the rest of of the UK. The regiment was formed on April 1, 1900 by order of Queen Victoria to commemorate the Irish people who fought in the Boer War for the British Empire.

22.4.11

One Month until Cascais and start of the 2011 Audi MedCup Circuit


With one month left until the first start guns fire to open an exciting 2011 Audi MedCup Circuit, the Circuit organizers and the race teams are finalizing preparations to unfold the seventh successive year of Circuit racing, one which will see regattas returning successively to Cascais, Marseille, Cagliari, Cartagena and with the season’s finale in Barcelona.

As did the Portuguese jewel last season, Cascais by Lisbon starts the season with the Trophy of Portugal running from May 16th - 22nd. The Circuit then returns to Marseille for the fourth year in a row (June 14-19th), to the historic capital city of Sardinia Cagliari (July 19th to 24th) to Murcia where the ever-popular Cartagena hosts the Region of Murcia Trophy (August 23rd to 28th) while the Catalan capital of Barcelona, which proved such an all-encompassing venue when the Audi MedCup Circuit visited for the first time in 2010, will host the finale between September 12th and 17th.

The winning formula has changed little for this season. Each city hosts an individual stand-alone Trophy regatta, but it is the aggregate points over the entire season, for the 52 Series and the S40 Series which will determine the overall champions.

“Returning to venues that are known to us is an advantage for everyone in terms of continuity. And the cities keep building and improving on their past years’ formula. And for the organisaton and the race crews that streamlines and improves the logistics. We have also accumulated good data on weather reliability, which makes providing high quality race management and equable racing more straightforward”, says Ignacio Triay, Director of the Audi MedCup Circuit.

12.4.11

Porto Cervo to host the 2011 Audi TP52 World Championsh​ip

The 2011 Audi TP52 World Championships will be hosted by the Yacht Club Costa Smeralda on the famous waters of Sardinia's Porto Cervo. 


The world renowned waters of Sardinia’s Porto Cervo will be the venue for the 2011 Audi TP52 World Championships as the Yacht Club Costa Smeralda (YCCS) hosts to the regatta from the 2nd to the 8th of October

The last time that the TP52 World Championships were hosted on these waters was the 2007 edition, won by Sweden’s Torbjorn Tornqvist 's Artemis.

Once again the event is expected to attract a high level of sailors including the defending champions Quantum Racing (USA) who won the title in Valencia last year. And for the Audi Azzurra Sailing Team, the crew which together won the 2009 world title in Palma ahead of Quantum Racing, will be racing on home waters under the flag of the host club.

The racing will comprise five days of windward-leeward racing including one coastal race.

Nacho Postigo, Technical Director of the Audi MedCup Circuit, says “this year the worlds will take place at Azzurra's home club and those guys know those waters very well. But I think that we have seen in recent years that the result will stay open till the very end. And the difference with the worlds is that we start from zero, the Audi MedCup will be just finished. As Americans say, it will be a “one shot” week, winner takes the title. In my opinion anything’s possible”.

11.4.11

Ramp up pressure to save Africa's oldest national park


Good news! The Congolese government says it won't allow British oil companies to explore Africa's oldest national park, and home to almost a quarter of the Earth’s last remaining mountain gorillas.

The more then 26,000 signatures in our petition were crucial for this win. Thank you to all of you who participated!

However, we can't relax just yet because the decision to protect Virungu National Park isn't final. We need to keep the pressure on to make it final!
European tar sands blowing in the wind

You also helped us influence decisions in another part of the world. An equally big thank you to everyone who signed our petition calling on the European Union (EU) to keep tar sands out of Europe.

We handed over the petition to EU political representatives last month in Brussels, Belgium and got some promising feedback. As part of this directive, Europe has the power to say tar sands are unacceptable to its, and the world's, citizens. During the next few months The EU will vote on a law, known as the Fuel Quality Directive.

Linda McAvan MEP, who sits on the Parliament's Environment Committee, said the petition reinforced their resolve to clean up Europe's transport fuels.

We'll keep up you posted and hope for a successful outcome.

One of our climate witness leaders Mr Katsuo Sasaki passed away on 11 March 2011 during the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. Mr Katsuo had a great passion for the environment and showed fantastic leadership in organic rice farming. We are all deeply saddened by this loss and send out our sincerest sympathy to Mr Sasaki's family at this most difficult time.

On a more heartening note - all of our staff in the Tokyo office are doing well, and were unharmed during the earthquake and tsunami. Understandably, it's been a tough time for everyone, but our team on the ground is working hard to do their part in helping the people of Japan through this humanitarian and environmental tragedy.

Did you know that your search engine can help the environment? Just swap your old search engine for Ecosia, and every time you click on a sponsored link you help raise money for the Amazon


Thank you,
Trina Tune