THE Nobel prize winning scientist James Watson criticised the Prince of Wales yesterday over his opposition to GM technology. The scientist, who discovered the structure of DNA, accused the Prince of "pandering to superstition" and siding with "Left-wing agitators".
Dr Watson, in London to attend the Princess Royal's official opening of a university science building at King's College, said the Prince appeared "not to like science". He said the Prince risked fanning the flames of republicanism in Britain by attaching himself to a movement which "history would prove wrong".
Dr Watson, 70, said: "Basically, people don't like science. And I suspect your prince is like that. He needs to be very careful. The sort of groups he is attaching himself to, with his opposition to GM technology, such as Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace, were the same ones who 25 years ago were trying to stop us making our DNA discoveries that are now helping scientists carry out vital research into cancer and HIV."
Dr Watson is president of America's leading molecular biology institute, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, in New York State. The Prince voiced his doubts about GM technology in June last year in an article in The Telegraph. He also defended Arpad Pusztai, the scientist who claimed that GM foods threatened human health.
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Laughs as Prince drops another wee clanger(Electronic Telegraph)
PRINCE Philip dropped another clanger yesterday during the Australian tour. He was visiting a grape farm at Bourke, New South Wales, and was puzzled when he was shown a water-measuring device.
Farm manager Steve Filetti explained that the instrument was called a piezometer. "A pissometer?" bellowed the Duke. "I'll say that again," said Mr Filetti after the laughter subsided. The day before the Prince had refused to wear a hairnet during a visit to a food factory in Wagga Wagga and a vat of cheese was condemned.
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Outback town takes bus to see the Queen (UK Times)
FROM ALAN HAMILTON IN BOURKE, NEW SOUTH WALES
Coolabah claims to be the most monarchist community in Australia; in last November's referendum on whether to keep the Queen as head of state it voted 92 per cent in favour of retaining constitutional monarchy. In a township of 50 voters, that means a total of four republicans.
When, in the wake of the vote, Coolabah heard that their heroine was coming to Australia, the community wrote to Buckingham Palace asking their monarch for a visit. But for a head of state on a tight schedule in a vast country, the utter Boondocks is a day trip too far.
Australians have a phrase "back o'Bourke", meaning the back of beyond. Coolabah is 80 miles on dirt roads beyond Bourke, itself a small outback town of clapboard houses, wooden sidewalks, wandering dogs and 3,600 souls, one third of them Aboriginal, an hour's flying time from Sydney in the far northwestern bush of New South Wales.
The Queen made it to Bourke yesterday, so Coolabah got on a bus and came to see her, all 46 loyalist voters plus a few friends they picked up on the way. The four Republican voters were invited in a spirit of community friendliness but chose to stay at home.
Colin Watson, a 50-year-old retired public servant and organiser of the outing, came armed with a fading framed photograph of the Queen, an official portrait taken at the time of her ascension to the throne in 1952.
"We have a picture of her displayed in all our public buildings," Mr Watson said with unconcealed pride. And exactly how many public buildings did a community of 50 voters have? "Two stores and a pub, mate."
The historic meeting very nearly did not take place. The Queen, on walkabout in Bourke's rain-sodden park, was about to walk straight past the Coolabah delegation waving frantically behind a crowd barrier when at the last moment an aide steered her in their direction, where they were holding her portrait aloft, waving Australian flags and offering posies in their outstretched hands.
Marie Norris, 67, pressed a rose into the Queen's hand. "We voted 92 per cent for you," Mrs Norris said proudly. "I know," said the Queen, a diplomat of vast experience who is as cautious with rabid loyalists as she is with committed republicans. "You've come specially today, have you?" the monarch said, maintaining a fixed smile. "Yes," they chorused, raising their cameras in unison to capture the historic moment.
Within half a minute, the Queen of Coolabah and All Australia had moved on. Mrs Norris could think of only one thing: "Hasn't she got beautiful skin?"
Mr Watson attempted to explain his devotion. "I met the Queen in Canberra in 1977 when she saw me in the crowd holding up my newborn son. She turned and beckoned me out for a chat. That sealed it for me."
Yesterday Mr Watson did not really get a word in but, clutching his fading portrait, he enthused: "She really did come and see us. She couldn't fly into Coolabah, but she made the effort to come to the nearest airstrip; we're well satisfied."
Bob Carr, the premier of New South Wales and a leading republican, who accompanied the Queen on her outback awayday, was under the impression that he had chosen Bourke as her destination for a rather different reason.
"This town used to have serious problems with crime and violence, particularly between the white police and young black Aborignals," he said. "There has been a big community effort to improve race relations and cut unemployment; we wanted to show the Queen a town that has turned the corner."
By comparison with Coolabah - named after the tree in Waltzing Matilda - Bourke is a humming metropolis, although looking both ways to cross its wide, quiet streets is an unnecessary precaution. Its park contains modest memorials to several Bush poets who passed this way, including the Somerset-born Harry "Breaker" Morant, who worked here taming horses. Before joining the British Army and being shot by it in 1902 for the deaths of Boer prisoners of war in South Africa, he penned a rough but appropriate tribute to life in Bourke: "The wide world for a kingdom, and the saddle for a throne."
The Queen visited a local primary school where successful efforts to integrate white and Aboriginal children are said to have done much to reduce tension in the town. "Did you bring your crown with you to Australia?" Warren Turnbull, 9, asked. "No, I didn't," the Queen replied. "I can't get it out of the Tower of London; it lives there."
At the town's community radio station, which attempts to promote Aboriginal language and culture, the Queen looked in at the tiny first-floor studio where Tara McKellar, the 13-year-old disc jockey, was halfway through her morning show.
Meanwhile the Duke of Edinburgh was visiting a fruit farm, part of a thriving local horticultural industry which relies on irrigation from the Darling River, and was shown how fruit was shrink-wrapped for city supermarkets.
He picked up a pack swathed in impenetrable plastic. "So you're going in for this business of keeping the people away from the food?" he challenged Philip Mansell, the farm manager. "There's no way you can open the bloody thing."
The thought of the Duke struggling to break into a tray of apples from the Windsor Tesco is not quite the picture that the loyalists of Coolabah would wish to cherish as they race their goats today.
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Diana's former lover holidays with millionairess(Yahoo Reuters)
LONDON (Reuters) - Princess Diana's former lover James Hewitt has a new woman in his life -- the estranged millionaire wife of the chairman of a fashion store chain, the Sun reported.
"The Cad in a Swoon over Mrs Monsoon...and she just happens to be worth 25 million pounds," the newspaper said in a splash front-page report after spotting the couple returning from a holiday in Africa.
Kate Simon, 50, was quoted however as saying the relationship was strictly platonic and that Hewitt had been a good friend to her when her marriage to Monsoon chain boss Peter Simon hit the rocks.
"We had a nice holiday, thank you... He's helped me a lot," she said.
The tabloids turned against Hewitt and dubbed the former army officer a "love rat" and a cad for profiting from the princess's memory by selling his story of their affair.
Hewitt, 41, first met Diana when he was 25 and she was 28. Last October Hewitt published his book "Love and War" and declared of Diana: "I still miss her".
Diana was killed in a Paris car crash in 1997.
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Queen highlights Victoria's cultural diversity(Yahoo ABC)
The Queen has paid tribute to Victoria's rich multicultural heritage as she continues her visit to Melbourne.
The royals have attended a state luncheon at Government House, where the Premier Steve Bracks spoke of the Victorian Parliament's 1997 apology to the Aboriginal Stolen Generation.
In her formal address the Queen highlighted the State's cultural diversity.
"Victoria, and indeed all Australia, can be proud of the way in which it has given and continues to give a new life to thousands of immigrants from Asia, Europe, the Middle East and other parts of the world by accepting them as valued members of today's increasingly multicultural community," she said.