British prince faces calls to quit trade role (AFP)

LONDON (AFP) – Britain's Prince Andrew faced growing calls to quit as an unpaid trade ambassador over his ties with a convicted US sex offender and his business relationship with Kazakhstan's ruling family.

The prince's friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, a wealthy businessman jailed for soliciting underage prostitutes, led to accusations from one opposition politician that Andrew had become an "embarrassment".

David Cameron's spokesman said Queen Elizabeth II's second son had the prime minister's full support, but a government source admitted "there won't be many tears shed if he resigns".

The prince's spokesman denounced "insinuations" in press reporting of the prince's relationship with Epstein, but the row is an unwelcome distraction for the royals just weeks before the wedding of his nephew, Prince William, and Kate Middleton on April 29.

Andrew's ex-wife Sarah Ferguson became embroiled in the row Monday after it emerged that Epstein gave her £15,000 ($24,000, 17,000 euros) at the prince's request to help pay off her reported multi-million-pound debts.

She told London's Evening Standard newspaper that the prince was a "first-rate father and first-rate man ... who does not know how to tell an untruth or behave dishonourably".

"I personally, on behalf of myself, deeply regret that Jeffrey Epstein became involved in any way with me," she said, adding that taking his money was a "gigantic error of judgment on my behalf".

Royal Navy commander Andrew, fourth in line to the throne, has been Britain's special representative for international trade and investment since 2001. His is unpaid but his expenses are met from the government coffers.

Cameron's spokesman said the prime minister had confidence in the prince and "thinks he is doing a good job".

"We are not reviewing that role in any way," he said. "We think he makes a valuable contribution, and so does British business."

Some reports suggested that as a top royal, Andrew, 51, would not be asked to resign but would merely see his role substantially downgraded.

But Chris Bryant, of the opposition Labour Party, said the prince should give up the position completely.

"I think we should be dispensing with his services. I think the charge list against him is so long now that he is a bit of an embarrassment," Bryant told the BBC.

The Telegraph newspaper also urged Andrew to quit, saying in Tuesday's editorial: "He should have the decency to withdraw gracefully from his ambassadorial post, for his best days as a UK trade envoy are assuredly behind him."

Business Secretary Vince Cable refuted suggestions that ministers would try to reduce the prince's remit.

"He is a volunteer, he has offered to perform these roles, and I think it is down to him essentially to judge the position he wants to be in," Cable said.

Andrew was reportedly a frequent guest at Epstein's home in Florida, and newspapers have published a photograph of him with his arm around 17-year-old Virginia Roberts, reportedly an erotic masseuse who worked for the tycoon.

There is no suggestion that Andrew himself has done anything wrong, and Alastair Watson, the prince's private secretary, condemned the speculation.

"The duke has known Mr. Epstein since being introduced to him in the early 1990s. The insinuations and innuendos that have been made in relation to the duke are without foundation," Watson said in a letter Saturday to The Times.

Meanwhile, Andrew also faces questions over why the head of Kazakhstan's sovereign wealth fund believed that the prince was lobbying British investors on its behalf, The Times reported Tuesday.

Four years ago, the prince sold his former marital home to the son-in-law of the Kazakh president for 3 million pounds (4.8 million dollars, 3.4 million euros) over the asking price, the paper claimed.

The 12-bedroom Sunninghill Park mansion in south east England, a wedding gift from the queen, remains uninhabited after the sale which was arranged by glamorous Kazakh socialite Goga Ashkenazi.

Diplomatic cables released by the WikiLeaks website last year showed US officials were shocked by the "rude" prince's "astonishing display of candour" during a business trip to Kyrgyzstan.

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British paper says Kate chooses McQueen designer (AP)

LONDON – A leading British newspaper reported Sunday that Sarah Burton, creative director of the Alexander McQueen fashion house, has been chosen to design Kate Middleton's wedding gown.

But both Burton and the company's chief executive deny the claim.

The Sunday Times story said Burton has received the plum assignment, then quotes her and McQueen CEO Jonathan Akeroyd saying this is not the case. Both flatly denied the McQueen house is involved.

The paper did not name any sources, suggesting the information had reached the newspaper after Akeroyd told a colleague about receiving the royal gig.

A Paris-based publicist for the McQueen house dismissed the report in an e-mail to The Associated Press, saying "We can confirm this story is untrue."

The contradictory story, which buzzed throughout Facebook and Twitter, did not clarify one of the central mysteries surrounding the April 29 wedding of Middleton and Prince William: Who will actually design the gown she wears for her transformation from commoner to princess?

The emphatic denials from the top people at McQueen would seem to indicate that the story is not true, but the circumstances surrounding the fashion assignment of the year (or perhaps the decade) make the situation somewhat cloudy.

Just two weeks ago, British Fashion Council chief executive Caroline Rush told The Associated Press that whoever had been chosen would be bound by the terms of the agreement to do everything possible to keep their role secret until Middleton walks down the aisle before the eyes of 1,900 invited guests and a vast global television audience.

"Whoever has the honor will be sure not to leak it, that's the agreement," she said as London Fashion Week closed without the identity of the designer being made public.

If word of the assignment has in fact leaked out, the designer would be in the awkward position of either breaking the terms of his or her contract by confirming their role or misleading the media and denying it in an effort to squelch the story.

As a result, the company's denial does not necessarily mean the McQueen house has not been chosen, fashion experts said Sunday, although some view the McQueen house as an unlikely winner, in part because of the publicity surrounding McQueen's suicide early last year.

The designer, seen by many as the most bold and original British designer of his generation, took his own life shortly after his mother's death. Burton, 36, who had worked closely with him for years, was named to the top creative position at the firm, and has been hailed for the skill and imagination she has brought to the difficult task of replacing a cherished, highly original talent.

American Vogue editor Anna Wintour called Burton "a brilliant choice" for the top job at McQueen during a visit to London Fashion Week in late February. The editor declined, however, to speculate about Middleton's choice for the wedding gown.

Burton is British, which would satisfy those hoping Middleton will choose a British designer, and under her leadership McQueen has maintained its reputation for dramatic design and phenomenal craftsmanship.

Still, many other accomplished designers remain in the running for the dream job, including Bruce Oldfield, Philippa Lepley, Daniela Issa Helayel and others. Issa has been favored by Middleton in the past, but is thought to be an unlikely choice because of her Brazilian roots and her relative inexperience with wedding gowns.

Prominent designers Vivienne Westwood and Christopher Bailey of Burberry Prorsum said during London Fashion Week that they had not received the coveted assignment.

Press aides handling the wedding for Prince Charles, Prince William's father, have repeatedly declined to comment on the dress. They point out the wedding is not a state affair and say Middleton deserves the right to surprise her husband with the gown.

Palace officials Sunday refused to comment on the report.

___

Jenny Barchfield in Paris contributed to this report.

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British TV chef in food fight with LA schools (AP)

LOS ANGELES – British celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has perfected his anti-obesity recipe over the years: blend a passion for nutrition with reality TV, garnish with a catchy moniker, et voila! — "Food Revolution."

But Oliver's recipe has uncharacteristically curdled since he arrived in Los Angeles last fall to shoot his second U.S. TV series. "I've had a tough time here," he conceded wearily in an interview. "Nothing that was planned has come off."

The six-episode show was to revolve around one of Oliver's favorite causes — making school lunches healthier — but ran under a rolling pin when the Los Angeles Unified School District objected to the chef's key ingredient — TV cameras.

"We're interested in Jamie Oliver the food activist, not Jamie the reality TV star," said Robert Alaniz, district spokesman. "We've invited him to work with our menu committee, but there's too much drama, too much conflict with a reality show."

It was quite a twist for Oliver.

The 35-year-old is a household name back home, where he's been decorated by the Queen and cooked at 10 Downing Street. He heads a multimillion-dollar eponymously branded empire that has produced 20 TV series and specials, 14 bestselling cookbooks, 20 restaurants, cooking schools, a catering company, an array of cooking and dining products, supermarket endorsements, as well as a charity for disadvantaged youth.

You'd never know it, though, from his tousled hair that looks like he just rolled out of bed and a wardrobe of jeans and plaid shirts. The one-of-the-lads demeanor underscores the earnestness of his pitch for home, not haute, cuisine.

The son of a publican, he grew up cooking "pub grub." He quit school at 16, after struggling for years with dyslexia and hyperactivity, and enrolled in catering college. In 1999, he landed his first TV show "The Naked Chef" after the BBC was filming the restaurant where he was working and saw he was an on camera natural.

Oliver's concept is simple: obesity kills and cooking meals from scratch using fresh ingredients will save lives. It's a message he wields with zeal in home kitchens, school classrooms, and corporate boardrooms.

He encourages the food industry to believe that caring can be commercial.

"They can make ethical change that will genuinely shift toward health and away from obesity," said Oliver, who's in constant motion_ even seated his leg bounces furiously.

School lunches are a particular passion for Oliver, a father of four. He revamped cafeteria cuisine in Britain and then turned his sights to Huntington, West Virginia, for his first U.S.-based TV show after an Associated Press poll labeled the area America's unhealthiest.

Part of the show focused on a menu makeover in Cabell County Schools, a 12,700-student district. It wasn't easy, said Jedd Flowers, district spokesman.

Oliver's recipes didn't adhere to state standards, food costs were higher and new suppliers had to be located, staff had to be rejiggered and new equipment bought — a $200,000 industrial potato peeler, for example — to stick to the freshly prepared mandate.

Cabell County kids weren't enamored of new dishes like honey carrots and more started bringing brown-bag lunches. Lunch participation has since rebounded as kids' tastebuds are getting used to the new food, which includes Oliver recipes like creamy coleslaw and chili con carne, Flowers said.

"He had the children's interests at heart. The quality of the food is much better," he said. "But the TV show was quite an ordeal. It was disruptive and used gimmicks. I can't say the television show was a benefit, but looking at the process was."

Oliver decided to set his second U.S. series in Los Angeles, home to the nation's second-largest school district, which enrolls 650,000 mostly low-income children and serves 1.2 million meals daily.

"It's such an amazing amount of meals a day," said the chef.

The district said no. A previous sour experience with reality show "School Pride," which used reenactments of made up incidents and left the school district with a bill, factored into Superintendent Ramon Cortines' decision, as well as reports from Cabell County Schools, district spokesman Alaniz said.

However, West Adams Preparatory High School in Central Los Angeles, which is run by nonprofit MLA Partner Schools under contract with LAUSD, allowed Oliver on campus as a curriculum addition. After two weeks of filming, the district caught wind of it and booted the show.

"We aren't happy about it," said Mike McGalliard, president of MLA Partner Schools. "I told the district you guys are making a big fuss over nothing. It's not an expose. It's an incredible program."

Nearly half of West Adams students are obese, he said, and all qualify for free lunches which feature items such as chicken nuggets and corn dogs, with sides like raw broccoli.

Oliver planted a community garden, mentored culinary arts students, lectured about portion size, caloric intake and diet-related disease, and set up a nearby community kitchen to give free classes in cooking fare such as roast chicken.

"They think Jamie is the threat. The threat is diabetes and high cholesterol," said senior Caleb Villanueva, 17.

Sophia Ruvalcaba, 17, who has diabetes, as do her mother and sister, said Oliver came to their home for dinner. "He was just trying to make a healthier meal for us," she said.

Oliver said he's not trying to cast the school district in a bad light. He calls his style "documentary with stunts." For example, he filled a school bus with 57 tons of white sand to represent the amount of sugar LAUSD kids children consume weekly in flavored milk.

Those kind of made-for-TV stunts are exactly what LAUSD finds unappetizing.

Alaniz said the district remains willing to work with Oliver — off camera. They've suggested that he lend his expertise by coming up with three weeks of meal plans, adhering to the district's food budget of 77 cents per meal and state standards.

Alaniz noted the district has been on its own culinary crusade for years, banning junk foods, soda, additives, dyes and certain fats and oils. Next year, chicken nuggets and pizza will be taken off the cafeteria lineup, replaced by student-taste-tested dishes such as California sushi roll, chicken tandoori, and Israeli couscous and veggie salad.

Oliver, however, is not one to give up a food fight.

He has a team of chefs working on the district's menus and hopes the new superintendent slated to take over in April will be more flexible. In the meantime, he's setting up four more community kitchens around LA, funded by the American Heart Association at a cost of about $180,000 each, to offer free cooking classes, and will be taking his mobile kitchen set up in an 18-wheeler around Southern California.

"I want the American public to expect more," he said. "It might take a couple years to get there, but I'm deeply passionate that when everyone comes together, stuff changes."

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Prince to have British trade role downgraded: report (AFP)

LONDON (AFP) – British ministers will downgrade Prince Andrew's role as a trade ambassador over his association with a convicted paedophile, the Telegraph newspaper reported Monday.

Ministers will carry out a review into Andrew's position, which could result in the queen's second son losing his role completely, government sources told the British newspaper.

The prince came under increased fire after it emerged that US businessman Jeffrey Epstein -- who served 18 months in jail for child sex offences -- had paid off debts accrued by the Duchess of York, Andrew's former wife.

Andrew has been a guest at Epstein's Florida mansion where underage girls were abused but there has been no suggestion that the fourth-in-line to the British throne had ever been guilty of any wrongdoing.

Diplomatic cables released by the WikiLeaks website last year showed how US officials were shocked by the "rude" prince's "astonishing display of candour" during a business trip to Kyrgyzstan.

A senior Conservative minister told the Telegraph that Andrew's position was fast becoming untenable due to his track record of poor judgement.

"There appears to be no discernible mental activity," the minister said. "I feel sorry for him. He has no friends and so is surrounded by these vile people."

Another government source told the paper: "We won?t be giving a full-throated defence of him. There won?t be many tears shed if he resigns."

Foreign Secretary William Hague earlier defended the prince, claiming he had done "a lot of good for the UK."

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British prince pilloried over pedophile friend (Reuters)

LONDON (Reuters) – The royal family is supposed to burnish Britain's image, but Prince Andrew has generated quite a different buzz by consorting with a convicted U.S. pedophile and having contacts with the Libyan leader's son.

"Prince of Sleaze" ran a headline in Monday's Daily Mirror over a story about the 50-year-old Duke of York, who is fourth in line to the throne and is Britain's roving trade ambassador.

"Andrew: I won't quit over my pervert pal," the Sun added.

The stories were a long way from the gushing coverage the British media have reserved for Andrew's nephew Prince William and fiancee Kate Middleton ahead of their wedding next month.

Andrew has long had a strained relationship with newspapers, who have printed photographs of him enjoying himself on yachts or sunbathing surrounded by topless women, and nicknamed him "Airmiles Andy" for his use of publicly funded travel.

Andrew is now in hot water over his friendship with New York financier Jeffrey Epstein, who was jailed in 2008 for child sex offences.

His alleged links to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam and the son of Tunisia's ousted president, Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, also have come under media scrutiny.

The revelations have led to calls for Andrew, the second son of Queen Elizabeth, to lose his voluntary position as a special representative for a government body promoting British businesses abroad, a role he has held since 2001.

Lawmaker Chris Bryant, a member of the opposition Labor Party, said the government should get rid of Andrew immediately.

"They should be absolutely clear: 'We are going to dispense with his services'," he told BBC radio.

"DONE NOTHING WRONG"

Association with Saif al-Islam at a time when Libya was being courted by western countries has already put others under pressure. Thursday the director of the London School of Economics quit for having advised the LSE to accept 1.5 million pounds ($2.4 million) in 2009 from Saif's foundation.

A royal source said the prince had met Saif al-Islam twice, and they were not friends, and that Andrew accepted he had been unwise to have associated with Epstein since his conviction.

"There's no accusation he's done anything wrong and there's been no suggestion of any impropriety on his part because there has been none at all," the source told Reuters. "You won't be seeing him and Mr Epstein in a photograph again."

Sarah Ferguson, who divorced the prince in 1996, said he was a "first-rate man" who worked tirelessly for Britain.

"The duke is a man who does not know how to tell an untruth or behave dishonorably," she told the London Evening Standard.

She admitted that she had accepted 15,000 pounds from Epstein to help pay off her debts, a move she described as a huge mistake.

Business leaders such as Peter Levene, chairman of the Lloyd's of London insurance market, also issued statements backing Andrew. A spokesman for Prime Minister David Cameron said he had full confidence in the prince.

"We think he does an important job, he makes an important contribution, and we are not reviewing that role," he said.

But government sources have told the media any further revelations would make the prince's position untenable.

(Editing by Kevin Liffey)

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Hollywood rarely crowns British monarchy at Oscars (AP)

LOS ANGELES – It may seem as though Academy Awards voters would be a bunch of fawning monarchists, considering how often the ceremony has been a love fest for all things English. But British kings and queens generally wind up losers at the Oscars.

If "The King's Speech," a saga about Queen Elizabeth II's dad, makes good on its status as best-picture favorite on Sunday, it would become the first film with a British monarch as its central figure to win the top prize in the 83-year history of the Oscars.

Two films with a British king or queen as a supporting player — 1966's "A Man for All Seasons" and 1998's "Shakespeare in Love" — did win best picture. Yet past contenders with a monarch in a lead role have always lost: 1933's "The Private Life of Henry VIII," 1946's "Henry V," 1964's "Becket," 1968's "The Lion in Winter," 1969's "Anne of the Thousand Days," 1998's "Elizabeth" (which lost to "Shakespeare in Love") and 2006's "The Queen."

Actors as British monarchs have fared a bit better, with lead-acting wins by Charles Laughton in the title role of "The Private Life of Henry VIII"; Katharine Hepburn as Henry II's captive queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine, in "The Lion in Winter"; and Helen Mirren as Elizabeth II in "The Queen." Judi Dench won a supporting Oscar as Elizabeth I in "Shakespeare in Love."

Best-actor front-runner Colin Firth as the current queen's father, George VI, is expected to join the winner's list Sunday, though Helena Bonham Carter as his wife, the future Queen Mother Elizabeth, is a longshot for supporting actress.

Losers far outnumber winners: 13 of the 17 actors nominated for playing a British king or queen have lost (there would be one more loser if we throw in Vanessa Redgrave as best actress in 1971's "Mary, Queen of Scots," whose title character schemed but failed to take the English crown from Elizabeth I).

Two actors lost twice for playing the same monarch — Peter O'Toole as Henry II in "Becket" and "The Lion in Winter" and Cate Blanchett as Elizabeth I in "Elizabeth" and its 2007 sequel, "Elizabeth: The Golden Age."

Laurence Olivier lost twice for playing two different kings in Shakespeare adaptations, 1946's "Henry V" and 1956's "Richard III." Kenneth Branagh also lost for his 1989 version of "Henry V."

Henry VIII has gone one-for-three at the Oscars. After Laughton's win, two other actors lost for playing the same role — Robert Shaw as supporting actor in "A Man for All Seasons" and Richard Burton as best actor for "Anne of the Thousand Days" (the latter film also was a best-actress loser for Genevieve Bujold in the title role, as one of Henry VIII's queens, Anne Boleyn).

Before their wins, both Dench and Mirren lost at the Oscars for other roles as British queens. Mirren lost the supporting-actress race as Queen Charlotte in 1994's "The Madness of King George," for which Nigel Hawthorne also lost for best actor in the title role. Dench lost for best actress as Queen Victoria in 1997's "Mrs. Brown."

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