At Friday’s Royal wedding in London, two of the invitees will be far less in awe of the happy couple than most of the 1900 other guests attending the auspicious event.

Hashmukh (Hash) and Chandrika (Chan) Shingadia have been on first name terms with the bride, Catherine (or Kate) for the past six years, and the groom, Prince William, has also been a familiar face gliding down the aisle of their Peaches grocery shop, picking up bread, milk, ham and orange juice.

“He’s lovely, very, very polite and has a lovely sense of humour”, Kenya-born Hashmukh says of the future King of England.

In an exclusive interview, he told the Tribune, "William has been here five or six times. The very first time we met him, we didn’t recognise him. Catherine was doing the shopping and he took the basket and followed. When they came to the counter to pay, Catherine said, 'Can I introduce William to you?' Then she told him, 'This is Hash and his wife Chan' and we shook hands with him. We spoke to him for a few seconds and he asked us how was business and how were the children.”

"After that they came back two or three times together and he's been here on his own," says Hashmukh, who, along with his wife Chan, visited the London residence of the British royal family last year. Hash, who has lived in the UK since 1971, recalls, “The next time William came in, we told him how we'd been to his grandmother's house and he replied, 'You should have told me you were going - I could have shown you around.” “I asked him about his brother and how they get on and he says, 'Just like brothers. We fight and then make up. I asked about his father, Prince Charles, and he said he's doing very well." Although the Shingadias are hugely impressed by William, they are just as enamoured of Kate. "She's very, very nice, always polite and approachable, always smiling when she comes in," Hash says of the future Queen. "She's become great friends with my wife.”

"When their engagement was announced, my wife sent her a bouquet of flowers with a card. Four or five days later she came and showed my wife her ring, Diana's ring, and my wife said, 'Can I touch it ?' and she said, 'Of course,” says Hash.

The affection shown by Kate motivated Chan to make a special trip to India to buy a sari for the all- important royal wedding day. Hash is wearing more predictable attire - a morning suit with tails. Given their connection to William and Kate, it is unlikely that the Singhadias will be able to evade media attention, now or in the months to come.

Washington, April 28
In a major restructuring of President Barack Obama’s national security team, CIA Director Leon Panetta will move to Pentagon to become new US Defence Secretary to replace Robert Gates while his top military commander in Afghanistan Gen David Petraeus is to takeover as the new CIA Director. Obama will also have a US team in the war zone of Afghanistan.

General John Allen, currently the Deputy Commander for CENTCOM, would be his new Commander in this war-torn country, while Ryan Crocker, a top US diplomat, is being sent as the next US Ambassador to Afghanistan.

“Given that the drawdown of troops from Afghanistan is scheduled to begin in July and Senate confirmation takes time, the new team is expected to be occupying their respective positions in phases till September, so as to ensure a seamless transition,” a senior Obama administration official said.

It is the culmination of a multi-month careful process by the President, the official said, adding with this, he has put in place a set of nominees who will provide the strongest possible team to execute America’s strategies and policies. — PTI

Marrakesh (Morocco), April 28
A powerful blast ripped through a cafe in the Moroccan city of Marrakesh today, killing 11 foreigners and three Moroccans in what authorities suspect was the work of a suicide bomber. "According to the information I have, it could have been perpetrated by a suicide bomber," an official in the regional governor's office said. "We found nails in one of the bodies," added the official, who was in a hospital where some of the bodies were taken.

And an interior ministry official said indications pointed to a terror attack on the Argona cafe in the main square of Marrakesh, a favourite haunt of foreign tourists. But there were contradictory reports on exactly how the blast occurred.

One witness who was inside the cafe but escaped unscathed said: "An individual entered, ordered an orange juice and a few minutes later blew himself up." But another witness, quoted by several Moroccan radio stations, said the bomber dropped a suitcase and immediately walked out of the cafe.

Latifa Idrissi, whose husband Yassine Bouzidi, 28, was one of the victims, said the blast occurred on the cafe's terrace and badly injured the manager. — PTI

Islamabad, April 28
Leading rights activist Ansar Burney today claimed that he had traced an Indian prisoner of war captured during the 1971 war in a jail in Pakistan. Burney said the Indian prisoner, Surjit Singh, was arrested in 1971 and his family had been searching for him since then. Surjit Singh had completed his jail term in December last year, he said.

“Earlier, Surjit Singh was sentenced to death but his sentence was later converted into life imprisonment,” said Burney, a former federal minister for human rights. Burney said he had sent petitions to President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani to release and repatriate Singh to India on humanitarian grounds.

Indian organisations have said that 54 Indian prisoners of war captured during the 1971 conflict are believed to be in Pakistani prisons. Pakistani authorities claim they have been unable to trace any of these prisoners. — PTI