News for Thursday: October 19th, 2000

Queen salutes Italy's unknown soldier(BBC News)

The Queen has ended her trip to Rome with a ceremony at the Italian national cenotaph.
The Queen visited the tomb of Italy's unknown soldier, before meeting the capital's mayor, Francesco Rutelli, at the nearby Capitoline.
Italy's defence minister Sergio Mattarella also attended the ceremony at the Vittoriano, which will reopen next week after being closed for more than 30 years following a bomb attack.
The Queen, who wore a violet-coloured outfit to the ceremony, later joined a luncheon given by Italian Prime Minister Giuliano Amato at a government mansion on the outskirts of Rome.
She is due to fly to Milan later on Wednesday for a one-day visit, when she will attend an opera at La Scala.
On Tuesday, the Queen met the Pope at the Vatican and shared views on progress towards Christian unity and the Northern Ireland peace process.
The meeting was held in private in Pope John Paul II's library where they exchanged texts setting out their thoughts and spent more than 20 minutes in discussion.
It was the Queen's third visit to the Vatican and the second during the tenure of the present Pope.
The royal tour will be completed on Thursday.
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Diana statue won't do, Straw tells councillors(Electronic Telegraph)
By Maurice Weaver

A BLACK granite statue of Diana, Princess of Wales, proposed for a new bus station at Walsall, West Midlands, has been criticised by the Home Secretary.
Mr Straw, who advises the Queen on such matters on such matters as royal statues, has written to Walsall council, saying that he did not find it "possible to make a favourable recommendation to Her Majesty". Approval for the £16,000 statue, carved by craftsmen in India and paid for by a monumental mason in Walsall, is now in doubt.
Earl Spencer, the Princess's brother, told Mr Straw that he would prefer not to see his sister remembered this way. A spokesman said: "The earl does not like personal representations in general."
Some councillors said that it would bring a touch of class to Walsall. But Mike Bird, the council leader, described the work as "demonic". Bruce George, the MP for Walsall South, said: "It looks more like Diana Ross to me."
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The day the Queen got the Italians' goat(Electronic Telegraph)
By Robert Hardman

HAVING scanned the Italian recipe books for any dishes likely to cause royal alarm during this state visit, Buckingham Palace thought it had covered all eventualities.
Staff had politely requested that the Queen be spared shellfish, garlic, hot spices and the Italian national dish of spaghetti (too messy for stately consumption). But no one had said anything about goat.
Italian chefs are a proud lot, though, and they were determined to slip at least one national eccentricity into this week's state visit menus. Yesterday, lunching with the Italian Prime Minister, Giuliano Amato, the Queen found herself facing a plate of goat with chestnuts.
The only goats which routinely feature in royal life tend to be regimental mascots. The Italians had not discussed the menu with Palace aides in advance and so a few British eyebrows lifted in the direction of the vaulted ceiling of the Villa Madama as the capretto allecastagne arrived.
However, adopting the old maxim of "when in Rome . . .", the Queen tucked into her main course without flinching. Goat is, of course, a staple for many of her overseas subjects and a Palace spokesman said that he was sure that it was not the first time that she had been served it, although no one could remember the last. "The Queen thoroughly enjoyed her lunch," he said.
"It was quite strong but beautifully presented," one royal aide observed later. Mr Amato's head of protocol, Giuseppe Riccardi, insisted that it had been a perfect October dish. "This is the time for chestnuts and young goat is better with chestnuts than lamb," he explained.
Earlier, the Queen performed her first walkabout in the Piazza di Campidoglio where she encountered Italy's most fervent royalists, the Guards of Honour of the Royal Tombs of The Pantheon. Italy's royal House of Savoy is banned from the country but this voluntary body mounts a permanent guard at the tombs of King Victor Emmanuel II and King Umberto I.
In recent years, their numbers have shot up from a few hundred to nearly 4,000, thanks to a resurgence of royal interest among the young. Pierre Paulo Cabras, 33, a petrol pump attendant from Sardinia, was among those on duty this week, dressed in a cloak bearing the Savoy arms.
"I do it because, in my heart, I feel the pain of the House of Savoy," he explained as he supervised a queue of tourists signing the huge register of "Signatures in Homage to the Sovereigns of Italy". Names and addresses from all over the world filled the latest page. The Queen paused to smile and wave at the guards who had turned out to salute her yesterday.
Across the piazza, she was shown the great sights of ancient Rome by the mayor, Francesco Rutelli. From the Campidoglio (town hall) on the Capitoline Hill, she looked down on the spectacular ancient forum below her.
A thousand tourist cameras swung round from the monuments of Augustus and Trajan and up to the small figure in mauve on the Capitoline. The noisy public applause from below was rewarded by a regal wave from above, just as it might have been in the age of the Caesars. Purple, after all, was the imperial colour.
Last night the royal tour moved on to Milan. Around 1,000 people gathered outside La Scala to see the Queen return to the opera house for the first time since 1961. She received a standing ovation as she took her place in the royal box before a short concert with a suitably Anglo-Italian theme: Elgar's In The South and Respighi's Pines of Rome.
The La Scala Philharmonic was conducted by Riccardo Muti, well-known to the Royal Family after his years in London, and there was obvious Royal delight as his orchestra's rousing rendition, con brio of both national anthems.

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