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LONDON: King Charles III is stripping his disgraced brother Prince Andrew of his remaining titles and evicting him from his royal residence after weeks of pressure to act over Andrew’s relationship with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Buckingham Palace said Thursday that the king has “initiated a formal process to remove the Style, Titles and Honours of Prince Andrew.”
Andrew will be known as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor and not as a prince, and he will move from his Royal Lodge residence into “private accommodation.”

Pressure had been growing on the palace to oust the prince from Royal Lodge after he surrendered his use of the title Duke of York earlier this month over his friendship with Epstein and allegations by one of Epstein’s victims, Virginia Roberts Giuffre.
But the king went even further, stripping him of the title of prince that he has had since birth as a child of a monarch, the late Queen Elizabeth II.
“These censures are deemed necessary, notwithstanding the fact that he continues to deny the allegations against him,” the palace said. “Their Majesties wish to make clear that their thoughts and utmost sympathies have been, and will remain with, the victims and survivors of any and all forms of abuse.”
Andrew faced a new round of public opprobrium after emails emerged earlier this month showing he had remained in contact with Epstein longer than he previously admitted.
That news was followed by publication of a posthumous memoir by Epstein accuser Giuffre, who alleged she had sex with Andrew when she was 17. “Nobody’s Girl” detailed three alleged sexual encounters with Andrew, who she said acted as if he believed “having sex with me was his birthright.”
Andrew, 65, has long denied Giuffre’s claims, but stepped down from royal duties after a disastrous November 2019 BBC interview in which he attempted to rebut her allegations.
Andrew paid millions in an out-of-court settlement in 2022 after Giuffre filed a civil suit against him in New York. While he didn’t admit wrongdoing, he acknowledged Giuffre’s suffering as a victim of sex trafficking.
Giuffre died by suicide in April at the age of 41.

NEW DELHI: The US has granted India a six-month sanctions waiver to operate the Iranian port of Chabahar, India said on Thursday, boosting New Delhi’s effort to enhance trade with Afghanistan and Central Asian countries bypassing its rival Pakistan.

India signed a 10-year contract with Iran last year to develop and operate the port and this month stepped up its ties with Taliban-run Afghanistan by reopening its embassy in Kabul that was shut after the Afghan group seized power in 2021 following the withdrawal of US-led NATO forces.

The port on Iran’s southeastern Gulf of Oman coast was initially planned with a rail link to Afghanistan for building the landlocked country’s economy through trade and reducing Kabul’s dependence on the Pakistani port of Karachi.

The waiver move followed word by US President Donald Trump this week that he wanted to reach a trade deal with India — signalling a thaw in relations that soured to their lowest point in decades after he doubled tariffs on Indian imports to 50 percent as punishment for Indian purchases of Russian oil.

Indian refiners are now cutting Russian oil imports following Washington’s imposition last week of sanctions on Moscow’s top two crude exporters, Rosneft and Lukoil.

“I can confirm that we have been granted an exemption for a six-month period,” Indian foreign ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal told a weekly news briefing, referring to the port.

He also said India was continuing talks with the Trump administration on a bilateral trade deal.

Washington had last month revoked the sanctions waiver for Chabahar, initially granted in 2018, as part of its effort to put “maximum pressure” on Iran to counter what it called the Islamic Republic’s destabilizing activities in support of its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

An Indian official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the US sanctions waiver had taken effect on Wednesday.

The US embassy in New Delhi did not immediately respond to a request for comment.