标签： Oceania

In a high-stakes legal ruling that caps months of dramatic courtroom proceedings, the United Kingdom’s High Court has ordered Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, and six other high-profile co-claimants to hand over an initial £9.5 million ($13 million) in interim legal costs to Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL), publisher of the tabloid *Daily Mail*, following their defeat in a high-profile privacy and unlawful information gathering lawsuit. The payment deadline is set for 4 p.m. GMT on August 28, just seven days after the Friday ruling.

The lawsuit, which stretched over an 11-week emotional trial that included in-person testimony from Prince Harry, pitted the seven claimants — which also include music legend Elton John, John’s husband David Furnish, actors Elizabeth Hurley and Sadie Frost, and former Member of Parliament Simon Hughes — against ANL. The group accused the tabloid publisher of orchestrating widespread privacy violations, including planting bugging devices in the claimants’ homes and vehicles, intercepting private calls, and using other unlawful techniques to obtain personal information. ANL has consistently and vehemently denied every allegation brought forward in the case.

On July 7, High Court Judge Matthew Nicklin issued a core ruling siding entirely with ANL, finding that the claimants had failed to produce sufficient evidence to back up their formal legal claims. This new Friday order follows a two-day additional hearing focused solely on who would bear the massive legal costs generated by the case. In his latest ruling, Nicklin repeated harsh criticism of the claimants’ case, describing it as “speculative and substantially inferential.”

Notably, ANL has estimated its total total defense costs reached roughly £34.5 million as of July 9, but Nicklin flagged the figure as excessive and largely unsupported by documentation. He raised “real concerns” over whether all the costs claimed by ANL were actually reasonably incurred, and stressed that the court has not yet ruled on the final total amount the claimants will ultimately be required to pay. The final determination of unpaid costs will be handled by a dedicated costs judge if the two sides cannot reach a negotiated agreement.

In a key decision that increases the financial liability for the claimants, Nicklin rejected their request to assess costs on the standard basis, instead granting ANL’s request for the stricter indemnity basis of cost recovery. The ruling explained that the way the litigation was conducted pushed it “well outside the norm,” citing the extreme gravity of the allegations against ANL as one of the core factors justifying the decision. Court filings previously showed that the claimants’ combined insurance coverage for costs totals £16.2 million, creating a substantial gap between that coverage and ANL’s claimed total costs, meaning the seven claimants could face significant out-of-pocket expenses beyond their insurance.

The court also set a formal timeline for any potential appeal: claimants must file requests for permission to appeal the July 7 ruling by October 2. This development comes less than 48 hours after breaking news that Prince Harry and his wife Meghan Markle plan to relocate their family back to the UK from their current home in Montecito, California, in the coming weeks.

Reaction to Friday’s ruling split sharply along the lines of the original case. After the July ruling, Prince Harry and anti-racism campaigner Doreen Lawrence (another co-claimant) called the outcome “a complete and obvious whitewash.” Following the new cost order, an ANL spokesperson framed the decision as “another overwhelming victory for the Mail and its journalism,” adding that the judge’s ruling amounted to “a devastating critique of an attempt to destroy a newspaper and the reputations of its journalists, editors and executives.” For his part, Simon Hughes said he was “disappointed and surprised” that the judge had not capped the amount of costs ANL can recover from the claimants.

The race to succeed António Guterres as United Nations Secretary-General entered a new phase Friday, as the 15-member UN Security Council gathered for a second informal straw poll to measure support for the expanding field of candidates. Guterres’ second five-year term is set to conclude on December 31, 2026, kicking off a months-long selection process that is being shaped heavily by the power of the Security Council’s five permanent veto-wielding members.

Last month’s first closed-door, secret ballot informal poll placed Costa Rica’s Rebeca Grynspan as the early front-runner among the existing field of contenders. The full roster of candidates already includes Rafael Grossi of Argentina, the current head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, former Chilean president Michelle Bachelet, Maria Fernanda Espinosa of Ecuador, Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett of Guyana, Olara Otunnu of Uganda, and former Senegalese president Macky Sall. Since the first straw poll, Ecuador’s Ivonne A-Baki has also entered the race, expanding the pool of hopefuls vying for the UN’s top leadership role.

Following Friday’s vote, Christina Lassen, Denmark’s UN ambassador and the current holder of the Security Council’s rotating presidency, confirmed that candidates would receive results through their nominating countries’ permanent representatives to the UN, and offered no further public comment on the internal proceedings. Lassen also noted that the council is still weighing when to schedule the next informal survey of support. Zenon Ngay Mukongo, ambassador from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a sitting Security Council member, echoed the widespread uncertainty, telling reporters that “it’s too early to have a consensus” on a leading contender.

The opaque selection process has long drawn criticism from member states that argue it lacks transparency, but the informal straw poll system has remained in place since its creation in the early 1980s, when it was introduced to break a selection deadlocked by multiple vetoes. Under the process rules, each Security Council member votes anonymously, labeling every candidate as either “encourage,” “discourage,” or “no opinion.” Analysts say the results often give low-support candidates clear signal to exit the race voluntarily, though no rule requires them to withdraw. Daniel Forti, an expert with the International Crisis Group, noted ahead of Friday’s vote that “there is a good chance that some nominees realize after (Friday’s) vote that their campaigns have reached the end of the road.”

Unlike in later rounds of voting, all ballots in the early polls share the same color, meaning that the veto power of permanent members (P5) — China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States — is not made visible in these early stages. After several rounds of polling, P5 ballots will switch to a different color, allowing delegates to identify if a candidate faces a veto from one or more permanent members, without revealing which specific power rejected the candidate. Even if a candidate hits the required threshold of nine out of 15 Security Council votes, they still need to avoid a veto from any of the five permanent powers, which are currently deeply divided on a range of global issues that could shape the selection.

Many diplomats have declined to predict a final outcome, citing the outsized influence of the P5 powers. Ahead of the vote, Forti noted that the five veto-wielding nations may hold off on announcing their preferences until later in the process, leaving the door open for additional candidates to join the race. Russia’s UN ambassador Vassily Nebenzia confirmed that possibility Thursday, telling reporters that if the current field deadlocks with no candidate emerging as a clear favorite, “we may see other candidates as well.”

Once a candidate successfully passes the Security Council’s voting and veto requirements, their nomination is sent to the full UN General Assembly for final confirmation. Longstanding UN tradition holds that the secretary-general role rotates between geographic regions, and under that norm, the 2026 selection should produce a leader from Latin America — a region that already accounts for most of the current candidates, though two hopefuls, Sall and Otunnu, hail from Africa.

In a landmark legal development that caps a high-profile privacy battle against one of Britain’s biggest tabloid publishers, the UK High Court has ordered Prince Harry and six other high-profile claimants to hand over an interim payment of £9.5 million ($13 million) to Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL), the publisher of the Daily Mail. The ruling came Friday, weeks after the court dismissed the group’s claims of unlawful information gathering and privacy violations.

The group of claimants, which includes music icon Elton John, his husband David Furnish, and well-known actors Elizabeth Hurley and Sadie Frost, brought forward serious allegations against ANL. They accused the tabloid publisher of orchestrating invasive privacy breaches, including bugging their private vehicles and homes, intercepting confidential phone calls, and gaining unauthorized access to sensitive personal data including bank statements and private medical records. ANL has repeatedly and firmly denied every single one of the allegations put forward by the claimants.

After an 11-week trial that dominated headlines and featured emotional testimony from Prince Harry, Justice Matthew Nicklin released his core ruling on July 7, siding entirely with the publisher. In that decision, Nicklin concluded that the claimants had failed to meet the legal standard to prove their pleaded allegations against ANL. Friday’s ruling addressed the contentious issue of trial costs, following a two-hour additional hearing focused on how much the losing claimants would be required to pay.

A formal summary published by the court confirmed that the interim payment of £9,544,355 must be completed by 4:00 pm BST (1500 GMT) on August 28. Court documents noted that ANL has claimed its total legal costs for defending the case reached approximately £34.5 million as of July 9, a figure Justice Nicklin described as “exceptionally high” and “unprecedented.” The judge also acknowledged that the requested £34.5 million total appeared excessive, raising legitimate concerns over whether all of the costs claimed by ANL were reasonably incurred as part of the defense.

Notably, Friday’s ruling does not set the final total amount of costs that the seven claimants will ultimately be required to pay. The court’s ruling clarified that the current hearing only addressed the framework for assessing costs, not the final recoverable amount. If the two sides cannot reach an agreement on the final total, the question will be decided separately by a specialized costs judge at a later date.

In a key decision that increases the financial liability for Prince Harry and the other claimants, Justice Nicklin rejected their request to assess costs on the more lenient standard basis. Instead, he granted ANL’s request for costs to be repaid on the stricter indemnity basis, a ruling that will significantly increase the share of total defense costs the seven claimants are legally required to cover.

The court also established a clear timeline for any potential next steps in the legal battle: claimants must file any request for permission to appeal the July 7 core ruling by October 2. Following the judge’s July decision dismissing their claims, Prince Harry and co-claimant Doreen Lawrence, a prominent anti-racism campaigner, released a joint statement calling the ruling “a complete and obvious whitewash.”

Six years after stepping down as working members of the British royal family and triggering a national media firestorm, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s reported plan to relocate back to the United Kingdom has thrown a new spotlight on the significant challenges waiting for the Duchess of Sussex.

Meghan, a 45-year-old former American actress who captured global attention with her 2018 fairytale wedding to King Charles III’s younger son, has never shied away from detailing the immense struggles she faced during her time as a working royal. Through high-profile explosive interviews and a tell-all Netflix documentary, she and Harry have repeatedly called out the hostile treatment she received from the British tabloid press — treatment Harry told a UK court earlier this year turned her life into “an absolute misery”.

While Harry has maintained strong ties to the UK, driven by his long-standing charitable commitments and his desire for his two young children to build connections with their British royal relatives, Meghan’s path back to British public life is far more complicated. After years based in the sunny, laid-back lifestyle of Montecito, California, where the couple built their post-royal life, experts say Meghan’s readjustment to UK life poses far more open questions than Harry’s.

“There’s more questions sort of over her and how she re-adapts to the life back in the United Kingdom than about Harry,” said royal historian Ed Owens. Owens added that predicting how she will navigate the transition remains unclear, as “she’s tried successively over the last six years to reinvent her public image to relaunch her brand” with mixed results.

Reports of the planned return first emerged from Australian news outlet news.com.au, and a spokesperson for the couple did not issue a denial when contacted by Agence France-Presse. Multiple sources indicate the move is partially tied to an acting role Meghan has been offered for a UK-based production, marking a potential return to her pre-royal career for the former star of hit US legal drama *Suits*. For Meghan, who saw her US-based career prospects stall after her lifestyle and cooking show *With Love, Meghan* was dropped by Netflix following the end of their content deal, the UK role could open a new professional chapter. Talent manager Jonathan Shalit, chairman of the InterTalent Rights Group, told the Press Association that if Meghan was serious about returning to acting full-time, industry leaders would be eager to meet her.

For the couple’s family, the transition appears to already be underway: their two children, seven-year-old Archie and five-year-old Lilibet, have already been enrolled in a British school, and the pair have reportedly selected a new permanent residence in the country. Experts widely expect Meghan will prioritize family life in her return, noting she has previously spoken publicly about finding joy in routine parenting moments like the daily school run.

Despite any personal or professional opportunities the move may bring, Meghan continues to face deep public unpopularity in the UK that complicates her return. A YouGov public opinion poll released in late July found that 65 percent of British adults hold an unfavorable view of the duchess. Her lifestyle and food brand As Ever remains a regular target of mockery in the British tabloid press, which initially framed her 2018 entry into the royal family as a breath of fresh air for the centuries-old institution before quickly turning on her, portraying her as demanding and unwilling to accept the strict constraints of royal life.

In her 2022 Netflix docuseries, Meghan summed up the hostility she said she faced, saying: “Truth be told, no matter how hard I tried, no matter how good I was, no matter what I did, they were still going to find a way to destroy me.”

Since the couple left the UK in 2018, Meghan has made only rare return visits: most notably for Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee in June 2022 and the late monarch’s state funeral later that same year. A short, private holiday last month that saw the couple meet with King Charles and Queen Camilla was widely interpreted as a sign that icy family relations may be starting to thaw. But Nathalie Weidhase, a media studies specialist at the University of Surrey, warned that Meghan’s permanent return risks reigniting long-simmering conflicts that first pushed the couple to leave, including explosive accusations of institutional racism within the royal household.

Tensions remain raw from Harry’s 2023 memoir *Spare*, in which he accused his older brother Prince William and sister-in-law Catherine, Princess of Wales, of being unwelcoming to Meghan and undermining her attempts to integrate into the family. In a 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey, Meghan also alleged that an unnamed senior royal had raised repeated questions about the skin color of her unborn child before Archie’s birth.

Still, Owens argues that the couple’s return is not motivated by a desire to restart public conflict with the working royal family. “They are not coming back for another fight with the wider royal family, that’s not their purpose here,” he said. “They want stability for their family … stability for their children.”