UK royals remember 9/11 victims



Britain's Prince Charles and his wife, Camilla, began an eight-day US
trip with a visit to Manhattan's Ground Zero and the dedication of the
British Memorial Garden to honour victims of the September 11, 2001
attacks.

After a private tour of the razed site of the World Trade Centre's twin
towers, the royals spent 10 minutes of reflection among mementos left to
honour those who died at the "family room," reserved for relations of
victims of the attacks.

Sixty-seven Britons were killed in the hijacked airplane attacks that
brought the twin towers down, killing 2,749 office workers, rescuers and
others.

Hundreds of lunch-hour onlookers applauded when a motorcade delivered
the royal couple and New York Governor George Pataki to Hanover Square,
a narrow triangular park nestled among high-rise office buildings in
downtown Manhattan.

"This is really exciting," said Deborah Leigh, a downtown office worker.
"I think it's great they were able to come here for the dedication. That
was awesome."

The prince was making his first official visit to the United States
since 1994, when he came with the late Princess Diana.

Charles and Camilla stepped out of a black limousine and greeted the
crowd before walking into the memorial garden.

After being presented with a bouquet of flowers by a little girl in a
tartan dress, they greeted dignitaries and then strolled around the
temporary plantings before tugging at either end of a dark green drape
to unveil the centre stone, embossed with the crest of the Prince of
Wales.


British garden

The garden is expected to cost about US$6.5 million to build with
British stone and ironworks.

After the unveiling, Charles and Camilla crossed the street into the
India House, a private club, to meet 150 guests and 30 family members of
British victims of September 11.

"Both my wife and I were profoundly moved by what we saw," the prince
said about their visit to Ground Zero. "Not just by the scale of the
outrage but the deeply distressing individual stories of heroism and of
loss.

"Our hearts go out to you today as they did on that dreadful day. Both
our nations have been united by grief and strengthened by the support we
have given one another."

Alexandra Clarke, chair of a September 11 families group in Britain,
whose daughter Suria, 30, was killed in the attacks, praised the prince
for his support.

"Prince Charles has been behind us and with us right from the
beginning," she said. "He has been quietly and personally very kind to
families of September 11 victims in the UK.

"They are both very relaxed people," she said of the royal couple. "They
were genuinely interested in hearing the stories people had to tell. We
were talking, they were listening."

Charles also visited the United Nations, where he met Secretary-General
Kofi Annan and participated in a discussion promoting jobs for young
people as a way to spur global development, an issue he said he had been
interested in for the past decade.

Later, the British royalty were to be honoured at a reception at the
Museum of Modern Art, where invited guests included Sir Elton John,
actors Robert De Niro, Catherine Zeta Jones, Matthew Broderick, Sarah
Jessica Parker and comedian Jerry Seinfeld.

Charles and Camilla were to have lunch and dinner Wednesday at the White
House. On Friday, they plan to visit New Orleans, ravaged by Hurricane
Katrina, before continuing on to San Francisco.