A decade-long battle by luxury brands to defend their image neared an end on Wednesday when an adviser to Europe’s top court said Coty can block a German retailer from selling its beauty products via online marketplaces.

“A supplier of luxury goods may prohibit its authorized retailers from selling its products on third-party platforms such as Amazon or eBay,” Advocate General Nils Wahl at the European Union’s Court of Justice said in a non-binding opinion.

Wahl’s view relates to a dispute between the German business of Coty, whose brands include Marc Jacobs, Calvin Klein and Chloe, and German retailer Parfumerie Akzente, which sells Coty’s goods on sites including Amazon against its wishes.

Luxury brands say they should have the right to choose who sells their products to protect their image and exclusivity.

Judges at Europe’s highest court, who follow their advisers’ opinions in four out of five cases, will rule on the case “Coty Germany GmbH v Parfumerie Akzente GmbH” in the coming months.

Coty did not respond to a request for comment.

Denis Waelbroeck, a lawyer at Ashurst, said there is a rationale to the luxury brands’ arguments against so-called free riders, companies who may benefit from others’ marketing efforts without paying the costs.

“I don’t think free riding deserves a particular reward. Competition rules do not allow free riding on heavy investments made by luxury goods companies,” he said.

EU antitrust regulators crafted rules in 2010 which allow brand owners with less than a 30 percent market share to block online retailers without a bricks-and-mortar shop from distributing their products.
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Mariano Rajoy will on Wednesday become Spain’s first sitting prime minister to be called to court as he appears as a witness in a long-running graft trial that has rocked his conservative party and hurt him at the ballot box.

Rajoy returned to power for a second term last October with a severely diminished mandate, after a series of corruption scandals tainted several members of his People’s Party (PP) and turned off voters.

The prime minister’s court appearance turns the spotlight back on one of the most prominent cases at a delicate time for Rajoy, who no longer enjoys a majority in parliament and has to scrape together votes to get laws through.

He had sought to testify by videoconference, arguing that the journey to the court of San Fernando de Henares on the outskirts of Madrid would be a waste of taxpayer money. But the request was denied by Spain’s High Court.

The trial follows a long graft investigation into several city councils which are alleged to have received illegal financing from a network of companies.

Known in Spanish as the “Gurtel” case, after the nickname of supposed mastermind and businessman Francisco Correa, the probe ended up reaching several former high-ranking PP members and drew attention to an alleged party slush fund.

Former PP party treasurer, Luis Barcenas, is among those on trial on charges of organized crime, falsifying accounts, influence-peddling and tax crimes.

Rajoy is expected to be grilled about the alleged slush fund and his knowledge of party business in the early 2000s, when he held several senior positions in the PP.

He has previously denied receiving any illegal funds.

The prime minister has sought to distance himself over the years from this probe and other corruption scandals, but his turn as a witness is likely to be seized upon by opposition parties who have repeatedly called for him to step down.

That is unlikely to have any immediate consequences – left-wing parties including the Socialists and Podemos (“We Can”) have failed in their bids to oust Rajoy before, as they lack the clout in parliament and are divided on many fronts.

But it could still be damaging for the prime minister and his party.

“Corruption issues will continue to put a ceiling on the PP’s electoral aspirations,” Antonio Barroso, deputy director of research at Teneo Intelligence said in a note. “While Rajoy should be benefiting from [Spain’s] strong economic rebound, the ruling party has been losing support in the polls recently.”
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The Italian government on Tuesday threatened to shut down humanitarian groups that operate migrant rescue ships in the Mediterranean out of the country’s ports if they do not sign a “code of conduct.”

Italy fears that the ships are making it too easy for smugglers to operate and that they act as an incentive for migrants who want to reach Europe. An Italian court has also suggested they collude with Libya-based smugglers, which the charities deny.

Italy’s coastguard coordinates all rescues off the coast of Libya, which has been shattered by years of civil war. Almost 100,000 have been brought to Italy this year, adding to the half a million brought over the three previous years.

As a high-ranking Interior Ministry official illustrated the 12-point document that charities fear will limit their capacity to save lives, one of the groups, Proactiva Open Arms, recovered 13 bodies off the Libyan coast.

Accused of working with smugglers

A photograph posted on Twitter showed the corpses strewn across the bottom of a large yellow raft that had been crammed with more than 160 migrants. More than 2,200 people have died in the Central Mediterranean this year.

“Several pregnant women and mothers among the (dead),” Proactiva’s founder Oscar Camps wrote on Twitter, adding, “and we are apparently the only ones who need a code of conduct.”

Members of the nine non-governmental groups working at sea sought changes to the document, ultimately driving Mario Morcone, chief of staff for Interior Minister Marco Minniti, to express his frustration, according to a source who attended the meeting.

“Your solidarity with Italy is hypocritical,” he quipped, according to the source.

There will be another meeting on Friday at the ministry, when the NGOs must submit the changes that they are seeking.

Since February the charities have been accused of colluding with people smugglers and attacked in the Italian media. This week a dozen far-right activists are setting out to sea to monitor their work.

The NGOs have repeatedly denied any ties to smuggling and no evidence of wrongdoing has ever been presented. They say their only objective is to save lives.

‘Urgent need of support’

“We are fully aware that Italy is in urgent need of support from European member states,” Sandra Mammamy, a Sea-Watch coordinator, told Reuters after the meeting. “But the code of conduct is a desperate attempt to blame someone else for Italy’s problem.”

Among the most controversial points is one that asks NGOs to let police on board so they can search for smugglers hidden amongst the migrants.

Another point forbids ships from transferring people to other boats, a measure apparently aimed at shutting down smaller rescue ships that normally transfer migrants to larger vessels to be brought to Italy.

Violation of maritime law

Fulvio Vassallo, a professor of international law at the University of Palermo, said in an interview on Radio Radicale that many points in the “code of conduct” would be in violation of international maritime law.

“The code of conduct isn’t meant to save more lives but to limit the number of people rescued by the NGOs,” Vassallo Paleologo said. “It’s being sold to the public as something that will lower departures from Libya, which it will not do. Unfortunately, it could increase the number of victims.”

 
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The European Union on Tuesday delivered its most public criticism yet of Turkey’s security crackdown since last year’s failed coup, saying there could be no progress on Ankara’s bid to join the bloc without an end to human rights abuses.

Speaking after a meeting with Turkey’s foreign and EU affairs ministers in Brussels, the European commissioner who oversees the membership talks said he needed to see “a reversal of the trend” towards authoritarianism.

“Human rights, the rule of law, democracy, fundamental freedoms including media freedom are all basic imperative requirements for any progress towards the European Union,” Johannes Hahn told a joint news conference with Turkey’s top diplomat Mevlut Cavusoglu, EU Affairs Minister Omer Celik and the EU’s foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini.

Tensions on display

Despite what Mogherini described as a constructive and open meeting, the tensions over Turkey’s aspirations to join the EU were on show, as both sides sparred publicly over whether new areas of negotiation, or chapters, should be opened.

Cavusoglu also responded to Mogherini and Hahn’s criticism of the trial of prominent journalists and the arrest of 10 rights activists by telling the bloc not to be misled by “pseudo-journalists who help terrorist activities.”

“There are those journalists, soldiers, politicians who helped the coup attempts last year. They need to also face the sentences that are necessary,” Cavusoglu said.

‘Charage’

Turkey’s imprisonment, pending trial, of 50,000 people and the detention or dismissal from their jobs of some 150,000 more have brought its decade-long talks to join the EU to a halt. One EU diplomat described the accession bid as a “charade.”

While the EU has condemned the July 2016 coup attempt against President Tayyip Erdogan, the extent of the crackdown and the deterioration of human rights have alienated Brussels.

Although a deal with Turkey to prevent migrants leaving its shores for Europe is still holding, many areas of negotiation on upgrading diplomatic and economic ties with Ankara are now blocked, including talks on visa-free travel for Turks in the EU and deepening free trade links, the EU diplomat said.

“Turkey is clearly moving away from EU standards. The destruction job against human rights and rule of law continues,” the diplomat said, noting some EU countries now wanted a discussion on cutting the money that Turkey receives to help it prepare for eventual EU accession.

Turkish officials say the scale of the crackdown, which has broad popular support at home, is justified by the gravity of events on July 15, 2016, when rogue soldiers commandeered tanks, fighter jets and helicopters, bombing parliament and government buildings in their attempt to seize power.

Turkey’s message

EU officials had initially held back from public criticism of Turkey, a vital ally of the West in the war against Islamic State militants and in tackling Europe’s migrant crisis.

But Turkey’s escalating row with Germany over access to Turkey’s NATO air bases and the detention of the head of Amnesty International in Turkey have driven relations to a new low.

Mogherini met the secretary general of Amnesty, Salil Shetty, before the meeting with the Turkish officials and was photographed holding up a petition signed by almost a million people calling for the release of rights activists in Turkey.

“The European Union has to recognize that with the arrest of the Amnesty chair and director, Turkey is really signalling that they don’t really care about any kind of consequences,” Shetty told reporters.

 
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The parents of the critically-ill British infant, Charlie Gard, dropped their legal bid Monday to send him to the United States for experimental treatment after new medical tests showed such treatment could no longer help. VOA’s Correspondent Mariama Diallo reports on the heart wrenching story of baby Charlie that attracted worldwide attention and sympathy.
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The International Monetary Fund is more optimistic about the economy of the 19-country eurozone after a run of elections saw populist politicians defeated and risks to its outlook abated.

In an update to its April projections published Monday, the IMF revised up its growth forecasts for many eurozone countries, including the big four of Germany, France, Italy and Spain, after stronger than anticipated first quarter figures.

Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, is projected to grow by 1.8 percent, up 0.2 percentage point on the previous estimate, while France is forecast to expand 1.5 percent, up 0.1 percentage point. Projections for Italy and Spain have been revised higher by a substantial 0.5 percentage point. The two are now expected to grow by 1.3 percent and 3.1 percent, respectively. All four are also expected to grow by more than anticipated in 2018.

Overall, the IMF expects the eurozone to expand by 1.9 percent this year, 0.2 percentage point more than its previous projection. That’s just shy of the IMF’s 2.1 percent forecast for the U.S., which was trimmed by 0.2 percentage point. However, it’s slightly ahead of Britain’s, whose projected growth was revised down 0.3 percentage point to 1.7 percent following a weak first quarter that raised concerns about the country’s economy ahead of its exit from the European Union.

The IMF’s eurozone upgrades come amid rising confidence in the bloc following a series of elections that saw populist politicians defeated, most notably in France, where Emmanuel Macron defeated the far-right candidate Marine Le Pen in May’s presidential election.

At the start of the year, political risks were considered the major hurdle facing the eurozone. There had been fears that radical changes in government could have seen more insular economic policies and further questions over the future of the euro itself.

“On the upside, the cyclical rebound could be stronger and more sustained in Europe, where political risk has diminished,” the IMF said in Monday’s report.

The lead eurozone economist at Oxford Economics, Ben May, thinks the IMF’s forecast may actually turn out to be too cautious. He’s predicting 2.2 percent growth as the region benefits from lower inflation, healthy global growth and a pick-up in business investment.

The IMF’s update came as a survey showed the eurozone economy slowed in July from a fast pace.

Financial information firm IHS Markit said Monday that its purchasing managers’ index for the region fell to a six-month low of 55.8 points in July from 56.3 the previous month.

The indicator still points to one of the strongest economic expansions in the past six years, with quarterly growth at a still-healthy 0.6 percent, down only slightly from the 0.7 percent signaled for the second quarter. Official second-quarter figures are due in early August.

Chris Williamson, the firm’s chief business economist, says it’s probably just a “speed bump,” with the economy “hitting bottlenecks due to the speed of the recent upturn.”

He noted that forward-looking indicators, such as new order inflows, suggest robust growth. As a result, job creation is “booming” as companies expand to meet demand.

The survey is likely to inform the ECB’s deliberations as it mulls when to start reining back its monetary stimulus. Last week, ECB President Mario Draghi sought to be neutral, worried that any indication of any change of course could cause the euro to surge. More clarity is expected at the next policy meeting on Sept. 7.

Much will depend on inflation. The chief purpose behind the ECB’s stimulus efforts, which has involved slashing interest rates and buying 60 billion euros ($69 billion) a month in bonds at least through the end of the year, is to get inflation up to its goal of just below 2 percent. In June, the annual rate of inflation was 1.3 percent.

Monday’s survey suggested that inflation pressures eased in July, which may reinforce Draghi’s belief that there isn’t “any convincing sign of a pickup in inflation.”
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Serbia’s new chief war crimes prosecutor has filed a request to resume the landmark trial of eight former Bosnian Serb police officers charged with taking part in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre.

The proceedings were halted after an appeals court ruled this month that the charges were invalid because they were filed when Serbia did not have a chief war crimes prosecutor. The trial marked the first time that a Serbian court had dealt with the killings by Bosnian Serb troops of around 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica, Europe’s worst single atrocity since World War II.

Serbia’s human rights groups had criticized the ruling, warning of state obstruction of war crimes trials in the Balkan country seeking to become a member of the European Union. The request to resume the trial was filed last week by the chief war crimes prosecutor, Snezana Stanojkovic, her office said.

The eight former officers were charged with participating in the killing of 1,313 people in a warehouse in Kravica, a village outside Srebrenica. They were crammed into a warehouse in the village and then killed with grenades and machine guns as they tried to escape the Serb onslaught.

Special police unit commander Nedeljko Milidragovic, also known as “Nedjo the Butcher,” was the defendant accused of organizing the killings. An indictment alleged that Milidragovic fired his pistol at those who still showed signs of life after the night-long rampage.

Serbia actively supported and armed Bosnian Serbs during the 1992-95 war that left over 100,000 people dead and forced millions from their homes.
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Poland’s president says he is vetoing two of three bills recently passed by lawmakers to reform the country’s judicial system.

Andrzej Duda announced his decision on television Monday, days after mass street protests.

“I have decided to send back to parliament, which means I will veto, the law on the Supreme Court, as well as the one about the National Council of the Judiciary,” he said.

Both bills are generally seen as challenges to the independence of the judicial system and are part of a legal overhaul, planned by the ruling Law and Justice Party. 

The third bill reorganizes the functioning of local courts and Duda said he would sign it.

The bill on the Supreme Court would have put the judiciary under the political control of the ruling party, with the justice minister, who is also prosecutor general, having the power to appoint judges. Duda has rejected such power for a prosecutor general.

In making his decisions, Duda broke openly for the first time with Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who is the leader of Law and Justice Party, de facto leader of the country, but does not hold a formal government post.

The president said he believed that Poland badly needs reform of the judiciary, but he did not feel that these bills would raise the sense of security and justice in the country.
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Jared Kushner, son-in-law and senior adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump, is being interviewed Monday by the Senate Intelligence Committee in connection with allegations that Trump’s election campaign had contacts with Russia. The closed-door meeting on Monday (July 24) is part of the probe into Russian meddling in last year’s U.S. presidential election and possible collusion with the Trump campaign. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports.
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Turkey’s president has condemned Israeli security precautions at a sensitive Jerusalem holy site saying the Islamic world would not remain silent.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan addressed reporters Sunday in Istanbul before departing on a visit to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar.

He says: “No one can expect the Islamic world to remain unresponsive after the humiliation Muslims suffered with the restrictions at the Noble Sanctuary.”

Earlier this week, Israel installed metal detectors at the shrine in response to a deadly attack by Arab gunmen there which killed two Israeli policemen. The metal detectors are perceived by the Palestinians as an encroachment on Muslim rights and have led to protests in the Muslim world.

Erdogan called on Israel to remove the detectors in a phone conversation with his counterpart Reuven Rivlin on Thursday.
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Lucy Harris thinks Britain’s decision to leave the European Union is a dream come true. Nick Hopkinson thinks it’s a nightmare.

The two Britons — a “leave” supporter and a “remainer” — represent the great divide in a country that stepped into the unknown just over a year ago, when British voters decided by 52 percent to 48 percent to end more than four decades of EU membership.

They are also as uncertain as the rest of the country about what Brexit will look like, and even when it will happen. Since the shock referendum result, work on negotiating the divorce from the EU has slowed to a crawl as the scale and complexity of the challenge becomes clearer.

Harris, founder of the pro-Brexit group Leavers of London, says she is hopeful, rather than confident, that Britain will really cut its ties with the EU.

“If we haven’t finalized it, then anything’s still up for grabs,” she said. “Everything is still to play for.”

She’s not the only Brexiteer, as those who support leaving the EU are called, to be concerned. After an election last month clipped the wings of Britain’s Conservative government, remainers are gaining in confidence.

“Since the general election I’ve been more optimistic that at least we’re headed toward soft Brexit, and hopefully we can reverse Brexit altogether,” said Hopkinson, chairman of pro-EU group London4Europe. “Obviously the government is toughing it out, showing a brave face. But I think its brittle attitude toward Brexit will break and snap.”

Many on both sides of the divide had assumed the picture would be clearer by now. But the road to Brexit has not run smoothly.

First the British government lost a Supreme Court battle over whether a vote in Parliament was needed to begin the Brexit process. Once the vote was held, and won, Prime Minister Theresa May’s Conservative government officially triggered the two-year countdown to exit, starting a race to untangle four decades of intertwined laws and regulations by March 2019.

Then, May called an early election in a bid to strengthen her hand in EU negotiations. Instead, voters stripped May’s Conservatives of their parliamentary majority, severely denting May’s authority — and her ability to hold together a party split between its pro-and anti-EU wings.

Since the June 8 election, government ministers have been at war, providing the media with a string of disparaging, anonymously sourced stories about one another. Much of the sniping has targeted Treasury chief Philip Hammond, the most senior minister in favor of a compromise “soft Brexit” to cushion the economic shock of leaving the bloc.

The result is a disunited British government and an increasingly impatient EU.

EU officials have slammed British proposals so far as vague and inadequate. The first substantive round of divorce talks in Brussels last week failed to produce a breakthrough, as the EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, said Britain must clarify its positions in key areas.

Barnier said “fundamental” differences remain on one of the biggest issues — the status of 3 million EU citizens living in Britain and 1 million U.K. nationals who reside in other European countries. A British proposal to grant permanent residency to Europeans in the U.K. was dismissed by the European Parliament as insufficient and burdensome.

There’s also a fight looming over the multibillion-euro bill that Britain must pay to meet previous commitments it made as an EU member. British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson recently asserted the bloc could “go whistle” if it thought Britain would settle a big exit tab.

“I am not hearing any whistling. Just the clock ticking,” Barnier replied.

EU officials insist there can be no discussion of a future trade deal with Britain until “sufficient progress” has been made on citizens’ rights, the exit bill and the status of the Irish border.

“We don’t seem to be much further on now than we were just after the referendum,” said Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London. “I’m not sure anybody knows just how this is going to go. I’m not sure the government has got its negotiating goals sorted. I’m not sure the EU really knows what [Britain’s goals] are either.

“I think we are going to find it very, very hard to meet this two-year deadline before we crash out.”

The prospect of tumbling out of the bloc — with its frictionless single market in goods and services — and into a world of tariffs and trade barriers has given Britain’s economy the jitters. The pound has lost more than 10 percent of its value against the dollar in the last year, economic growth has slowed and manufacturing output has begun to fall.

Employers’ organization the Confederation of British Industry says the uncertainty is threatening jobs. The group says to ease the pain, Britain should remain in the EU’s single market and customs union during a transitional period after Brexit.

That idea has support from many lawmakers, both Conservative and Labour, but could bring the wrath of pro-Brexit Conservatives down on the already shaky May government. That could trigger a party leadership challenge or even a new election — and more delays and chaos.

In the meantime, there is little sign the country has heeded May’s repeated calls to unite. A post-referendum spike in hate crimes against Europeans and others has subsided, but across the country families have fought and friendships have been strained over Brexit.

“It has created divisions that just weren’t there,” said Hopkinson, who calls the forces unleashed by Brexit a “nightmare.”

On that, he and Harris agree. Harris set up Leavers of London as a support group after finding her views out of synch with many others in her 20-something age group.

“I was fed up with being called a xenophobe,” she said. “You start this conversation and it gets really bad very quickly.”

She strongly believes Britain will be better off outside the EU. But, she predicts: “We’re in for a bumpy ride, both sides.”
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The U.S. Congress is moving toward adoption of new sanctions against Russia for its interference in the 2016 election, but it was unclear Sunday whether President Donald Trump would sign the legislation.

Anthony Scaramucci, the new White House communications director, told CNN, “You’ve got to ask President Trump. My guess is he’s going to make that decision soon.”

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told ABC News “the White House supports where the legislation is now.”

Key Republican and Democratic lawmakers reached accord Saturday on the measure, which does not include changes Trump wanted to make it easier for him to lift penalties against Moscow.

The House of Representatives is set to vote Tuesday, while the Senate has already overwhelmingly approved its version, but would have to concur with the House bill before it could be sent to Trump for his signature.

Investigations

Trump has been largely dismissive of numerous investigations underway in the U.S. about Russian meddling in the election aimed at helping him win. But the legislation would require him to submit a report to Congress explaining his reasons for wanting to ease or terminate sanctions against Moscow, such as returning diplomatic properties in Maryland and New York that former President Barack Obama shut in December in response to the election interference.

Congress would have at least 30 days to hold hearings and then vote to approve or reject Trump’s easing of sanctions.

Scaramucci, reflecting Trump’s views, said, “The Russia thing is a complete bogus and nonsensical thing.”

Scaramucci, named Friday as one of Trump’s top advisers, said the president remains uncertain whether Russia hacked into computer files at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington and then released thousands of emails through the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks to damage Trump’s challenger, Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Numerous congressional panels are interviewing Trump campaign aides about possible links to Russian interests. Special Counsel Robert Mueller is conducting a criminal probe whether the Trump campaign illegally colluded with Moscow and whether Trump obstructed justice by firing James Comey, the former Federal Bureau of Investigation director who was heading the Russia probe before Mueller took over.

Procedural issues

On Saturday, Republican and Democratic lawmakers said they had reached an agreement that fixed lingering procedural issues, as well as adding the sanctions against North Korea to the bill approved by the Senate.

The House legislation will be considered under an expedited process that requires a two-thirds majority for passage, meaning it would pass with a veto-proof majority.

Approval of the bill will likely occur before Congress’ August recess, a rare bipartisan effort in the politically fractious Washington.

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy said in a statement, “The bill the House will vote on next week will now exclusively focus on these nations and hold them accountable for their dangerous actions.”

Congressman Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the No. 2 House Democrat, echoed the Republicans’ statement, saying the bill “will hold Russia and Iran accountable for their destabilizing actions around the world.”

With the sanctions legislation, Congress is seeking to punish Russia not only for its meddling last fall in the U.S. election, but also for its 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula.

The U.S. intelligence community has concluded that Russian President Vladimir Putin personally directed the U.S. election interference, a claim Putin has rejected.
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Britain’s Prince William and Harry have spoken of their regret over the last conversation they had with their mother Princess Diana before she died, saying the telephone call was “desperately rushed.”

In a documentary called “Diana, Our Mother: Her Life and Legacy” timed to coincide with the 20th anniversary of Diana’s death in a Paris car crash on Aug. 31, 1997, the two princes said they spoke to their mother shortly before she died.

“Harry and I were in a desperate rush to say goodbye, you know ‘see you later’ … if I’d known now obviously what was going to happen, I wouldn’t have been so blase about it and everything else,” Prince William said.

Prince Harry said: “It was her speaking from Paris, I can’t really necessarily remember what I said but all I do remember is probably regretting for the rest of my life how short the phone call was.”

Nick Kent, the film’s executive producer, told Reuters he believed the document offered a glimpse of “the private Diana”. “Nobody has ever told this story from the point of view of the two people who knew her better than anyone else, and loved her the most: her sons.”

The princes recall their mother’s sense of humor, with Prince Harry describing her as “one of the naughtiest parents”.

They also recall the pain of their parents’ divorce and how they dealt with the news of her death and its aftermath.

While the film addresses aspects of Diana’s life such as her charity work involving HIV and landmines, it shies away from some other issues, such as extra-marital affairs.

According to the makers, however, the British royals were very open and did not put any subject off limits. Rather, they wanted to cover new ground and make a different type of film.

“What we had in mind is that in years to come, Prince William and Prince Harry would be happy to show this film to their own children and say this is who your grandmother was,” Kent said.

“Diana, Our Mother: Her Life and Legacy” will be broadcast on British and U.S. television on July 24.

A number of commemorative events have been planned to mark Diana’s death.

William and Harry attended a private service this month to rededicate her grave and the brothers have commissioned a statue to be erected in her honor outside their official London home.

Rarely-seen possessions of Diana, including her music collection and ballet shoes, went on display on Saturday at Buckingham Palace. An exhibition celebrating Diana’s fashion opened in February.
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