About 350 Innu Indians welcomed Queen Elizabeth the Second to their Labrador community on Thursday, while down the road about 30 protesters waved placards denouncing her visit. In Sheshatshiu, Newfoundland, the Queen went inside a traditional hunting tent lined with spruce branches and caribou skins.

Paul Rich, Chief of the local Innu band, explained a gift of artwork to the Queen while at the same time making her aware of the problems aboriginals have faced since colonisation. ``We did not choose to live under someone's laws,'' the Queen was told. The Queen visited the elders in their hunting camp tents and she was introduced to the community's traditional way of life.

Queen Elizabeth is on a 10-day visit to Canada.Miller's writings auctioned

The only existing carbon copy of the first draft of Henry Miller's novel Tropic of Capricorn sold for $40,250 at an auction in San Francisco on Thursday. His infamous Little Black Book, a list of lovers with star ratings beside their names sold for $2,645.

In all, 122 letters, photographs and typed drafts were put up for sale by Miller's children at the Pacific Book Auction Gallery. Much of his work was banned for decades in the US on charges of obscenity.

Miller was best known for his semi-autobiographical novels set in 1930s New York and Paris documenting the adventures of a sexually voracious, struggling expatriate writer. Tropic of Cancer was a catalyst for a landmark freedom of speech decision by the U.S. Supreme court, which lifted the book's decades-old obscenity ban in 1961. Miller died in 1980 at age 88.

Public separation

The stormy six-year marriage of singer Latoya Jackson and manager Jack Gordon is officially over even if the sniping isn't. Jackson, the sister of Michael Jackson, was granted her divorce on Tuesday in Clark County family court.

She filed for divorce in May 1996. Judge Fran Fine imposed a gag order at the hearing. But that didn't stop Gordon from sounding off. ``All the assets were divided in half,'' Gordon told the Associated Press. He said there was no alimony involved.

Not so, said Jackson's attorney, Brian Oxman. Oxman said he would ask that Gordon be held in contempt of court, that his comments to the media were inaccurate and a violation of the gag order. Gordon said the assets included $3 million in jewellery, five cars and two condominiums in Las Vegas and New York City.

Gordon said fine continued a protective order which keeps the two 50 metres from each other. Jackson accused him in 1993 of beating her and throwing a chair at her, but later dropped the charges. Gordon said he acted in self-defense when Jackson came at him with a knife.

Bad memories

US television anchors Dan Rather and Bernie Shaw, in Hong Kong to cover the city's return to Chinese rule, remember how bad things went on their last assignment in China. It was 1989 and they were covering the pro-democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square in Beijing.

``The Chinese Foreign Ministry stormed into the control room and summarily shut us down,'' Shaw of CNN told the daily news. ``Fortunately, the whole world was watching that control-room scene, including President Bush,'' Shaw said.

Rather and CBS also were yanked off the Air after breaking into the season finale of Dallas. ``I was there, in live, prime-time television, facing a stern-faced, stern-willed Chinese bureaucrat,'' Rather recalled from Hong Kong. ``He kept telling us to pull the plug and I kept telling him I'm not going to be the one to pull the plug. Any plug-pulling around here is going to be done by you.''

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.