LONDON, Oct 7 - Former NATO Secretary-General Javier
Solana was granted an honorary knighthood on Thursday
by Britain's Queen Elizabeth, although he will
not be called by the title "Sir".
"The Queen has been graciously pleased to approve that
an honorary knighthood -- knight commander of the most
distinguished order of St Michael and St George --
be conferred on Senor Solana...for his service to
(NATO)," a spokeswoman for Prime Minister Tony Blair's
office told Reuters.
Although the Spanish diplomat will be allowed to put
the distinguished letters KBE (Knight of the British
Empire) after his name, the "Sir" in front is reserved
for British
citizens.
The queen will formally bestow the award in a ceremony
in due course, although no date has been set yet,
Blair's spokeswoman said.
Solana, 57, stepped down on Wednesday after four years
as head of the Western alliance to take up his new job
as the European Union's foreign and security policy
tsar.
"He was extremely honoured and expressed his gratitude
to the queen and to the UK government," a spokeswoman
for Solana told Reuters in Brussels.
Solana has said he hopes to continue a close
relationship with his NATO successor, Lord George
Robertson, when the British defence secretary takes up
his new post in mid-October.
Blair's spokeswoman said: "The prime minister, having
worked very closely with Javier Solana over Kosovo,
considers that the honour the queen has given him is a
fitting reward of his many
achievements as secretary-general of NATO and his long
and lasting links with Britain."
The ties between Solana and Robertson -- strengthened
during the alliance's air war against Yugoslavia -- is
likely to help NATO and the EU develop the formal
relationship that was set out as a key
policy objective earlier this year.
One of Solana's goals is to develop the European
defence and security identity project, which could set
the goal of establishing a rapid reaction European
corps of as many as 100,000 troops over the
next decade.
~*~
Royal pomp, please -- we're Canadian
By Randall Palmer
OTTAWA, Oct 7 - Parliament Hill had no shortage of
spit and polish, scarlet and ermine, as Canada's
political elite paused on Thursday for a few hours
from their
debates over Quebec separation and fishing policies to
witness the investiture of Queen's Elizabeth's new
representative.
Adrienne Clarkson, was sworn in on Thursday as
governor-general in the regally red Senate chamber
amid the sort of royal pageantry that helps
distinguish Canada from
its southern neighbor.
As Canada's first governor-general of Asian descent,
both she and Prime Minister Jean Chretien made much of
how the country has embraced multiculturalism since
her
family arrived from Hong Kong as refugees in 1942.
"The city of Ottawa, then, was small and white,"
Clarkson, 60, said disdainfully before lauding a
country that she said had now become color-blind and
multicultural.
Queen Elizabeth is officially Canada's head of state,
but as in Britain her position is mainly ceremonial,
with the real power lying with the prime minister and
his cabinet. This differs from countries like the
United States, where the president is both head of
state and head of government.
But in addition to giving formal royal assent to bills
passed by Parliament and handing out awards to
Canadian heroes, the governor-general does have the
power to intervene in a constitutional crisis.
With the possibility of Quebec's separatist government
holding a third referendum on the French-speaking
province leaving Canada, federalists will take comfort
that the bilingual Clarkson supports
keeping the country whole.
There have been a few calls in the past, especially in
Quebec, to do away with the royalist trappings and
what some see as a colonial anachronism.
But Prime Minister Chretien has long said he has
enough on his plate with Quebec to bother tackling
whether Canada should follow Australia's flirting with
becoming a republic.
Australia is voting next month on whether to replace
the Queen, and the governor-general, with a president.
Some Canadians find the idea of a hereditary monarchy
distasteful in a democratic society but others --
especially many of British extraction -- are fervent
monarchists who support the idea of an
authority figure.
And though three out of four Canadians cannot name the
outgoing governor-general, Romeo LeBlanc, many enjoy
the royal pomp that helps show that Canada has not
been totally swallowed up by
American culture.
Not all were happy with the choice of Clarkson, a
former television personality with fairly leftist
views.
"She's an out-and-out radical," scoffed bystander John
Cowie, 70, who immigrated from England 42 years ago
and still supports the monarchy.
Clarkson arrived on Parliament Hill with her new
husband John Ralston Saul, the driveway lined with
officer cadets from the Royal Military College of
Canada, each wearing royal red uniforms and
slightly askew yellow-and-black pillbox hats.
A procession led by the "Usher of the Black Rod"
escorted her into the richly ornamented Senate
chamber, filled with members of the cabinet and both
houses of Parliament, along with Supreme Court
justices in red robes and ermine hoods.
After the oaths and speeches and a series of choirs,
dancers, trumpeters, and Inuit throat singers from
Canada's frozen north, she emerged from Parliament to
a 21-gun salute and a melding of "God
Save our Gracious Queen" and "O Canada."
Two CF-18 fighter jets screamed past in royal salute
and then she and her husband rode off to her residence
Rideau Hall in a gleaming landau, an open horse-drawn
carriage emblazoned with the
governor-general's emblem -- appropriately escorted by
Royal Canadian Mounted Police in scarlet tunics.
~*~
In the presence of King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia of Spain the Gran Teatro del Liceo in Barcelona, after the Bastille in Paris the biggest Opera in Europe, has been reopened. It burned down in January 1994. The King and Queen watched the first performance: Puccini's Turandot.
The telephone-exchange of the Royal Palace in Oslo,
Norway, had to work up more than 2000 phonecalls the
past two weeks. The people who called wanted to be
connected with King Harald V.
Nobody succeeded so far. The calls are the result of a
message on mobile phones in western Norway, in which
all Norwegians were asked to honour their King with a
personal phonecall. The
phone-number of the palace is mentioned plainly. When
the phone-terror goes on, the Royal Court wants to ask
for the Police's help.
--------------
October 8
Queen Beatrix and Prince Claus of the Netherlands finished their state visit to Bulgaria today by visiting Bourgas. Yesterdayevening the Royal Couple offered their hosts a ballet of the Nederlands Danstheater (Dutch Dance Theatre). For the reception afterwards 30 lackeys were flown in from the Netherlands.