In a significant moment for Norway, the Royal Family has introduced the official portrait of their new King as the nation grieves the loss of cherished monarch, King Harald.

The newly ascended King, previously known as Crown Prince, has been captured in his regal attire at 53, now formally recognized as His Majesty King Haakon VIII.

Accompanied by the heartfelt caption ‘All for Norway,’ the royal portrait was shared through the family’s social media channels.

King Haakon steps into his new position following the passing of his father, who was King Charles III’s cousin, after the former king passed away at 89 following a short hospital stay.

As the oldest reigning monarch in Europe after Queen Elizabeth II’s death in 2022, King Harald’s reign began on January 17, 1991, marking the end of an era with his passing.

Harald was being treated at Oslo University Hospital for haemolytic anaemia, a disorder which causes red blood cells to be destroyed at an abnormally fast rate. 

But the palace said his health had ‘deteriorated’ after he contracted an infection, with members of the Norwegian Royal Family rushing to his bedside on Thursday.

‘It is with deep grief that we announce that His Majesty King Harald has passed away,’ Norway’s Royal Court said in a statement.

‘King Harald died peacefully at Oslo University Hospital Rikshospitalet Friday, August 28 at 6.35am.’

Haakon becomes King during a turbulent time for the Norwegian royals, with scandal involving his wife Crown Princess Mette-Marit’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein.

One email released suggested she was still in contact with the late paedophile financier just months before his death.

Mette-Marit, 53, who was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis in 2018, later issued a grovelling apology in which she claimed the emails ‘do not represent the person who I want to be’.

However, King Harald defended her during a public appearance that month in which he insisted: ‘We must remember that the Crown Princess has not done anything illegal.

‘Unlike some others in Norway, she broke the connection very early. So I think we should give her credit for that.’

And in March, Haakon – then Crown Prince – told NRK: ‘I think it’s meaningful to reflect on the foundation the Crown Princess and I have built.

‘We stand on something strong. We’ve been together for over 25 years, and we’ve built it in a way that keeps us united. When you marry, it’s for better and for worse.

‘On the good days, everything feels easy. But it’s during the difficult times, when you have to weather the storm, that a strong foundation matters most.

‘This is our project; we’re in it together. And Mette is caring, wise, and very strong. That’s why I always want her on my team when challenges arise.’ 

As translated by HOLA! Mette-Marit added: ‘I have enormous respect for them and their work, which is why it was important for me to apologize,” she said. “They are the most wonderful in-laws and have supported me greatly throughout this process. I’m very grateful.’ 

Fresh scandal also came in June when Mette-Marit’s son, Marius Borg Høiby, was convicted on two couts of rape and jailed for four years following a six-week trial that laid bare allegations of violence, drug abuse and sexual misconduct.

An Oslo court also found him guilty of assaulting his former girlfriend, Nora Haukland, issuing threats and committing traffic offences, although he was acquitted of two other rape charges.

The 29-year-old had been charged with sexually assaulting four women who were asleep or otherwise unable to resist between 2018 and 2024.

The conviction marked a fall for Høiby, who grew up in the public eye after his mother married Crown Prince Haakon in 2001 when he was just four years old.

Although he does not hold a royal title or carry out official duties, he has long been closely associated with the Norwegian royal family.

On Friday, King Charles said he has extended his ‘deepest and most heartfelt condolences’ to the Norwegian royal family following the death of his ‘dear cousin’. 

The pair were second cousins once removed, sharing great-great-grandparents Edward VII and Alexandra of Denmark. 

‘As Norway mourns the loss of so towering a figure, my whole family join in remembering a much-loved kinsman and friend whose kindness, compassion and deep sense of duty echoed from across the sea and across the decades,’ King Charles III said.

‘The Queen and I extend our deepest and most heartfelt condolences to Queen Sonja and all her family, as Britain shares in Norway’s grief at this time of such heartbreaking loss.’ 

Born on February 21, 1937, Harald was the third child and only son of King Olav V of Norway and Princess Martha of Sweden.

He is a great-grandson of Edward VII and his godparents included Queen Mary and her son George VI (grandmother and father respectively of the late Queen Elizabeth).

His early life was marked by the vicissitudes of the Second World War. In April 1940, when Harald was just three, Nazi Germany invaded Norway.

Harald and his two older sisters, Ragnhild and Astrid, were swept up by their mother and taken first to Sweden.

Whilst Harald’s father and grandfather – the reigning King Haakon VII – held out in Norway as their heroic countrymen battled the German invasion, they too finally fled in June and headed to London with the Norwegian government-in-exile.

In August that year, Harald and his mother and sisters then went to the United States, where they spent the rest of the war, living in Washington.

Then Crown Prince Olav and King Haakon – whose wife Queen Maud (sister of George V) had died in 1938 – were initially guests at Buckingham Palace.

A young Princess Elizabeth at one point found them ‘both snoring away’ on the floor of the royal air raid shelter.

‘Though we love having them,’ she told her grandmother ‘it is rather a bore never to be alone’.

In June 1945, Prince Harald – now aged seven – returned with his family to Norway, after Nazi Germany’s defeat in the war.

During five years of occupation, the royal palace had been turned into a prison, whilst ordinary Norwegians had been starved.

In 1954, nine years after the family’s return, they were hit by tragedy when Harald’s mother died of cancer.

The prince, then just 17, would go on to name his firstborn Märtha in honour of her memory.

Three years later, King Haakon VII died at the age of 85, after nearly 52 years on the throne.

Harald, now the heir, went on to study at the University of Oslo and also enrolled in the Norwegian Military Academy, graduating in 1959.

It was at his graduation ball that he brought along the woman who would become his wife.

Harald had met Sonja Haraldsen, the daughter of an Oslo draper, earlier that year. It was her status as a commoner that ruffled royal feathers.

The pair initially kept their relationship a secret but when it did become public knowledge, the Palace repeatedly insisted that the pair would not marry.

But when Harald threatened to remain a bachelor forever if he did not get his way, his father relented and let him wed the woman he loved.

Their 1968 wedding at Oslo Cathedral came after both had studied in England.

Whilst Sonja read English at Cambridge, Harald went to Oxford to study Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Balliol College.

Harald became Norway’s Crown Prince in 1957 after the death of his grandfather. 

After attending high school in Oslo, Harald went to Balliol College, Oxford from 1960 to 1962, where he studied history, economics and politics. 

The Anglophile became a keen rower, having been taught by renowned coach Nick Bevan, who was studying at the same college.

But sailing was his sport: he went on to represent Norway at the Olympics in Tokyo in 1964, Mexico City in 1968 and Munich in 1972.

His and Sonja’s first child, Princess Märtha Louise, was born in 1971, with her brother, Crown Prince Haakon, arriving the following year.

But Prince Haakon would have a long wait before he became first in line to the throne.

His father did not become king until January 1991, when he was 53.

Harald’s closeness to King Charles was demonstrated five years later, when he went to Sandringham for a shooting weekend.

The monarch was also at Charles’s 50th birthday party in 1998, when 250 guests descended on Highgrove.

In 2011, Harald was among the dozens of European royals who attended the wedding of the Prince and Princess of Wales and was a guest at the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Lunch the following year.

In another demonstration of the closeness between the Norwegian and English royal families, Her Late Majesty was the only head of state to make three state visits to Norway, in 1955, 1981 and 2001.

In 1955, they arrived on the Royal Yacht Britannia, having sailed up the Oslo Fjord between what was described at the time as a ‘lane of fire’.

‘Every few miles along this island-dotted coastline, flames and sparks from midsummer bonfires shot skyward with red, white and blue rockets,’ the Daily Mail reported.

A senior official from the U.S. State Department has issued a stern critique of China, citing what analysts have dubbed the “China shock wave” that is currently devastating African economies.

African manufacturing is reportedly reeling under the pressure of a wave of Chinese imports. The situation is multifaceted as China extracts raw materials, including vital minerals, from Africa, while inundating the continent with its state-subsidized goods. Furthermore, Beijing’s imports of African products are alarmingly disproportionate.

According to The China Global South Project, Chinese exports to Africa reached a staggering $225 billion in 2025, while imports from Africa tallied approximately half that figure at $123 billion.

The Trump administration is now poised to address this disparity and foster opportunities for American enterprises.

“China continues to flood Africa with exports,” Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Frank Garcia told News Media. He added, “No country is immune to the negative impacts of China’s unfair trade practices and state-subsidized overcapacity. China’s economic engagement with African countries has often led to unsustainable debt, economic coercion and an oversupply of Chinese imports threatening to displace and preventing the development of local industries.”

He continued, “The U.S. government aims to offer credible alternatives that leverage public and private financing in priority areas that make America safer, stronger and more prosperous. The United States is committed to maintaining the strong, open investment environment that benefits our economy and our people, while enhancing our ability to protect our nation from new and evolving threats that can accompany foreign investment.”

Elaine Dezenski, senior director and head of the Center on Economic and Financial Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), told News Media China is the number one trading partner for many African countries but warned “that doesn’t mean that African countries are moving up the value chain. On the contrary, some African countries are increasingly tied into a cycle of mineral and other natural resource exports to China, only to be on the receiving end of finished goods, also from China.”

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Dezenski added, “Africa wants to manufacture. Chinese exports are getting in the way. Key exports from China are substituting for specific products that could be manufactured in Africa. As China is increasingly shut out of U.S. and European markets through high tariff regimes, Africa is feeling the effects, while China still claims it’s supporting emerging economies.”

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China has lent the money to build new roads, bridges and other infrastructure in Mozambique. But in this, the fifth-poorest country in the world where jobs are in short supply, Beijing insisted that Chinese companies should do the construction. Mozambicans in some cases stood by, while workers brought 7,000 miles from Beijing to dig up the streets became a feature in this African country.

Beijing has now targeted Africa in another way. Between 17% and 40% of all car sales in South Africa are for vehicles from China. The goal appears not to stop at imports. The Chinese government-owned carmaker Chery has recently bought South Africa’s Nissan plant, and will make Chinese models such as Jetour near Johannesburg.

But China has won over many South African consumers. “China is delivering better vehicles and better prices to South African consumers — and this is pushing Western-oriented firms out of the market,” analyst Frans Cronje told News Media.

Cronje, president of the Washington-based Yorktown Foundation for Freedom, added, “The South African and broader sub-Saharan business communities have always shown a Western lean or bias, in large part a consequence of the region’s colonial past. But China’s industrial influence is changing, and as the South African vehicle industry shows, that change can be rapid and occur with the support of consumers. Privately, many Western firms say they don’t know if they can remain competitive.” 

The U.S. is making its own waves in Africa though. The administration’s Bureau of African Affairs has reported it has worked on 37 commercial transactions that have closed since the beginning of President Donald Trump’s second term — representing $25.67 billion in total value, with more still being reported.

There’s a way to go. While American goods traded with Africa last year were valued at $83.4 billion by the Office of the United States Trade Representative, Beijing’s General Administration of Customs claimed bilateral trade between China and Africa reached $348 billion for the same period.

The will to succeed, though, is clear. Assistant Secretary Garcia added, “The United States is committed to reshaping the global critical minerals and rare earths market to make it more diverse, secure and reliable. We will work with African partners to address risks from non-market actors and ensure supply chain security. We are using diplomatic and economic tools to promote fair and transparent markets that work for everyone.”

News Media reached out to the Chinese Embassy spokesman in Washington, D.C., for comment.

Taxpayers, regardless of their political leanings, should not have to financially support activist agendas they disagree with. Aiming to address this issue, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is formulating strategies to strip bogus political “charities” of their tax-exempt status.

According to reporting by The Post’s James Franey, Bessent and the IRS are scrutinizing the operations of a handful of prominent progressive nonprofits. These include George Soros’ Open Society Foundations, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the Council on American-Islamic Relations. The investigation could lead to these organizations losing their tax-exempt status.

Such a move might generate a significant $165 million in new tax revenue from these entities. More critically, it would halt taxpayer-funded support for questionable political activities.

“The woke left pushes to ‘tax the rich,’ yet these same organizations go to great lengths, sometimes even bending the law, to sidestep paying their own taxes,” remarked a source acquainted with the Treasury’s intentions. “This is hypocrisy in its purest form.”

To maintain a 501(c)(3) tax exemption, nonprofits must primarily function with the goal of religious, charitable, scientific, testing for public safety, literary, or educational objectives. They are strictly prohibited from engaging in substantial lobbying activities or supporting “propaganda,” legislation, or political campaign efforts.

Treasury is reportedly looking to treat nonprofits that are political activists in disguise as businesses or political machines for tax purposes, as per the law.

That’s appropriate. Open Society, after all, famously uses its billions to fund groups that back far-left causes — including criminal-justice reforms, climate change, legal privileges for illegal immigrants, DEI and more.

Why shouldn’t it have to pay its “fair share,” rather than force other Americans — most of whom object to much of its agenda — to pick up the tab?

CAIR, too, spends much of its time and money slamming a key US ally, Israel. That’s not political?

It’s also been accused of having ties to Qatar and was named an unindicted co-conspirator in the 2007 Holy Land Foundation terrorism-financing trial.

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Just this month, prosecutors charged the left-leaning Southern Poverty Law Center’s ex-finance officer, Heidi Beirich, with leading a scheme that “knowingly misled donors” and funneled cash to “senior leadership” at a white supremacist group. (Her lawyer insists she’s innocent.)

Plus, the SPLC promotes blatantly political positions, like ending “unjust imprisonment,” eliminating “economic inequality” and legislation to “expand access to the ballot box.”

It has fiercely attacked critics of causes it supports, including DEI, school-based lefty indoctrination programs, allowing boys into girls’ sports and bathrooms.

In 2023, it tarred harmless pro-child activists at Moms for Liberty as a “hate” group.

And yet it’s somehow tax-exempt.

The Soros “charity” vehemently insists Treasury has no excuse for looking at it; CAIR and the SPLC declined to comment on the issue.

The probe may target other lefty groups, including MediaJustice, which lobbies for racial-equity policies in the telecom industry, defunding police tech and censoring online “disinformation,” as well as labor-backed entities like the Service Employees International Union’s Strategic Organizing Center and the anti-Amazon Athena Coalition.

Bessent and his team are on the right track: Private groups have every right to promote their political agendas — but no right at all to taxpayer support for that activism.

Especially when the taxpayers find those agendas so abhorrent.