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LONDON (AFP) - Britain's royal family forced the late Princess Diana to blood test her younger son, Prince Harry, to prove he was not the offspring of an affair with an army officer, according to a newspaper report. Diana, who died in 1997, did not tell Harry why his blood was being taken, the Sun newspaper said in extracts from a book by Simone Simmons, an "energy healer" billed as a former close friend and confidante of the princess. Senior royals, notably Queen Elizabeth's husband Prince Philip, feared that their son, Prince Charles, who was married to Diana, might not...

[World News] London, Apr 3 : Britain's Prince Charles sees the BBC as "an example of everything he dislikes", viewing it as "statist and left-leaning" media organisation, a newspaper reported today. The Prince's views, revealed by a friend, help explain his outburst against BBC's royal correspondent, Nicholas Witchell, last week during a holiday in the Swiss Alps, 'The Independent on Sunday' reported. "I can't bear that man," the Prince was overheard saying at a Klosters photo-call in Switzerland. "He's so awful." The paper said that Witchell may be comforted to know he is in good company. "He (Charles) has disliked...

Documents show FBI helped Saudis depart after 9/11 attacks: New York Times WASHINGTON (AFP) - The FBI (news - web sites) played an active role in arranging chartered flights for dozens of well-connected Saudi nationals -- including relatives of Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) -- after the 9/11 terror attacks. The New York Times reported that the documents show Federal Bureau of Investigation agents gave personal airport escorts to two prominent Saudi families who fled the United States, while several other Saudis were allowed to leave the country without first being interviewed, citing newly-released US government records. The...

Some of the sovereign countries who have the monarch as Head of State ‘want out’ THE confusion triggered by the Prince of Wales’s marriage to Camilla Parker Bowles could precipitate a new wave of republicanism across Britain’s former colonies and jeopardise the future monarch’s chances of becoming head of the Commonwealth. As the debate rages over whether Mrs Parker Bowles will become Queen Camilla, the issue has caused deep concern among some of the 15 sovereign countries around the world who still recognise the British monarch as their head of state. Joel Kibazo, spokesman for the Commonwealth Secretariat, which is...

Britain's Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles will travel to the United States to meet President George W. Bush and his wife on their first official foreign trip as a married couple, a report said. Officials at the prince's London office, Clarence House, were devising the itinerary for a week-long visit in October or November by the pair, who are due to marry on April 8, The Sunday Telegraph reported, citing royal officials. A spokesman for Clarence House confirmed it was likely that Parker Bowles, 57, would accompany the heir to the throne on future foreign tours after their...

Prince Charles' visit to New Zealand inevitably provokes questions about his future suitability as King of this country. Charles is an unusual personality, not easy to pin down. There is a lack of clarity about him; a certain hesitancy. As the heir to the throne, he is in a perennially impossible situation; damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. As he once said, plaintively, "There is no set-out role for me. I'm really rather an awkward problem." That awkwardness has eased somewhat since the death of his erratic wife and the decision, finally, to marry his first and...

In the latest episode of the British Royal Family Soap Opera, the Crown Prince has finally got his girl. In short, Prince Charles is to marry Camilla Parker-Bowles, the love of his life, and his mother, the Queen (who is also head of the Church) has given her blessing to the union. It is a truism that it isn’t easy being a Royal Family these days. It used to be so much easier. When the existence of social hierarchy was taken for granted, someone had to be at the top of it, rather like Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover. But nowadays, not...

Prince Charles claims he has been shown "no compassion" by the British public as a result of his relationship with Camilla Parker Bowles. In comments made to a BBC reporter, Prince Charles claimed his private life had been compromised and hit out at those intent on scaling down the Monarchy. The Mail on Sunday said the prince made the candid remarks to journalist Gavin Hewitt in Sofia, Bulgaria, in 2003. "I thought the British people were supposed to be compassionate. I don't see much of it," the Prince is said to have told Hewitt, when asked about the perception of...

Arrangements for the marriage of Prince Charles to Camilla Parker Bowles were plunged into chaos today after claims that members of the public will have the right to attend the ceremony.The confusion surrounding the wedding deepened when it emerged that ceremonies held in approved civil venues must be "solemnised in premises with open doors". That could raise security dangers for the royal family and the royal protection squad has now found itself at loggerheads with lawyers over the arrangements. The prince has already been forced to abandon plans to marry Mrs Parker Bowles at St George's Chapel in Windsor Castle...

The Church of England owes its creation to a royal spat over divorce and remarriage: Henry VIII broke with the Vatican after the pope refused to grant the monarch dispensation to wed his lover. Now, nearly five centuries later, questions over another wedding are pulling at Anglican unity " the planned marriage of Camilla Parker Bowles and Prince Charles, the first in line to inherit the throne and become the next titular head of the church. Conservative groups complain the scheduled April 8 civil ceremony and post-vows service by the archbishop of Canterbury " although fully legal " run counter...

CHURCHGOERS are to be commanded by royal warrant to pray for Camilla Parker Bowles as part of regular Sunday services after her marriage to the Prince of Wales on April 8. The Queen is planning to issue the warrant in formal recognition of her new daughter-in-law’s status as one of the most high-ranking members of the royal family. At the moment, only the Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh and Charles are individually remembered by the Church of England in state prayers during services of matins and evensong. Meanwhile doubts have been raised by senior lawyers over the legality of Charles...

Just announced on CNBC Europe.

To all the people of Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Canada, Grenada, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, the United Kingdom - a very happy Accession Day. On this day in 1952 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second began her happy reign. As it represents the anniversary of the death of Her Majesty's father, understandably she does not celebrate publicly. God Save the Queen Almighty God, who rulest over all the kingdoms of the world, and dost order them according to thy good...

Gott im Himmel, what was Harry thinking? If you are a public figure, the great grandson of the last emperor of India no less, and you live in censorious — and camera-phone-saturated — times, attending a "Native and Colonial" party is almost certainly unwise. To do so in Nazi uniform is absolute madness. And after days of high drama, low farce, and massed denunciations, we all know the result. The "Clown Prince" and the Circus To take just a brief selection of the criticism, Harry is now the "Hitler Youth" (the Sun, a newspaper that dilutes its moments of moral...

Prince Harry, the younger son of the Prince of Wales and the late Princess Diana and third in line to the British throne dressed up as a Nazi at a costume party last week. You may have seen something in the press about it. In Britain the media has been full of the business for days. Actually, Harry is a bit of a mixed up kid (he's now 20). The uniform was supposed to be that of a soldier of Rommel's Afrika Korps, and yet he also wore a swastika armband, which no such soldier would have done. Also, the...

In case you missed last week's truly big story: Prince Harry, one of those royal things of which the English are so unaccountably indulgent, showed up at a costume party wearing a swastika. Instant scandal! Why? Oh, some might find it a bit déclassé for the scion of the British Empire to lounge around dressed like Hitler's driver, but really. Please. Maybe he was dressed up as a good, decent party member. Just because someone was a Nazi doesn't mean they were bad, after all. Lots of ordinary people were Nazis; you want to demonize them all? I know they...

It's a good rule of thumb that, no matter how big an idiot someone is, he can never compete with the political class's response to his idiocy. Thus, whatever feelings of unease I might have had about Prince Hitler were swept away the moment the rent-a-quote humbugs started lining up to denounce him. I say to Harry: you go, girlfriend, you Reichstone Cowboy you. It's uniforms night at my pad every Thursday and you're more than welcome, Your Royal Heilness. First off was Doug Henderson, former armed forces minister, who suggested that the Nazi dress sense should disqualify the young...

PRINCE Harry is making amends for his Nazi fancy dress shame — by mucking out his dad’s pigs. Angry Charles has ordered Harry, 20, to do a series of lowly jobs at his organic farm near Highgrove, Gloucs. A Royal source said: “His father thought a few days getting his hands dirty might focus his mind.”

In the wake of British Prince Harry's display of a swastika at a party last week, German politicians are calling for a ban on display of the Nazi symbol across the entire continent of Europe. Germany has already prohibited the insignia within its own borders, along with the notorious "Heil Hitler" salute. It's also against the law to distribute Hitler's book "Mein Kampf," which can be read in most countries, including Israel. "The whole of Europe once suffered under Nazi crimes, therefore it makes sense to ban Nazi symbols across Europe," Silvana Koch-Merin of Germany's Liberal Party told Scotland on...

This is LONDON 14/01/05 - News and city section Charles backs Harry By Robert Jobson Royal Correspondent, Evening Standard Prince Charles is refusing to force Harry to visit Auschwitz or make a TV apology for his Nazi fancy dress stunt. The Prince of Wales is angry that his son is being pilloried for what he regards as a silly but harmless prank and wants to shelter him from further bad publicity. But the outrage over 20-year-old Harry's decision to attend a party in a German soldier's uniform with a swastika armband continues to reverberate around the world. The royal family's...