Would you care to elaborate with what you mean by "media magnet". The Global Report Initiative for example is hardly what I would call a media event. The coverage has actually been pretty low-key with few photos available. The only other big international event that springs to mind if the WEF, but as a foundation board member her attendance is to be expected and possibly even required. It's become a well-respected event in its own right and to refer to it as a "media magnet" is under-estimating it greatly imo.
You're looking at recent events, and then only conferences. I'm looking at the whole range of activities she has done abroad over the last nine years. In New York last year she attended the costume ball – an enormously well-covered event. In California she attended the women's conference that also received big coverage. She routinely goes to gala dinners and events to accept awards. As for the WEF, it can be both a well-respected conference and a media event that draws people not just because of the seriousness of its work but because of the media attention it brings to its participants.
She has and does often carry out multiple events on the same day, usually in Jordan, as was the case fairly recently when she attended 2 different events on the same day. Moreover IMRIC during her trip to China she also carried out a variety of different activities on the same day.
I hardly consider two events in one day a strenuous day. Princess Anne covers four on an almost daily basis, not a few times a week. China was a rare trip when she actually got out there and did something. Her normal pattern when she travels to the U.S. or Europe is to do few engagements.
I guess you've missed her solo trip to Pakistan to visit earthquake victims she was one of the first high profile figures to make such a trip; the King was the first. Bam in Iran to visit the refugees from the earthquake there. She also visited refugee camps in Kosovo, just one day after becoming Queen, this doesn't include a trip she made to Bosnia. As well as undertaking trips to India and South Africa as part of her role as UNICEF Eminent Advocate for Children; neither country is known internationally for being "glamorous".
Her trip to Pakistan is an example of what I mean by going to where the media coverage is. That tragedy dominated the international news and she ensured herself coverage by going in person. I don't recall the trip to Bam. You're right about Kosovo and Bosnia but she hasn't done anything like that since then. If she had kept that up over the last nine years, then I would agree with you wholeheartedly. But she hasn't. Her UNICEF role does get her out a little bit more but here the issue isn't glamour but media. India is quickly becoming an important country on the world stage and South Africa has a strong international profile as well. If she had made trips to the interior of Africa – to countries few have heard of – or even Latin America, then I would agree with your underlying point.
We must have different ideas of what "a while" consitutues as she never seem to have a break of more than a week or so (if that!). It seems that in the average week she will have at least 2 to 3 engagements and that appears to be the norm.
A week is too long for her not to be doing public engagements, and two to three engagements a week is too little when she is working. Princess Anne can do three in one day.
Three? There was a trip to Austria skiing and a private visit to London but I'm not aware of any others. The London trips don't really count (imo) as they are not always for pleasure. There have been private trips in the past where it has later emerged that the Queen did participate in some sort of official duty.
She went to France for week in March, just after Mother's Day in Jordan. A picture from that trip was posted on The Royal Forums. And I do count the trips to London because an overwhelming share of them are personal. She rarely does engagements in London anymore.
In the coming month she has a trip to Brunei, a major conference in Jordan as well as the WEF in the Middle East in Egypt. June sees the Petra Nobel Laureates Conference which is a big event for Jordan.
May tends to be a busy month for the Jordanian royals due to the WEF. This is what I would prefer to see a typical month look like, but only with far more activities in Jordan than outside of it.
Moreover the summer months are a seen as a "holiday" for the vast majority of Royals and politicians alike. Hence the numerous photos of the Spanish Royals in Mallorca or the Danish Royals in Caix. Here in the UK, Parliament has a 76 day holiday during the course of August and September.
Just because Parliament is in recess doesn't mean the politicians aren't working. They will spend that "down time" going to events in their constituencies to make sure voters remember who they are. Other royals do take vacation in the summer but they also keep working like the rest of us mortals. They don't take the whole summer off. Not even Queen Elizabeth II. She might be in Scotland but she must deal with official papers every day.
In past interviews she has actually said that most of her clothes are free from designers or borrowed items (I think that was in reference to evening dress specifically) so the suggestion that she is spending her free time buying clothes would seem to be grossly inaccurate.
I bet you she still does a lot of shopping. And I wonder if her comment isn't a little self serving when it comes to the issue of cost. I'm sure some of her evening gowns are freebies but I'm skeptical about her day clothes.
In conclusion, I respect your opinions about Rania but I must respectfully disagree with them.
P.S. I don't know how to do the individual quotes so I have bolded my comments as they appear within the larger quote.
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