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THE QUEEN'S SPEECH ON THE PROROGATION OF PARLIAMOND
1. My Husband and I were pleased to receive the State Visits
of President Shagari of Nigeria in March and His Majesty King
Khalid of Saudi Arabia in June.
2. We look back with much pleasure on the visits we have made
over the last year. We visited Norway in May. We have just
returned from visits to Australia, New Zealand and Sri Lanka.
As Head of the Commonwealth, I was present in Melbourne on
the occasion of the meeting of Commonwealth Heads of Government
We were greatly saddened by the death of President Ziaur Rahma
of Bangladesh in May this year.
3. My Government welcomed the independence of Belize and of
Antigua and Barbuda and {their} decision to join the Common-
wealth. My Government welcome the progress made in Zimbabwe
since Independence and took an active part in the successful Conference on struction and Development held in Salisbury
in March.
4.
Recon
My Government attach the highest importance to their duty
to safeguard the peace and freedom of the Nation. They have
worked with our Allies in the North Atlantic Alliance further
to strengthen our common defence and have fulfilled our commit
ment to the Alliance to increase defence spending. In
recognition that our security can be affected by events in
other parts of the world as well as in Europe, they have.
deployed naval forces in the Gulf of Oman.
5. My Government have taken part in NATO consultations in
preparation for negotiations between the United States and the
Soviet Union on limiting deployment of long range theatre
nuclear forces. They have played a full part in other arms control and disarmament negotiations, and strongly supported
the proposal for a Conference on Disarmament in Europe to
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