The Star Online: World Updates
The Star Online: World Updates |
- News Corp's James Murdoch under pressure over hacking testimony
- Hotel maid in Strauss-Kahn case speaks out
- In rural town, Norway attacker seemed city loner
| News Corp's James Murdoch under pressure over hacking testimony Posted: 24 Jul 2011 09:10 PM PDT LONDON (Reuters) - News Corp executive James Murdoch was under pressure on Monday over his handling of a phone-hacking scandal that has hit the Murdoch family's media empire and could jeopardise his own position at the company.
British police are considering a request from opposition Labour politician Tom Watson to investigate claims the 38-year-old son of News Corp head Rupert Murdoch gave "mistaken" testimony to a high profile hearing in parliament last week. Separately Labour lawmaker Chris Bryant has written to News Corp's independent directors calling on them to suspend both James and his 80-year-old father for failing to exercise proper corporate control. Later this week James Murdoch is expected to retain the support of investors and independent directors of BSkyB when the pay-TV company which he chairs and in which News Corp holds a 39 percent stake announces its financial results. James and his father appeared before parliament's media committee on Tuesday to answer questions on phone-hacking. The scandal aroused public fury earlier this month after revelations the phone of missing school girl Milly Dowler had been hacked in 2002. The body of the murdered 13-year-old was found several months after she disappeared. News Corp's British arm News International had maintained until then that previously known about incidents of the illegal practice at its News of the World tabloid was the work of a lone "rogue reporter". However, two former senior figures at its British newspaper arm on Friday disputed James Murdoch's claim at the committee hearing that he had been unaware in 2008 of an e-mail that suggested such wrongdoing was more widespread. OUT OF COURT PAYMENT The email related to a 700,000 pound ($1.1 million) out-of-court settlement paid to the head of English soccer's players union and signed off by James Murdoch in 2008, shortly after he took charge of News Corp's European operations. In a letter to the media committee's chairman James Murdoch said he had answered questions in parliament truthfully. But lawmakers may now contact the men disputing his account, ex-News of the World editor Colin Myler and the newspaper group's top legal officer Tom Crone, to hear their version of events. "James Murdoch is in a precarious position," said media analyst Steve Hewlett. "If it emerges that he knew the details of what he was signing, then he's in trouble," said Hewlett. "But if he knew absolutely nothing about why he was signing away so much money, then another question arises, as to whether he is competent to run the business, and whether he is a worthy successor to his father." James Murdoch's position as chairman of BSkyB will come under scrutiny later this week when independent directors meet to discuss corporate governance. But they are expected to back him, as are investors who are looking for a share buy back or special dividend when the firm reports its financial results on Friday. James Murdoch can point to a highly successful four years as the company's chief executive before becoming as non-executive chairman in late 2007. Several shareholders told Reuters last week they were supportive of James as chairman but would want to discuss the situation. ($1 = 0.613 British Pounds) (Reporting by Tim Castle; Editing by Matthew Jones) Copyright © 2011 Reuters Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by Used Car Search. | ||
| Hotel maid in Strauss-Kahn case speaks out Posted: 24 Jul 2011 09:10 PM PDT NEW YORK (Reuters) - The New York hotel maid who accused former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn of attempting to rape her said in an interview published on Newsweek's website on Sunday that he appeared as a "crazy man" and attacked her when she entered his room.
Nafissatou Diallo also gave the newsmagazine and ABC News permission to identify her by name. The magazine interview marks the first time the 32-year-old Guinean immigrant to the United States has publicly spoken to the media since she shocked the world with allegations that Strauss-Kahn emerged naked from the bathroom of his luxury suite on May 14 and forced her to perform oral sex. Until now, Reuters had kept to the practice in the United States of protecting the identity of alleged rape victims. ABC News on Sunday also announced it would broadcast an interview with Diallo on Monday morning. "I want justice. I want him to go to jail," she said in excerpts from the television interview released on Sunday. "I want him to know that there is some places you cannot use your money, you cannot use your power when you do something like this," Diallo said. One of Diallo's attorneys, Douglas Wigdor, told Reuters she has come forward to let the world know she is not a "shakedown artist or a prostitute." "She's being attacked ... and she thought it was important to put a name and face to her account," Wigdor said. She also plans to file a civil lawsuit soon, which means her name would become public, he added. ABC reported Diallo also acknowledged "mistakes" but said that should not stop prosecutors from going forward. "I never want to be in public but I have no choice," she told ABC News, adding "Now, I have to be in public. I have to, for myself. I have to tell the truth." Diallo, who Newsweek said had agreed to be photographed for next week's edition, said she saw Strauss-Kahn appear naked in front of her when she opened the door to his suite. He was like "a crazy man to me," she said. "You're beautiful," she reported Strauss-Kahn as saying, and said he attacked her despite her protestations. DENIES ALL CHARGES Strauss-Kahn, 62, has repeatedly denied all the charges against him. In a statement on Sunday, his lawyers called the interview a last-ditch effort by the maid and her lawyers to extract money from the former managing director of the International Monetary Fund. She is "the first accuser in history to conduct a media campaign to persuade a prosecutor to pursue charges against a person from whom she wants money," lawyers Benjamin Brafman and William Taylor said. "Her lawyers and public relations consultants have orchestrated an unprecedented number of media events and rallies to bring pressure on the prosecutors in this case after she had to admit her extraordinary efforts to mislead them." Her credibility was thrown into question when Manhattan prosecutors revealed Diallo told authorities numerous lies, including fabricating a story about being gang-raped in Guinea in order to gain U.S. asylum. She also changed details of her story about what happened following the purported assault. Wigdor said Diallo has worried that prosecutors would drop the charges. "That has been a concern, but we're all hopeful that the district attorney's going to do the right thing," he said. A spokesman for Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance had no comment on the interviews, saying: "We will not discuss the facts or evidence in what remains an ongoing investigation." FLED AFTER RAPE After arriving from Guinea in 2003, Diallo, who is illiterate, told Newsweek she spent years braiding hair before working at a bodega in New York City's Bronx borough. As a maid at the Sofitel hotel, she received $25 an hour plus tips. Diallo said her husband in Guinea died of an illness but did not provide further details. Roughly two years after being raped by two soldiers in Conakry, the Guinean capital, she fled with her daughter, now 15, to the United States, where she said she has few close friends. Following the alleged attack, Diallo spent weeks in protective custody, holed up in a hotel with her daughter. "She's been in seclusion for over two months. She hasn't been able to take a walk in the park," her lawyer said. French newspaper France Soir reported in a front page headline that David Koubbi, the lawyer for French writer Tristane Banon, who has accused Strauss-Kahn of a 2003 sexual assault, had met with Diallo. It added only that he "was impressed by her courage." (Reporting by Basil Katz; Additional reporting by Noeleen Walder in New York and JoAnne Allen in Washington; Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst and Eric Walsh) Copyright © 2011 Reuters Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by Used Car Search. | ||
| In rural town, Norway attacker seemed city loner Posted: 24 Jul 2011 09:10 PM PDT RENA, Norway (Reuters) - A right-wing zealot who has confessed to killing 93 people in Norway seemed a polite "city man" out of place in a small rural town where he leased a hideaway farm to plot his attacks.
"He said he was a farmer," said Trine Stetten, a 22-year-old hairdresser, who had stood next to Anders Behring Breivik while her partner in a local salon clipped his hair a month or so ago. "He had a PC bag with him and nice clothes ... we thought it was really weird that he was a farmer," she said. Breivik, the 32-year-old Norwegian who has admitted to shooting dead 86 people and planting a bomb that killed seven others on Friday, leased a farm in the municipality of Rena, about 160 kilometres north of Oslo, this spring. In the small town, he brushed elbows with locals, including at a pub called the Cuckoo's Nest frequented by soldiers from the elite Telemark Battalion whose 2,000-strong base is in Rena. Breivik said in a May 12 entry in his Internet-posted diary: "It's quite ironic being situated practically on top of the largest military base in the country. It would have saved me a lot of hassle if I could just 'borrow' a cup of sugar and 3kg of C4 (explosive) from my dear neighbour." People in Rena said he could not help but stand out. "He asked for a receipt and paid with cards -- nobody here asks for a receipt for a beer, and we just throw them away," said Hanne Skavern, 20, who works at the pub and some days at a petrol station. WRONG WORDS Svein Meldieseth, a burly 61-year farmer who made a deal with Breivik this spring to cut and buy the hay that grows at the leased farm in the village of Aasta, said Breivik appeared to be a "city man." "He told me I could 'clip' it -- we say 'cut' in farming, so that tells a little about what he knew about farming," Meldieseth said. Lasse Nordlie, owner of the Gjoekeredet Pub -- the Norwegian word for Cuckoo's Nest, a reference to a film starring Jack Nicholson as a patient in a psychiatric hospital -- said he did not remember seeing Breivik but said Rena was the perfect place for someone who wanted to avoid attention. "It's easy to get under the radar here, and there's no view of the farm from the road," said Nordlie, age 34. Rena residents who talked to Reuters said they had only ever seen Breivik alone. He has told police he carried out the attacks alone. On a good Saturday night, Nordlie said, 150-200 soldiers from the Rena Camp drink at his pub, whose wall bears a banner from the NATO-led mission in Afghanistan and dance in the basement disco dubbed the Psych Ward Nightclub. The bartenders in the nightclub, which is decorated with photographs Nordlie took at the abandoned Lier psychiatric hospital near Drammen, wear white doctor's coats. "I am going to have to lie low with this psychiatric ward stuff for a while, maybe keep the disco shut for a while," Nordlie said. Down the Rena main street from the Cuckoo's Nest, Breivik dined at the Milano Rena Restaurante five or six times, the two Turkish owners said. "He sat with his hands-free (mobile phone earpiece) and wrote in a notebook," said Eyup Ali Aykut, adding he never heard Breivik talking to anyone on the phone. "He ate shrimp as a starter, beef a la Rena and apple pie for desert. He drank soft drinks - a cola." "He was exceedingly nice," said Bilal Guclu, co-proprietor of the restaurant, which shares a two-storey white building with the local police department. (Editing by Sophie Hares) Copyright © 2011 Reuters Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by Used Car Search. |
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