Young women swooned in Washington's corridors of power as Britain's Prince Harry began a week-long tour of the United States clearly showing more interest in landmines.
Squeals echoed through the halls of the Russell Senate office building on Capitol Hill as the 28-year-old bachelor inspected a photo exhibit set up by the Halo Trust, a charity favored by his late mother Princess Diana.
Harry, a British army officer in Afghanistan, ignored the giggly twentysomethings as he chatted with Senator John McCain, 76, a Vietnam war veteran whose wife Cindy McCain is a Halo Trust board member.
There were no public remarks, but Harry was overheard asking about the price of mine detectors when he cast an eye over a pair of mannequins in cobalt blue outfits combing the polished marble floor for imaginary unexploded ordnance.
Harry is the honorary fund-raising patron of the Halo Trust, the world's biggest demining organization, which since its founding 25 years ago has unearthed more than 1.4 million landmines in 9,800 minefields around the world.
"He's very much tuned in to the landmine issue," said Halo Trust chief executive Guy Willoughby, who also spoke with Harry at the exhibit aptly installed outside the Senate armed services committee hearing room.
Diana famously toured minefields cleared by Halo teams in Angola shortly before her death in a Paris car crash in August 1997, a year after her stormy divorce from Prince Charles, heir to the British throne.
The United States is the only NATO member state not to sign the 1997 Ottawa treaty banning landmines, but since President Bill Clinton's administration it has contributed $150 million to support the Halo Trust's work.
"The commitment of the American government to fund humanitarian mine clearance far, far, far outweighs the political niceties about whether they have or have not signed the Ottawa treaty," Willoughby told AFP.
If funding levels are sustained, he added, it would be possible to clear virtually every minefield in every erstwhile combat zone in Africa and Asia in the next five to 10 years.
Ladies swoon as Prince Harry begins US tour
Young women swooned in Washington's corridors of power as Britain's Prince Harry began a week-long tour of the United States clearly showing more interest in landmines.
Squeals echoed through the halls of the Russell Senate office building on Capitol Hill as the 28-year-old bachelor inspected a photo exhibit set up by the Halo Trust, a charity favored by his late mother Princess Diana.
Harry, a British army officer in Afghanistan, ignored the giggly twentysomethings as he chatted with Senator John McCain, 76, a Vietnam war veteran whose wife Cindy McCain is a Halo Trust board member.
There were no public remarks, but Harry was overheard asking about the price of mine detectors when he cast an eye over a pair of mannequins in cobalt blue outfits combing the polished marble floor for imaginary unexploded ordnance.
Harry is the honorary fund-raising patron of the Halo Trust, the world's biggest demining organization, which since its founding 25 years ago has unearthed more than 1.4 million landmines in 9,800 minefields around the world.
"He's very much tuned in to the landmine issue," said Halo Trust chief executive Guy Willoughby, who also spoke with Harry at the exhibit aptly installed outside the Senate armed services committee hearing room.
Diana famously toured minefields cleared by Halo teams in Angola shortly before her death in a Paris car crash in August 1997, a year after her stormy divorce from Prince Charles, heir to the British throne.
The United States is the only NATO member state not to sign the 1997 Ottawa treaty banning landmines, but since President Bill Clinton's administration it has contributed $150 million to support the Halo Trust's work.
"The commitment of the American government to fund humanitarian mine clearance far, far, far outweighs the political niceties about whether they have or have not signed the Ottawa treaty," Willoughby told AFP.
If funding levels are sustained, he added, it would be possible to clear virtually every minefield in every erstwhile combat zone in Africa and Asia in the next five to 10 years.
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