The Star Online: World Updates
The Star Online: World Updates |
- Murdoch limits damage in parliament grilling
- Papademos named PM to claw Greece out of crisis
- Syria violence kills dozens more, Arab League to meet
| Murdoch limits damage in parliament grilling Posted: LONDON (Reuters) - James Murdoch, fighting for his career, held his line that he was innocent of covering up phone-hacking at the News of the World tabloid and blamed other former executives in a UK parliamentary hearing on Thursday.
But the 38-year-old News Corp executive and son of media mogul Rupert had no answer during his two-and-a-half-hour grilling to accusations he should have asked more questions, particularly when approving a huge payoff to a hacking victim. Murdoch accused his former editor and legal chief of misleading him and parliament, after Colin Myler and Tom Crone publicly contradicted his previous testimony to the committee of British MPs investigating the phone-hacking. "This was the job of the new editor who had come in ... to clean things up, to make me aware of those things," said Murdoch, appearing confident under interrogation by lawmakers even when compared by MP Tom Watson to a Mafia boss. Observers said Murdoch, who as executive chairman of News Corp's British newspaper arm News International was ultimately responsible for the now-defunct tabloid, acquitted himself well by not damaging his reputation any further. "There was definitely no knock-out punch delivered," said Ian Whittaker, media analyst at Liberum Capital. But his performance will have done nothing to win over those with doubts about his ability to run a large company like News Corp. Until recently he had been expected to succeed his father at the head of the media group. The committee will now draw up a report of its findings, which it expects to publish by Christmas. "Mr Murdoch, I think, did do his best to give his full account to the committee. Clearly there are contradictions between what he said and others have told us," the committee's chairman, John Whittingdale, told reporters after the hearing. ROGUE REPORTER The News of the World was revealed this year to have run an industrial-scale operation to hack into the phones of murder victims including schoolgirl Milly Dowler as well as celebrities and politicians. The scandal caused a wave of public anger which ultimately brought about the closure of the tabloid, shook the political establishment and saw the head of the country's largest police force resign. Prime Minister David Cameron was also damaged by his decision to hire former News of the World editor Andy Coulson as his communications chief in 2007. Previously, News Corp had maintained the hacking at its tabloid was the work of a lone, "rogue" royal reporter, Clive Goodman, and private detective Glenn Mulcaire. Both went to jail for the offence in 2007. In 2008, James Murdoch approved a payoff of about 750,000 pounds ($1.2 million) to hacking victim and soccer boss Gordon Taylor, who had in his possession an email of hacking transcripts appearing to show the hacking went beyond Goodman. He reiterated to MPs on Thursday he had approved the unusually large payoff only because he was following legal advice, and not because he knew the so-called "for Neville" email could implicate other journalists. "I was given sufficient information and only sufficient information to authorise the increase of the settlement offered, that Mr Crone and Mr Myler had already eagerly been increasing in order to achieve a settlement even before it had come across my desk," he said. Opposition Labour Party MP Tom Watson, the toughest member of the committee, asked Murdoch: "Do you think Mr Crone misled us?" Murdoch answered: "It follows that I do, yes." Crone later issued a statement to media rebutting Murdoch's version of events. "The simple truth is he was told by us in 2008 about the damning email and what it meant in terms of wider News of the World involvement," he said. Myler likewise rejected Murdoch's account. "My evidence to the select committee has been entirely accurate and consistent," he said in a statement. Neville Thurlbeck, the former News of the World chief reporter believed to be the "Neville" in the disputed email, said he had been compiling his own hacking dossier and accused the paper's executives of trying to keep a lid on what had been happening and not News International bosses. "If Mr Murdoch, James Murdoch, had been aware of my dossier, if he had been aware of what I was volunteering over two years to the News of the World he would have been far more prepared to face this crisis," he told BBC TV. "I think when he was giving his evidence today it was based on ignorance ... of what had been going on on the shop floor." Last week, a journalist working for sister newspaper The Sun was arrested on suspicion of bribing police. When asked, Murdoch said he could not rule out shutting down the daily tabloid, should widespread malpractice be discovered there. SURVEILLANCE Any notion that News International was a reformed organisation was undermined this week by its admission that the News of the World had put lawyers defending hacking victims under surveillance as recently as this year. James Murdoch also said that members of the parliamentary committee questioning him had been put under surveillance, for which he apologised "unreservedly". Mark Lewis, who is representing victims including the Dowler family, told Reuters: "It's useful that I have an apology for something that shouldn't have happened." "But we need to know what did happen, who was doing it, why were they doing it, the full extent and why they were bothering to trail my family." Murdoch survived a massive protest vote against his membership of the board of News Corp last month, and faces a shareholder vote on his chairmanship of British satellite broadcaster BSkyB at the end of November. James Murdoch adopted a more contrite tone than on his previous appearance before the committee together with his father Rupert in July. "It is a matter of great regret that things went wrong at the News of the World in 2006. The company didn't come to grips with those issues fast enough," he said. The sometimes testy Murdoch also failed to rise to the bait when Watson compared him to a Mafia boss, responding mildly: "Mr Watson, please, I think that's inappropriate." (Additional reporting by Keith Weir, Paul Sandle and Michelle Martin; Editing by Sophie Hares and Andrew Heavens) Copyright © 2011 Reuters Full content generated by Get Full RSS. | ||
| Papademos named PM to claw Greece out of crisis Posted: ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece named banker Lucas Papademos as head of a new crisis government on Thursday, ending the country's chaotic search for a leader to save it from default, bankruptcy and expulsion from the euro zone.
A solemn Papademos called on Greeks to unite behind him after months of divisive politicking, as he sets about securing a bailout from the European Union that will impose yet more hardship on a nation already suffering soaring unemployment. "The choices we make will be decisive for the Greek people. The path will not be easy but I am convinced the problems will be resolved faster and at a smaller cost if there is unity, understanding and prudence," Papademos said as he emerged from the coalition talks brokered by President Karolos Papoulias. In a week when other European leaders started to openly question Athens' membership of the 17-currency bloc, the former European Central Bank vice-president stressed Greece's commitment to the euro. "I am convinced that the country's participation in the euro zone is a guarantee for monetary stability," he said after meeting outgoing Prime Minister George Papandreou and the conservative opposition. Papademos was left mulling the formation of a coalition government alone in his new prime ministerial office on Thursday night after talks ended with no indication of who the new cabinet would include. Sources in both parties said Evangelos Venizelos was likely to remain as finance minister when Papoulias swears in the new cabinet, scheduled for 1200 GMT on Friday. The EU's two top officials -- now facing a similar political crisis in "too big to fail" Italy -- welcomed news that Papademos had been named prime minister. "We reiterate that our European institutions will continue to do everything within their power to help Greece. But Greece must also do everything within its power to help itself," European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and Herman Van Rompuy, European Council President, said in a joint statement. They said they had told Greece's leaders they needed to send "a strong cross-party message", put aside domestic political wrangling and start shrinking the country's huge debt load. RESPECTED FIGURE Papademos, a respected figure in European capitals and on financial markets, said the coalition had the specific task of implementing a 130-billion-euro ($177 billion) bailout deal with the euro zone before calling an early election. The 64-year-old cuts a grey and uncharismatic figure in the colourful and chaotic world of Greek politics, but Papademos also has a reputation for being calm at a time when the nation is clamouring for stability. Political leaders had agreed the coalition should govern only until elections pencilled in for Feb. 19, but Papademos signalled he would not necessarily be bound by the date if work remained to be done. Greeks reacted with exhausted relief that an internationally-recognised technocrat will be in charge after four days of often shambolic negotiations between party leaders on forming the coalition. "After three days of farcical comedy, Greece has today a prime minister who is fully qualified to succeed in the task he has been assigned to," said Costas Panagopoulos, head of pollsters Alco. "The fact that the parties finally managed to cooperate is also very positive. I hope that the big gap between political parties and Greek citizens will now start shrinking." But analysts abroad were cautious on whether Papademos can impose the tough austerity required by the bailout deal on a Greek people who have already staged a wave of strikes and protests against budget cuts and higher taxes. As if to prove the point, around 8,000 Communist party supporters marched past parliament on Thursday night, chanting "resist" and "no more austerity". Jennifer McKeown, senior European economist at Capital Economics in London said it would be extremely difficult to implement austerity measures give strong public opposition. "Some of these measures will be pushed through but in the long run the situation will not improve until Greece leaves the euro zone and devalues its currency." Analysts also say Papademos, a man with no political experience, may struggle to exert his authority over hardened party figures in his cabinet like Venizelos. Greeks were just thankful the coalition agreement had been sealed after long-running negotiations during which party leaders struck a deal to install the speaker of parliament as premier, only for it to collapse at the last minute. "It is the only good thing in this case, which has made us all a laughing stock," former Greek President Costis Stefanopoulos told Mega TV shortly before the deal was struck. DAUNTING PROBLEMS In a sign of the problems he faces, the statistics service ELSTAT reported unemployment jumped almost 2 points in one month to a record 18.4 percent in August, a time when the rate traditionally falls as tourists flock to Greek beaches. Papademos said he had set no terms to any political leaders before accepting the job, but government sources said he had driven a hard bargain. These included a demand that Papandreou's socialist PASOK and the New Democracy party of Antonis Samaras give a written undertaking to support the euro zone bailout package, whose stipulations are likely to be highly unpopular with voters. EU Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn, exasperated by broken Greek promises, has already insisted the leaders sign up before receiving even an 8 billion euro instalment from Greece's original bailout deal pulled together last year, a fraction of the total it will eventually need. Unless Greece gets that money, it will default next month when a 2.9 billion euros in debt repayment are due. Samaras had long argued the spending cuts, tax rises and job losses imposed by the outgoing socialist government under orders from the EU and IMF had deepened Greece's crippling recession, now in its fourth year. (Additional reporting by Renee Maltezou, Karolina Tagaris and Angeliki Koutantou; Writing by David Stamp and Ben Harding; Editing by Sophie Hares) Copyright © 2011 Reuters Full content generated by Get Full RSS. | ||
| Syria violence kills dozens more, Arab League to meet Posted: [unable to retrieve full-text content]AMMAN (Reuters) - At least 30 civilians and 26 soldiers were killed in Syria ahead of Friday prayers, activists said, as a seven-month crackdown on pro-democracy protests becomes more violent and attacks on security forces increase. |
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