Queen celebrates 92nd birthday

Overshadow

Howerver, the summit was overshadowed a little by a row over Britain's treatment of Caribbean immigrants, while Charles himself also came under scrutiny.

A non-white writer, Anita Sethi, claimed he joked about whether she was really from the British city of Manchester when they met at a Commonwealth meeting this week.

Sethi - whose mother was born in Guyana - said Charles asked her where she was from and when she replied, said: "Well, you don't look like it!" and laughed.

She wrote in The Guardian that she felt humiliated and angry, adding that "some people, including the prince, urgently need a history lesson about immigration".

The queen has been the symbolic head of the Commonwealth since her father king George VI's death in 1952, but its leaders agreed on Friday that Prince Charles would eventually succeed her.

As is customary with monarch's birthdays, soldiers from the King's Troop Royal Horse Artillery and the Honourable Artillery Company fired gun salutes in London's Hyde Park and the Tower of London earlier on Saturday.

Reuters - AFP - AP