A GANG pretending to be Italian plainclothes police guarding the Queen held
up a Swiss security van in Milan near where she was lunching yesterday and
made off with the equivalent of £175,000.
Milan's real police said that three men had a dark Alfa Romeo saloon, a type
often in official use in Italy, complete with a blue flashing light on top. They
used an interior ministry-issue baton to order the van to pull over in the Piazza
Cinque Giornate. The men showed official passes and then pulled out guns.
They made the van's two security guards, both in their 20s, hand over the
money, in dollars, which they had been due to deliver to several of Milan's
banks. The gang then disappeared, mingling with the dozens of similar, official
cars roaring around the city to attend to the Queen.
In Italy, a driver's failure to stop for questioning is treated as tantamount to
escaping from the law. This can, and often does, end with police opening fire,
sometimes with fatal results.
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New book shows Diana industry still thriving(Yahoo: Reuters)
By Paul Majendie
FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Prince William has had more than enough of memoirs
about his mother, but the international Diana industry shows no signs of abating.
Three years after her death, the latest profile of the "People's Princess" is set to hit
bookshops. It has sparked bidding fever at Frankfurt, the world's biggest book fair.
"I think there will be Diana books for the next century. She is an important historical figure," said London
publisher John Blake, clinching rights deals for "The Truth" by royal correspondent Judy Wade.
"Newspapers still increase circulation with her on the front page. No one has replaced her yet. The public have an insatiable
appetite to read about her," he said of the charismatic figure killed on August 31, 1997 in a Paris car crash.
The first print run for the Wade book being published on November 3 is 50,000. Blake confidently predicted it would be on
the bestseller list by Christmas.
"We have a rights auction going on in America for a six-figure sum. We have a German deal pending, Australia is taking it,"
Blake said.
Prince William, who has inherited his mother's good looks and shy smile, took the unusual step last month of denouncing yet
another new book about his mother."
He told reporters that he and his 16-year-old brother Harry took exception to the book by Diana's former secretary, Patrick
Jephson, which accused the royal family of turning the princess into a "scheming rebel".
"Of course, Harry and I were quite upset about it, that our mother's trust has been betrayed and that even now she is still being
exploited," said the 18-year-old prince, who is second in line to the throne after his father, Prince Charles.
Wade, seeking to weigh up in her book the effect of Diana on the British monarchy, decided the jury was still out.
"It may take many decades before we can assess the place Diana, Princess of Wales, will hold in history. Was she a reformer
who tried to force an unwilling House of Windsor to adapt to a new age?
"Or just a tiresome troublemaker who fired a few Exocet missiles at the ship of monarchy, holing it below the water but failing
to sink it?"
And she concludes by taking the story full circle: "It is doubtful that anyone will appear to equal her appeal until Prince William
marries."
~*~
Palace 'disappointment' over William photos(Yahoo: Ananova)
Pictures of Prince William striding through a South American jungle have been attacked by St James's
Palace as an invasion of his privacy.
The long-lens photos taken of the Prince without his permission are published in the latest issue of
celebrity magazine OK!
Prince William, who is spending 10 weeks in Chile with youth charity Raleigh International, is seen
picking his way through the jungle wearing combat gear and a large backpack.
In other shots, he has stripped down to a T-shirt, black shorts and a buoyancy aid as he uses a rope
to cross a cascading river.
St James's Palace has repeatedly requested privacy for the Prince during his gap year.
But he has been stalked by freelance photographers in Chile as he works his way through the Raleigh expedition.
St James's Palace says the publication of the pictures by OK! is "immensely disappointing".
In a letter to Lord Wakeham, chairman of the Press Complaints Commission, the palace said it was considering reviewing
plans to arrange an official photocall with Prince William towards the end of his trip.