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WorldNewsJuly2011








 

Murdochs Say They Relied on Law Firm’s Phone-Hacking Study

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-07-20/murdochs-say-they-relied-on-law-firm-s-phone-hacking-study.html

July 20, 2011, 12:00 PM EDT

By Erik Larson and Lindsay Fortado

(Adds Abramson’s comment in 10th paragraph. For more coverage of News Corp., see {EXT3 <GO>}.)

July 20 (Bloomberg) -- Rupert Murdoch and his son James told U.K. lawmakers that resolution of a phone-hacking scandal at News Corp.’s British unit was delayed because they relied on a clean bill of health from the law firm Harbottle & Lewis LLP.

The law firm, based in London, has clients including Diageo Plc, Vodafone Group Plc and model Kate Moss, according to its website. It was hired in 2007 to examine a file of News International internal e-mails and found no evidence of illegal activity beyond a private investigator and News of the World royal reporter who were jailed after intercepting voice mails for the tabloid, James Murdoch told lawmakers yesterday.

“We and the company rested on that opinion for a period of time,” James Murdoch said at the hearing. “It is a key bit of outside legal advice from senior counsel.” The company went to police four years later, after a new internal review of the same file uncovered evidence of additional wrongdoing, he said.

Ken Macdonald, the former U.K. director of public prosecutions, told a separate group of lawmakers yesterday that Harbottle & Lewis had evidence that indicated “serious criminal offenses” by News Corp. workers. Lawmakers described the file as “an enormous pile of documents” that sat at the law firm for years.

Paper Shut Down

The Murdochs cited the law firm’s report as they sought to explain why News International failed to understand or acknowledge the widespread use of phone hacking at the 168-year- old newspaper, which was shut in an effort to contain fallout from the scandal. James Murdoch said that previous denials of wrongdoing were based on the outside study, as well as police assertions there was no need to investigate further.

Harbottle & Lewis Managing Partner Glen Atchison said the 55-year-old firm asked News International to release it from “professional duties of confidentiality” so that it could respond to “inaccurate statements or contentions.”

The company refused, “so we are still unable to respond in any detail as to our advice or the scope of our instructions in 2007, which is a matter of great regret,” Atchison said in a phone interview yesterday.

In a May 29, 2007, letter to News International, Harbottle & Lewis’s Lawrence Abramson said a review of e-mails found no evidence that executives knew about hacking by Clive Goodman, the former royal reporter at News of the World.

Cover-Up Claims

“That opinion did satisfy the company at the time,” James Murdoch said at yesterday’s hearing. He declined to specify what was found in the e-mails, saying it could hamper criminal investigations.

“Professional duty of confidentiality prevents me from commenting on this,” Abramson, now at the law firm Fladgate LLP, said today in an e-mailed statement.

John Yates, the assistant Metropolitan Police commissioner who resigned this week because of his connections to a former News of the World editor, separately told Parliament’s Home Affairs Committee “the facts appear to be that News International have deliberately covered up” evidence.

Asked at the hearing if he would consider suing Harbottle & Lewis, James Murdoch said it was “really a matter for the future.”

Harbottle & Lewis, with about 75 lawyers, has advised the Ben Sherman Group Ltd. on its British property portfolio and the DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc. regarding the performance of the movie “Shrek” as a play at a London theater.

News Corp. Board

Macdonald was hired in May by another British law firm, Hickman & Rose, on behalf of News Corp.’s board, to review the file of e-mails held since 2007 by Harbottle & Lewis. Macdonald told lawmakers he recommended the company’s board give the file to the Metropolitan Police.

The file showed evidence of “serious criminal offenses,” Macdonald said. Police have since opened a probe into whether officers took bribes from the newspaper for information leading to stories.

“I can’t imagine anyone looking at that file and not seeing crime,” Macdonald said.

The file was put together in 2007 when Goodman was bringing an unfair dismissal claim against News International, he said.

Macdonald, who was head of the Crown Prosecution Service at the time Goodman was charged, said it took “maybe five minutes” to review the nine or 10 e-mails included in the file and conclude police needed to see them. “The material I saw was so blindingly obvious that anyone trying to argue that it wasn’t would’ve had a hard time,” he said.

Mulcaire Fees

Rupert and James Murdoch told U.K. lawmakers yesterday they didn’t know if News Corp. was still paying the legal fees for Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator who was jailed for six months for intercepting voice mails left for supermodel Elle Macpherson and members of the British royal family.

News International said today it stopped paying Mulcaire’s legal fees. The company declined to say when it stopped the payments.

Mulcaire’s lawyer, Sarah Webb, didn’t return a call for comment.

Bloomberg LP, the parent of Bloomberg News, competes with News Corp. units in providing financial news and information.

--With assistance from Jonathan Browning in London. Editors: Christopher Scinta, Anthony Aarons

To contact the reporters on this story: Erik Larson in London at elarson4@bloomberg.net; Lindsay Fortado in London at lfortado@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Anthony Aarons at aaarons@bloomberg.net



20th April 2011 By Lyubov Pronina

July 20 (Bloomberg) -- Alexander Lebedev, owner of the London Evening Standard newspaper, said he may be interested in remaking fellow billionaire Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World if the Russian investor is able to sell some assets.

“I wish, but I don’t think my pocket is deep enough at the moment, but if I’m able to sell any of my businesses, be it Aeroflot or banking, then I’m really very much interested,” Lebedev said in an interview in his office in Moscow. “Half- jokingly, I would say I wish I could remake the News of the World under a different brand: World News.”

Murdoch’s News Corp. was forced to close News of the World and abandon its bid for British Sky Broadcasting Group Plc this month after rival newspapers reported that journalists working for the tabloid hacked the phones of victims of violence, including a missing schoolgirl who was later found murdered.

London’s Metropolitan Police is investigating the hacking and allegations that News Corp.’s British newspaper unit, News International, paid officers to get stories. Murdoch, 80, denied any knowledge of phone hacking and payments to police at News of the World, blaming “people I trusted” during three hours of questioning by British lawmakers yesterday.

A former lawmaker in Russia’s lower house of parliament and a KGB officer who worked at the Soviet Embassy in London during the Cold War, Lebedev now has a fortune valued by Forbes magazine at $2.1 billion. His National Reserve Corp.’s holdings include a stake in Russia’s flagship airline OAO Aeroflot and in banking, construction, property, agriculture and media companies.

‘Funny Suggestion’

Lebedev, 51, said he would use a remade version of the defunct newspaper to raise interest in stories about corruption and wrongdoing by rich and powerful people. Murdoch’s newspapers worked in the public interest, aside from “playing on the least attractive strings of human nature,” he said.

“Let me just make a funny suggestion: so I decide tomorrow to re-launch News of the World, but calling it Worlds News,” he said. “I will be focusing not on interfering with a killed girl, phone hacking, but would need the journalists to really investigate -- and during investigations you have to observe the laws.”

Lebedev said in May he would quit business in Russia, citing pressure from the Federal Security Service, or FSB, the main successor to the Soviet KGB.

Personal ‘Mission’

In November, he asked Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to intervene after law enforcement officials raided his National Reserve Bank. The raid was retribution for allegations of corruption printed in Novaya Gazeta, the Moscow weekly newspaper he owns with Mikhail Gorbachev, he said.

Being a newspaper owner in Russia and Britain is now a personal “mission” rather than a purely commercial endeavor, Lebedev said in the interview.

Novaya Gazeta is seeking permission from Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin to start distributing a daily version of the publication in Moscow subway stations, a venture Lebedev said will cost about $10 million. Lebedev, who also owns the Independent daily in the U.K., started a weekly tabloid in London called “i.”

“I would be the happiest person to actually get rid of everything, sell it, and just go into publishing and investigative journalism,” he said.

--Editors: Balazs Penz, Willy Morris.

To contact the reporter on this story: Lyubov Pronina in Moscow at lpronina@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Balazs Penz at


 
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Photo 1:Here the leopard attacks a forest guard at Prakash Nagar village near Salugara, on the outskirts of Siliguri, India. The animal had strayed into the village area and mauled several villagers, including three guards, before being caught by forest officials, according to news reports. 
 
Photo 2: according to news reports.

Forest guards flee from the rampaging leopard whilst another attempts a shot from up high. The leopard, which suffered injuries caused by knives and batons, died later in the evening at a veterinary center.

Photo 3:
A vicious assault on the forest guard seriously injured by this attack. Strangely a similar incident occurred in India this January as a leopard attacked another six in an eight-hour spree in the northern city of Karad.

Photo 4: Forest guards attempt to shoot down the attacking leopard from cover in the bushes

Photo 5:
The leopard prepares to attack a forest guard, left, at Prakash Nagar village near Salugara, on the outskirts of Siliguri, India.

 
A wild leopard attacked six people in a slum in India while terrified villagers watched in horror
 
A wild leopard has mauled six people after it strayed into an Indian village in an attack that was caught on camera.
The big cat pounced on a forest guard at Prakash Nagar village in West Bengal.
Another man and a local woman were also among those attacked in the densely-populated slum village which is home to about 3,000 people.
Terrified villagers climbed on to roofs to escape and watched on in horror as forest guards tried to fight off the animal with their weapons.
Wildlife officers tried unsuccessfully several times to tranquillise the feline during the frenzied attack.
And just as forest officials thought the attack was over when the animal took refuge in a bush, it quickly re-emerged again and attacked three policemen.
A wildlife official said the big cat was startled by the hundreds of curious and frightened onlookers.
Kanchan Banerjee, a forest ranger from the Sukna Wildlife Range, told local newspaper The Hindu: "With the villagers trying to chase it, it tried to flee and injured five villagers in the process."
He said one forest guard was critically injured while others were not so seriously hurt.
The leopard was eventually shot and tied up before being taken to a nearby veterinary clinic where it later died.
It is not the first time a leopard has wreaked havoc in India with local media reporting in January how a feline went on an eight-hour rampage, racing through the streets and into people's homes and attacking at least six people in the 60,000-resident northern city of Karad.
After two gunshots fired in the air by police failed to scare off the animal, the leopard was killed by two shots at close-range from a police officer's revolver.
Indian farmers also often report deaths of cattle and other animals as a result of wild leopards.
 

EU cash snatchers

Tory and Labour MEPs in sneaky new exes ploy

By Guy Basnett and David Coverdale
February 13, 2011
SNEAKY British MEPs are claiming cash for a day's work in Brussels before scuttling to the Eurostar minutes later and travelling HOME.

We caught Tory Robert Sturdy and Labour's Peter Skinner turning up at the Euro parliament at the crack of dawn to punch their card to grab £258 daily expenses.

Whistleblower... Ms Sinclaire Whistleblower... Ms Sinclaire
The allowance from struggling taxpayers is supposed to cover the cost of them attending official business in Brussels.

But our investigation found these grasping Euro MPs didn't stick around.

Instead they jumped into a plush official car, with their suitcases in tow, and arrived at the Eurostar terminal less than 45 MINUTES later before heading back to Blighty.


And they're not alone. Hordes of foreign MEPs are at it too.

This will outrage hard-working Brits who hand over £8.5BILLION a year to Europe - £137 per person - to pay for these pampered politicians. And it will be a huge embarrassment for Prime Minister David Cameron who in 2008 stepped in to clean up his party's expenses system in Brussels.

He said at the time: "Just as I expect our MPs to adhere to the highest standards, so must MEPs. The taxpaying public have a right to know how their money is being spent and politicians have a duty to ensure it is spent properly."
Disgusted West Midlands MEP Nikki Sinclaire agreed to expose her fellow Euro politicians - who earn £80,955 a year NOT including expenses.

Working with her, we filmed on Fridays in the parliament buildings of Brussels in Belgium and Strasbourg, France. We found members from all over Europe exploiting the signing-in system.
Greedy MEPs were QUEUEING outside the Attendance Office even before it opened at 7am.
Of the 160 Euro MPs we filmed signing in before 10am, more than a third - 54 - arrived with overnight bags and suitcases. At least 25 left parliament shortly after.
Of these, we caught nine arriving at the airport shortly after, ready to fly home, as well as our Brits on Eurostar.
Ms Sinclaire, who runs campaigns from her website www.yourmep.org, said: "It's a disgrace. On a Friday, when parliament is virtually closed, MEPs still sign in for their £258 and then head straight for the exit doors.
" Many people don't earn £258 a week, but some MEPs claim it for a day when they're in for barely an hour. Taxpayers should know how their cash is being spent."
In Brussels, East of England Euro MP Mr Sturdy, 66, signed for his daily expenses at just 7:18am. And balding South East MEP Mr Skinner, 51, was close behind his pal, signing in at 7.40am.

The pair arrived at Brussels Midi station together at 8.04am, jumping out of a chauffeur-driven people carrier in good time for the 8.29am Eurostar. Two hours later we caught them at London's St Pancras station.

The Brits were caught on camera two days ago, but on other days of filming we found a string of MEPs turning up early to claim their cash in Brussels.

It was still barely light on January 28 when Polish Euro MP Jolanta Hibner, 60, wheeled her suitcase into parliament to sign in at 7.58am. We pictured her at Brussels Airport just 22 minutes later, ready to fly home.

Another Polish MEP, Adam Gierek, 72, signed in at 8.01am with a colleague. We captured him stepping out of a chauffeur-driven car at the airport at 10:51am. Then Portuguese Euro MP Ilda Figueiredo 62, signed the register at 8:20am before being spotted at departures at 10:04am.



And Spanish MEP, purple-haired Eider Gardiazabal Rubial, 35, wheeled her suitcase to the Attendance Office at 9:56am, before being seen at the airport at 10:20am.

In Strasbourg, despite screens showing no official business on January 21, dozens of MEPs claimed expenses in the early hours.

We caught Polish Euro MP Danuta Jazlowiecka, 53, signing in at 9.21am, wheeling a suitcase. Then, at 9:42am - just 21 minutes later - she arrived at Strasbourg airport.

There are only 134 days of official parliamentary business - which does NOT include Fridays - in a year, worth £34,538 in daily allowances. By also signing in on the 37 Fridays, each MEP can trouser £9,537 extra.


Mr Sturdy said he worked late on Thursday night and that a power failure at King's Cross would have made getting home difficult. He added: "I'm signing in because I'm doing my job. As vice chair of international trade I have a lot on at the moment." He admitted he "often" signed in on Fridays.

Mr Skinner said: "It is often the case I will work six days on the trot, some of which will be spent in the constituency. My first duty is to represent people across the South-East which is sometimes best done face-to-face"

But EU rules state the allowance which they claimed is supposed to cover expenses like accommodation and meals incurred by attending official meetings away from their home country on the day signed for.

Ms Jazlowiecka's aide told us: "It is not breaking rules to sign in and leave." And Ms Figueiredo's spokesman said it was up to parliament to determine what she could claim
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