The image of the much troubled building project of the holiday house of the prince of Orange and his wife in Mozambique will be dealt with by professionals. In The Netherlands there has been a lot of commotion about the project on the Machangulo peninsula in Mozambique. There were various claims of corruption, embazzlement, intimidation and violance against locals which already caused the prince to start a foundation that deals with the project.
Click on image to see picture at www.eo.nl
After the criticism of the last weeks the project it has been decided that apart from the Government Information Service (RVD), three other spokesmen will be involved with the information about the project from now on. As newspaper ‘Telegraaf‘ reports, the communications advisor Frans van der Grint of the renowed PR agency Hill & Knowlton, has been appointed as spokesman for the Machangulo Trust Office. The Trust office was created this summer to represent the business interests of the Prince in the Machangulo project. “Given the great interest and the many questions from the media, the Machangulo Trust Office thought it was wise to appoint a new communications adviser” commented Van der Grint.
Apart from the foundation, the building project also hired a PR agent for the project in Mozambique. They are busy in hiring another one in The Netherlands too. The Dutch PR agent will be dealing with the Dutch press. The RVD emphasizes that they will be the only ones talking on behalf of the prince of Orange and his wife.
In the mean time, political magazine HP/De Tijd immidiately criticized the choice for the PR firm Hill & Knowlton. In an article in their online edition they list some remarkable earlier assignments of the firm. In 1954 they placed an advertisement in 400 US newspapers, claiming that smoking is not lethal. The article also lists other examples.
The discussion about the holiday house of the prince and princess has been dragging on since July 2008. The public debate in The Netherlands has turned against the project and one negative article after another appears in the Dutch press. It remains to be seen if these spokesmen can change the present mood among the public and the press.
More about the Machangulo project in this thread at the Dutch forum at TRF.
Marengo Dutch Royals Mozambique, Prince of Orange, Prince Willem-Alexander, Princess Máxima, Residences
The holiday villa of the prince of Orange in Mozambique is causing more problems than expected by the prince and his wife. As newspaper ‘De Volkskrant’ reported on Saturday, many things went wrong with the building project in nature area Machangulo, on a peninsula in Mozambique. The project now turned into such a mess that the Dutch prime minister J.P. Balkenende advised the prince to move his private investments to a ’safe’ foundation.
Click on image to see picture at vandaag.be
The new foundation, called ‘Stichting Administratiekantoor Machangulo’ (foundation administration office Machangulo) is located at Noordeinde Palace in The Hague. New problems around the project are now an issue of the foundation, not of the crown prince. Added to that, before taking any serious steps around this project the prince has to ask approval of the members of the foundation and of the prime minister. According to the Government information service (RVD) this comparable to the procedure that government ministers have to follow to secure their business interests.
The project already saw a lot of setbacks. Project developer Dave Dahlmann all of a sudden vanished into thin air after it became clear he had committed fraud in the past. He did not open separate bank account for the project Machangulo. The millions that were invested by the ‘happy few’ ended up at the bank account of Dahlmann’s 21 year old daughter. It is not clear how much money disappeared and whose money it was. Several investors in the project, among them friends of the prince, didn’t take any risk and immediately sold their share of the project to somebody else. Read more…
Marengo Dutch Royals Mozambique, Prince of Orange, Prince Willem-Alexander, Princess Máxima, Residences
Picture from the TRF avatar gallery
Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai, has spent £45million on a country estate once owned by diamond magnate and colonial adventurer Cecil Rhodes. The mansion is Dalham Hall, which is located near Newmarket in Suffolk and runs across 3,300-acres of land including 39 houses, woods, parklands and woodlands.
Dalham Hall is an 18th century mansion and it’s a grade II-listed house. Sheikh Mohammed already owns the 3,000 acre Dalham Hall stud near Newmarket, Suffolk, where he runs his global blood-stock empire. The mansion was sold at a record price for a British country home.
dazzling UAE Royals England, Residences, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid
The future home of Crown Prince Frederik, Crown Princess Mary and their two children will be open to the public next year, so the public can view the recent renovations which have been taking place since 2004.
Click to see the image at ses.dk
Frederik VIII’s Palace, formerly Brockdorf’s Manor, in Amalienborg will be open to the public from February 28 to May 30. The Palaces and Properties Agency announced the news earlier this week, with BT reporting that not all the rooms will be open. The private rooms of the family will not be available for viewing, only the areas which will be used in the future for public engagements.
Various exterior and interior renovations have had to be undertaken before the family could move in, as the Palace was in serious disrepair at the turn of the new millenium. The last occupant of the Palace was the late Queen Ingrid, who lived in the Palace until her November 2000 death. She and her husband, the late King Frederik IX, moved into the Palace in 1935-36, which was when the last renovations took place. Read more…
JessRulz Danish Royals Frederik VIII's Palace (Amalienborg), Palaces, Prince Frederik, Princess Mary, Renovations, Residences
Old Bulawayo, the last royal residence of King Lobengula, was named as Zimbabwe’s “first cultural theme park” in 2006, but has deteriorated so much in just three years that it prompted Zimbabwean officials to cancel King Mswati III’s planned visit to the site earlier this month.
The site was rebuilt in a manner similar to King Zwelithini’s residence in South Africa in the hopes of attracting tourism to the Zimbabwe, according to an article in The Standard. However, the huts are beginning to cave in, and there is no evidence that Old Bulawayo has been maintained since its opening.
The original plan was that the Ndebele people would live at the site, and maintain their traditional lifestyle and preserve their cultural heritage, including installing a king, while educating the public. The park hasn’t received funding from the government, and the roads leading to the area are in an extremely poor condition.
King Mswati’s visit to the site was cancelled due to the embarrassment of officials about the state of the area. King Lobengula’s descendants are still holding traditional ceremonies at the site, and there have been reports that the grass surrounding the area is now being cut. Small steps are now being taken with the goal of improving Old Bulawayo. It is unclear whether these steps are being taken due to the embarrassment over showing the area to King Mswati, or because of the public’s awareness of the state of the area.
For more information about King Mswati III, and the Kingdom of Swaziland, please visit this thread.
sgl Swazi Royals, Zimbabwean Royals King Lobengula, Mswati III, Official Visit, Old Bulawayo, Residences
It was announced today by the Royal Court that Crown Princess Victoria and her fiancé, Daniel Westling, will settle and raise their future family in the Haga Palace.
The Swedish Government, which previously had the right to use the Palace, made the decision today to return the Palace to King Carl XVI Gustaf for his personal use. The King in turn offered use of the Palace to his eldest daughter, who accepted the generous offer.
No date has been decided for when the pair will move into the Palace.
Haga Palace was built in the early 1800s, commissioned by King Gustav IV Adolf for the use of his family. It was here that the current King, his parents and four elder sisters lived until Prince Gustav Adolf’s untimely death in 1947. Rights to use the Palace were transferred to the Swedish Government in 1966 by King Gustav VI Adolf. Haga Palace lies in the grounds of Haga Park, in the municipality of Solna.
JessRulz Swedish Royals Daniel Westling, Haga Palace, Palaces, Princess Victoria, Residences
Click on the image to see the photo at www.hln.be
According to the French newspaper ‘Nice Matin’ the sale of Villa Leopolda in Villefranche-sur-Mer (France) is unsure. This summer the Russian billionaire Mikhaïl Prokhorov offered the famous Jewish philanthropist Lily Saffra, widow of banker Edmond Safra, 500 million euros for the property on the Cote d’Azur. The credit crunch however made him lower his initial offer to 200 million euros. Prokhorov also tries to get back the 39 million euros that he paid in deposit for the sale. Villa Leopolda was built in 1902 by the Belgian King Leopold II and takes its name after him.
Marengo Belgian Royals Residences
According to the Argentinian press the Dutch crown princely couple bought a farm called ‘Estancia Pilpilcura’ in Pilcaniyeu, Argentina, for the amount of 3,5 million dollars. The rumours are not denied by the RVD. The farm is located in the region Patagonia, and close to Bariloche where the Zorreguieta family enjoy to ski and where princess Máxima’s brother Martin has a restaurant.
The RVD denied that the prince and princess bought another house for the holidays, but added that they do not comment on private investments made by the royal family. According to Argentinian newspaper ‘Rio Negra’ the ‘estancia’ has 1500 acres of land and the area is perfect for fishing and riding horses. They also claim that the house was bought in the name of Martin Zorreguieta, information that has not been verified yet.
Last year the aquisition of another house on the peninsula Machangulo in Mozambique was heavily criticized in the Dutch press, which led to questions about the plans in Parliament, but this time only GPD’s royal blog and boulevard magazine Privé has paid any attention to it thus far.
More information about the farm purchase may be found in this thread.
Marengo Dutch Royals Argentina, Prince of Orange, Prince Willem-Alexander, Princess Máxima, Residences
