text: As Prince Charles arrived Monday in Sri Lanka for an official visit marking the 50 th anniversary of its independence from Britain , he was reported to be considering canceling a plan to confer a knighthood there on the expatriate British writer Arthur C. Clarke ( 2001 : A Space Odyssey ) following a front-page story in the London Sunday Mirror reporting claims that Clarke had paid for sex with young boys .
  
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  Prince Charles refused to go to Sri Lanka .