CAT AND MOUSE TO CATCH SCHROEDER

SECURITY around the German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder is unusually tight for his Majorcan holiday with his wife Doris and yesterday, for the second consecutive day, the Guardia Civil confiscated rolls of film from photographers who snapped Schroeder's secluded villa near Santa Maria from a helicopter. The German Chancellor only arrived on Wednesday, but already the clamour for pictures, in big demand in Germany, has caused a number of incidents. Yesterday the PSM, Majorcan Socialist Party, criticised the authorities for seizing the rolls of film saying that the action by the Guardia Civil was “unjustified.” However, yesterday during the altercation between police and the press, the German Chancellor slipped out of his rural hideaway and headed into Palma with his wife Doris where they quite calmly allowed a photographer to take their picture as they sat on a La Lonja terrace. The Chancellor and his wife will be spending two weeks on the island as part of their summer holiday and the long awaited break was very nearly suspended because of the Concorde crash. During the Chancellor's stay on the island he described as “enchanted” during a brief visit in 1998, he and his wife will be dining at Marivent Palace as guests of the King and Queen of Spain and are expected to show up at the Real Club Nautico in Palma during the Copa del Rey sailing regatta which starts this weekend. When the Chancellor was driven out of the Son San Joan military base after he arrived on Wednesday evening, he was followed by a long line of cars carrying security officers and the press was not allowed to photograph his arrival, hence why there is such much interest in getting a clear set of pictures of the Chancellor and his wife in order to document their visit to the island.