BRITAIN: Britain's Queen Elizabeth led tributes to Britain's war dead yesterday, including the 21 service personnel who have lost their lives in Iraq this year.
Other senior royals, political leaders, headed by Prime Minister Tony Blair, and some 9,000 veterans from 20th-century conflicts attended the annual commemoration.
Prince William, with Sophie, Countess of Wessex, watched the wreath-laying and march pass from a first-floor balcony in the Foreign Office overlooking London's Whitehall.
His father, the Prince of Wales, who was 56 yesterday, laid a poppy wreath, along with the Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh, the Duke of York, the Princess Royal and the Duke of Kent.
In central London, at the first stroke of Big Ben at 11 a.m., a single round fired from a field gun signalled the start of a two-minute silence.
Just before 11 o'clock, the Queen, in black, emerged from the old Home Office building on Whitehall and took up her position facing the Cenotaph.
Behind her senior members of the royal family, in military uniform, stood to attention.