Douglas Caddy

Phone Hacking Documents Suggest James Murdoch Was Made Aware Of Wider Criminality The Huffington Post By Jack Mirkinson First Posted: 11/1/11 11:47 AM ET Updated: 11/1/11 12:03 PM ET http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/01/phone-hacking-james-murdoch-gordon-taylor_n_1069463.html A series of internal News International memos could contradict one of James Murdoch's central claims about his knowledge of the phone hacking scandal. Murdoch has long maintained that he was not aware that phone hacking at the News of the World went beyond Clive Goodman, the reporter jailed for hacking in 2007, until late 2010. Colin Myler, the paper's former editor, and Tom Crone, News International's former chief legal director, caused an upheaval when they insisted that they had informed Murdoch of more widespread phone hacking as early as 2008, when Gordon Taylor, the head of the British soccer union, uncovered damning information as part of a legal action against the paper. Murdoch denied that he had been given this information, saying only that he had signed off on a huge settlement with Taylor without knowing why he was doing so. Murdoch is due to testify before Parliament next Wednesday to address these discrepancies. But new documents released by the Culture, Media and Sport committee on Tuesday will make his session more difficult. The documents come from Farrer's, the law firm that represented News International at the time of the Taylor situation. Julian Pike, a lawyer for Farrer's who worked closely with NI, provided a series of memos and notes relating to Taylor. Pike recently testified to Parliament, saying that Murdoch and several other top executives were firmly aware of the widespread nature of phone hacking. One of the documents is a memo that Crone prepared for Myler for a meeting with James Murdoch -- a meeting Murdoch says he cannot recall taking place. The memo that Crone apparently prepared for Myler is very direct. It says that, through a court order, an email from Mulcaire to a "News of the World reporter" surfaced. The email, the memo says, had a "large number of transcripts of voicemails from Taylor's telephone." This is presumably a reference to the so-called "For Neville" email, which was sent to the paper's chief reporter, Neville Thurlbeck. The memo also says that, through a court order, Taylor unearthed a "list of named News of the World journalists and a detailed table of Data Protection infringements between 2001 and 2003." The memo says that some of the journalists named in the document are "still with us," and that typical beached include "'turning round' car reg. and mobile phone numbers (illegal)." Crone calls the evidence "fatal to our case" against Taylor, and says that it puts News International in a "very perilous position." He also writes that he has authorized a settlement offer to Taylor because he is "recognising the inevitable." Another document provided to Parliament shows Pike's notes to himself of a call he and Myler had following Myler's alleged meeting with James Murdoch. "Spoke to James Murdoch," the note begins, presumably referring to what Myler was telling Pike. The notes are rather hard to decipher, since they are full of abbreviations and internal language, but a few sentences jump out. "Les evidence to committee," one reads--an apparent reference to Les Hinton, the former head of News International whose tesitmony before Parliament has come under question. "Les no longer here--James wld say get rid of them--cut out cancer," another reads. That document is followed by an equally intriguing set of Pike's notes--these from a call he had with Crone. "Mtg with JM + CM [James Murdoch and Colin Myler]," the notes read. "JM sd he wanted to think through options." The phrase "paying them off" also turns up. There has not been any comment from James Murdoch about the new documents. The documents: Tom Crone's Memo March 2002 1 of 37 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/01/phone-hacking-james-murdoch-gordon-taylor_n_1069463.html Days after the disappearance of 13-year old Milly Dowler, British tabloid News of the World began intercepting Dowler's voicemail messages. The paper deleted old messages to make room for new ones, leading some to speculate that she was alive. The Guardian reports: "The Dowler family then granted an exclusive interview to the News of the World in which they talked about their hope, quite unaware that it had been falsely kindled by the newspaper's own intervention. Sally Dowler told the paper: 'If Milly walked through the door, I don't think we'd be able to speak. We'd just weep tears of joy and give her a great big hug.'"

National Science Foundation report on asteroid YU55 scheduled flyby of Earth on Nov. 8 & 9. http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=122104&WT.mc_id=USNSF_51&WT.mc_ev=clickSent+to http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=-UNtT5H8r44

Phone hacking: Milly Dowler police investigation may have been targeted Lawyer for Surrey police tells Leveson inquiry there is evidence officers' phones were hacked By James Robinson guardian.co.uk, Monday 31 October 2011 12.19 EDT Several police officers who investigated the disappearance and murder of schoolgirl Milly Dowler in 2002 may have had their phones hacked, a lawyer for Surrey police has told the Leveson inquiry. John Beggs QC, for Surrey police, told a Leveson hearing into the culture, practices and ethics of the press at the high court on Monday there is evidence that officers were targeted. The force is itself under investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Commission after it failed to tell Scotland Yard one of its officers allegedly passed information about the Dowler investigation to the press. The revelation in July that Dowler, who was 13 when she was murdered by Levi Bellfield, had her phone messages intercepted on the instructions of News of the World journalists prompted a public outcry and led to the closure of the paper. It was not previously known that Surrey police may also have had their own mobile phones targeted. The claim was made during a hearing to determine how the inquiry will proceed when witnesses begin giving evidence in two weeks' time. Beggs said: "My instructions are that it is likely that a number of Surrey police officers themselves were victims of hacking at the time of the launch of the Milly Dowler investigation, in March nine years ago. I don't want to develop that any further." Surrey police on Monday applied for so-called "core participant" status at the Leveson inquiry. That would give them the right to give evidence to the inquiry, which is expected to be completed within a year. The force has been criticised after it conceded it knew Dowler's phone had been hacked at the time of its original inquiry but failed to act on this information. Two media organisations that did not originally ask for the same status – Trinity Mirror and Telegraph Media Group – also applied to be core participants on Monday along with the National Union of Journalists. The NUJ is concerned that members called as witnesses could be asked to reveal information obtained from confidential sources during the course of the inquiry. The inquiry also heard from the Metropolitan police and the News of the World's owner News International. They expressed fears that Scotland Yard's investigation into phone hacking at the News of the World could be prejudiced by the inquiry as its hears evidence about what took place at the paper. Leveson dismissed those fears. "I am concerned to protect the integrity of the investigation and I'm also concerned to protect the rights of those who may by subject to further proceedings," he said. He added the inquiry would reach conclusions on whether hacking at the paper was "condoned, encouraged, authorised, required" at a senior level or whether "there was a lack of supervision which permitted this culture" to flourish among more junior members of staff. He said this could be done without publicly identifying the individuals involved

Chris Matthews On John F. Kennedy: New Book Pulls Back Curtain On 'Ask Not' Speech, Nixon Debates And More First Posted: 10/31/11 09:32 AM ET Updated: 10/31/11 09:34 AM ET Huffingtonpost.com http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/31/chris-matthews-john-kennedy-book_n_1066558.html WASHINGTON -- A presidential call to service that inspired generations of Main Street Americans originated, ironically, in the privileged world of a New England prep school. "Ask not what your country can do for you," President John F. Kennedy famously declared in his inaugural address of 1961. "Ask what you can do for your country." In his new book, "Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero," talk show host and author Chris Matthews presents new evidence that Kennedy had heard that language in chapel exhortations delivered by the headmaster of the Choate School in Connecticut when he was a student there in the 1930s. Its elitist origins notwithstanding, Matthews writes, Kennedy's call moved millions of Americans to a sense of civic duty and an optimistic view of national mission, both of which seem missing in our own time. The origin of the lines was in doubt, but Matthews unearthed two documents that would appear to end the discussion. He found the typed chapel-speech notes of the headmaster, George St. John, in which he quoted a Harvard College dean's refrain. "As has often been said," the refrain went, "the youth who loves his Alma Mater will always ask, not 'what can she do for me?' but 'what can I do for her?'" The other clue was uncovered in a response to a questionnaire about JFK's time at the school, circulated when Kennedy was president. "I boil every time I read or hear the 'Ask not ... etc.' exhortation as being original with Jack," wrote one of his fellow students. "Time and time again we all heard [the headmaster] say that to the whole Choate family." The "Ask Not" story is one of a series in the book that add new depth and sometimes surprising details to the Kennedy narrative. The author of five previous books, Matthews is a former presidential speechwriter for Jimmy Carter and press secretary for the late Speaker Tip O'Neill. Simon & Schuster will publish his book on Tuesday. (Full disclosure: This reporter is a regular guest on his two shows, "Hardball with Chris Matthews" on MSNBC and the syndicated "Chris Matthews Show.") Among the other new stories in the book: • JFK's interest in politics and public office dated to his early teenage years and not, as commonly supposed, to the period after the death of his heroic older brother, Joe Jr. Jack was, in fact, never reluctant. As a teen, he read Churchill and The New York Times. He ran for student office at Harvard as both a freshman and a sophomore. During World War II, he talked about politics constantly. He planned on attending law school even before his brother's death. • Younger brother Robert's role in JFK's campaigns is well-known. But besides his prowess as a manager, Bobby had another job, according to an oral history given by JFK's top lieutenant, Kenneth O'Donnell. Bobby was supposed to keep the Kennedys' meddlesome father, Joe Sr., out of the campaign. Jack had a chilly and distant relationship with the father; Bobby, by contrast, was extremely close to him and effective in holding him off. • Matthews reveals more details -- comic but fateful -- about the famously pivotal 1960 televised debates. According to new interviews, the Kennedy team insisted that makeup be prohibited. Richard Nixon followed the rules, with disastrous results. JFK did not. His staff secretly applied powder and told reporters that his ruddy glow was merely a natural tan. After Nixon was seen perspiring badly in the first debate, his staff tried secretly to lower the thermostat in the NBC studios for the second debate. The Kennedy team found out and just as secretly turned the dial back up. • Burned by the CIA and military intelligence in the Bay of Pigs fiasco, JFK was wary of top brass from then on. But, according to Matthews, Kennedy concluded that they were dangerously out of touch as a group after an encounter with Gen. Douglas MacArthur, the hero of WWII's Pacific theater. The retired general told him that the U.S. Army should and could be equipped with "nuclear side arms" -- a fantastical notion to everyone but MacArthur. • Matthews writes that he found an overlooked passage on White House tapes in which Kennedy confesses to his role in the death of South Vietnam President Ngo Dinh Diem in a coup that took place in November 1963 -- less than three weeks before Kennedy's own death. • Matthews examined the scribbled notes of presidential historian Theodore White, who interviewed first lady Jacqueline Kennedy shortly after her husband's death. According to the notes, Jackie twice told White that JFK's "mother never loved him." It was her way of explaining her husband's voracious ambition and private compulsions. "All men are a combination of bad and good," she told White. In the story he filed, White transposed the order to "good and bad." Jackie apparently didn't complain. WATCH John F. Kennedy's inaugural address: [click on link at top of article]

Detectives hunting Milly Dowler's killer had phones hacked, Leveson Inquiry hears Police officers investigating the disappearance of the schoolgirl Milly Dowler had their mobile phones hacked during the inquiry, Surrey Police has revealed. Daily Telegraph By Mark Hughes, Crime Correspondent 2:41PM GMT 31 Oct 2011 A lawyer for the force told the Leveson inquiry that “a number of Surrey Police officers themselves were victims” of phone hacking shortly after the investigation began in March 2002. Previously it was known that journalists at the News of the World had hacked the mobile telephone of the missing 13-year-old. But this is the first time that it has been confirmed that detectives working on the case were also victims of phone hacking. John Beggs QC, counsel for Surrey Police, told Lord Justice Leveson: “My instructions are that it is very likely that a number of Surrey Police officers themselves, at the time of launching the Milly Dowler investigation in March nine years ago, were themselves victims of hacking.” Earlier this month Surrey Police admitted that they learned that Milly Dowler’s phone was hacked by the Sunday tabloid in 2002 but did not act. Mr Beggs did not reveal whether the force also learned that their own officers had been hacked or whether this has since come to light during Operation Weeting, the Metropolitan Police’s investigation into phone hacking. He was speaking as the Surrey Force made an application to become a core participant in the Leveson inquiry, which will look at the culture and ethics of the press. Mr Beggs argued that the force should be allowed “core participant” status in light of the criticism the force has faced following their admission that they knew about Milly Dowler’s phone being hacked. The force made the admission in a letter to the Home Affairs Select Committee. The force’s then Chief Constable Mark Rowley said that officers became aware in April 2002 that someone from the News of the World had accessed the missing girl’s voicemail after someone on behalf of the Sunday newspaper phone the police operation room. However Mr Rowley said that a formal investigation was not launched. He said: “At that time the focus and priority of the investigation was to find Milly who had then been missing for over three weeks.” Mr Rowley’s letter said that an inquiry is looking into why no formal investigation was launched. He also revealed that the information that the News of the World had accessed Milly Dowler’s voicemail in 2002 was npot passed to the original Scotland yard phone hacking investigation in 2006. The reason for that is also being investigated.

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroidwatch/newsfeatures.cfm?release=2011-332 http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread769824/pg1 http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/achenblog/post/asteroid-flyby-prepare-to-duck/2011/10/31/gIQA1llmZM_blog.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/8858546/Asteroid-could-yield-clues-about-formation-of-Earth.html http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gStGpbUdr1Y&feature=player_embedded

October 30, 2011 Race Across Time to Stop Assassin and Fall in Love The New York Times Book Review By JANET MASLIN 11/22/63 By Stephen King Illustrated. 849 pages. Scribner. $35. Stephen King’s latest magnum opus, “11/22/63,” finds a way to revisit and even revise the events surrounding the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The book’s front cover depicts a newspaper account of Kennedy’s death in Dallas on that date. Its rear cover presents the opposite outcome, with the president and first lady looking happy and unscathed. On the 849 pages between those covers, Mr. King pulls off a sustained high-wire act of storytelling trickery. He makes alternative history work — but how? It’s at least as interesting to examine Mr. King’s narrative tactics as to discover his opinions about conspiracy theories. By the way, he thinks it a near-certainty that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. Mr. King predicates “11/22/63” on the idea of time travel. So he needs to concoct a reason why Jake Epping, a nice Maine schoolteacher who is 35 years old in 2011, would want to live through events that occurred long before he was born. Mr. King also needs a way of moving Jake from Maine to Texas and putting him close to the Oswald family. And he needs to make these developments gradual, plausible and even sequential. Even in a book that leapfrogs back and forth across four decades, chronology can’t be suspenseful if it doesn’t make sense. Mr. King’s books have a far stronger real-world component than they used to, even when he deals with premises rooted in science fiction. And he has lately written with more heart and soul, leaving the phantasmagorical grisliness behind. Perhaps it’s the gravity of the Kennedy assassination that makes this new book so well grounded, but in any case “11/22/63” does not lay on the terror tricks. Mr. King’s description of America in the midst of the Cuban missile crisis, fearing imminent nuclear annihilation, is at least as scary as anything he ever made up. Jake is set in motion by an essay that was written by one of his students, a man named Harry Dunning who has studied for his GED. Harry, who is old enough to be Jake’s father, had an assignment to write about a day that changed his life. He wrote about a terrible, violent family dispute that killed his mother and siblings when Harry was a boy in 1958. Now comes the book’s biggest stretch: It just so happens that Al Templeton, who runs the local diner in Lisbon Falls, Me., has a portal to the past in the diner’s storeroom. Al shows Jake the portal, gives Jake a few supplies (like a plastic pocket protector) and sends him into 1958. Jake gets himself to Derry, Me., the site of many previous ghastly episodes in the King universe. (Derry was home to “It.”) Derry is also where Frank Dunning attacked his family with a sledgehammer, and Jake would like to do something about that. This is a sidelong way of introducing Jake’s special abilities. At first it seems like an overlong prelude to the assassination story. But it turns out that people and places in Derry will have odd repercussions later. Mr. King writes of harmonics, echoes and “the butterfly effect,” two ways of saying that tampering with the past is a dangerous business. He gives those ideas a trial run in Derry and treats Derry as a sinister premonition of what Dallas will be like in 1963. Yet Jake, who uses the alias George Amberson for time travel, finds himself deeply drawn to this lost world. Food tastes better. Music is more fun. There’s a lot to like, even if the women of the era are so easily abused by their husbands. The Dunning family dynamics wind up prefiguring what goes on between Lee and Marina Oswald, making it that much easier for Mr. King to fold the Oswalds into the novel later on. By the time they appear — and Mr. King has fine tricks for observing them without too much narrative fakery — they are already a little bit familiar and not at all hard to accept. Jake commits himself to a long stretch in the past as he moves to Texas and awaits the assassination plot. While he is there, in a little town called Jodie, he falls enchantingly in love with the local librarian, Sadie, in ways that make this an unusually romantic novel for its author. Just to keep things interesting, Mr. King makes Sadie smart enough to sense that there’s something odd about her new flame. And he makes Jake so mired in secrets that he does not dare explain himself, not even to the woman he adores. “11/22/63” finds unexpected humor in the ways Jake’s knowledge of the future betray him. He gets in terrible trouble with Sadie for singing a Rolling Stones song, for example. And he supports himself in part by making sports bets that he is guaranteed to win. But all of these small touches become suspenseful once the Oswalds arrive, Lee prepares to take a shot at Gen. Edwin Walker in April 1963, and Jake must jump over terrible, unexpected hurdles in order to keep up with him. This novel is more personal than political. But Mr. King has done considerable research into Oswald-related figures like the petroleum geologist George de Mohrenschildt, a man well known to conspiracy theorists. And he constructs an alternate reality in which the Kennedy presidency is not interrupted. It is not what his readers are liable to expect. One of Jake’s main motives for intervening in history is to save lives by changing the chain of events that led to the Vietnam war. But Mr. King, who consulted with Richard and Doris Kearns Goodwin about possible plotlines, turns that aspect of the book into one of its most frightening. The pages of “11/22/63” fly by, filled with immediacy, pathos and suspense. It takes great brazenness to go anywhere near this subject matter. But it takes great skill to make this story even remotely credible. Mr. King makes it all look easy, which is surely his book’s fanciest trick.

Headline: “The Body arms herself for PR fightback” The Independent.co.uk By James Hanning October 30, 2011 [excerpt] The Australian model Elle Macpherson has engaged the services of a top PR firm in the wake of the phone hacking scandal. She is seeking to minimise unfavorable press criticism, notable in Australia, over her dealing with Rupert Murdoch. In 2006 a court found that her phone had been hacked by News of the World, but unlike the four other proven victims, excluding the royal princes (Max Clifford, Sky Andrew, Gordon Taylor and Simon Hughes), she has taken no legal action. Critics have long suspected that she came to an out-of-court settlement with the paper and point out that in the five years since the scandal, there were around 30 mentions of Macpherson (dubbed The Body) within it, of which all were either neutral or favorable.

Are FEMA and NASA making preparations at the present time for the possible collision of asteroid YU55 hitting the Earth in the Pacific Ocean on November 8th or instead hitting the moon? YU55, the size of a naval battleship, is approaching Earth at the present time with the sun behind it. Richard C. Hoagland maintains such a collision, most likely with the moon,is a distinct probability and explains why he believes this in a radio interview conducted on October 28, 2011, which can be listened to by clicking the link below. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xt5X2VrEYzI&feature=player_embedded Statement by head of NASA that Hoagland cites in his interview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mk5sRmroG8s ---------------- High Lander, a Friend of Richard C. Hoagland on Hoagland's Facebook page, wrote today (October 30, 2011)on Facebook: "If this Asteroid does not do what Richard Hoagland said Then I suggest it will be the end of him because MANY people would be in doubt about anything he says afterwards..!!"

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002PJ4HXK/ref=cm_sw_r_fa_dp_evjRob11R0W80

Steve Jobs: Fox News 'A Destructive Force In Our Society' www.huffingtonpost.com First Posted: 10/26/11 07:46 AM ET Updated: 10/26/11 10:10 AM ET Steve Jobs told Rupert Murdoch that Fox News was a "destructive force in our society," according to the blockbuster biography of the late Apple CEO. Poynter was the first to uncover Jobs' blunt words about the network in Walter Isaacson's new book. Isaacson writes that, after speaking at a News Corp. retreat, Jobs unloaded on Murdoch: "You're blowing it with Fox News," Jobs told him over dinner. "The axis today is not liberal and conservative, the axis is constructive-destructive, and you've cast your lot with the destructive people. Fox has become an incredibly destructive force in our society. You can be better, and this is going to be your legacy if you're not careful." Jobs said he thought Murdoch did not really like how far Fox had gone. "Rupert's a builder, not a tearer-downer," he said. "I've had some meetings with James, and I think he agrees with me. I can just tell." This was part of Jobs' apparent love of tough talk with other powerful people. He also told President Obama that his economic policies would rob him of a second term. Nevertheless, Jobs was a close collaborator with Murdoch, working with him on the mogul's iPad newspaper The Daily.

October 26, 2011 "One Hell of a Killing Machine" Is the CIA Still an Intelligence Agency? by SHAUKAT QADIR www.counterpunch.org Early September 2011, a former intelligence official commented to the Washington Post that, “The CIA has become one hell of a killing machine”. He then attempted to retract, but his words were on record. But is that really what it should be: a hell of a killing machine? When it took birth in 1947, under the National Security Act, it was restricted to espionage and was specifically told that it had, “no police or law enforcement functions at home or abroad”. Reportedly, a year later, its mandate was extended to include, “sabotage, anti-sabotage, demolition and evacuation measures…subversion [and] assistance to underground resistance movements, guerrillas and refugee liberation movements, and support of indigenous anti-communist elements in threatened countries of the free world”. But its primary function was that of an intelligence agency. How successfully has the CIA, in recent times, been performing its primary function? Judging by the litany of complaints from ISAF Staff Officers; the CIA has not been very successful. “We are acting blind”; “I wish our intelligence was accurate at least one occasion out of ten”; “How can we possibly perform blinded” are frequent accusations by ISAF/NATO staff. As a student of the “Higher Direction of War” at the National Defense University, where I taught for three years, while continuing to remain a student of the subject, the first thing that we realized was the necessity of a lucidly stated ‘political aim for the war’. Let us assume here that the political aim for the US/NATO invasion of Afghanistan was not motivated by the tempting resources of Central Asia and were, as stated, “the destruction, dismantling, and disabling of the organization called Al-Quaeda and the despotic Taliban regime in Afghanistan, which has provided sanctuary and support to Al-Quaida”. Assuming that to be the political aim, the next requirement; before translating the political aim into a tangible ‘Military Aim’; for which, the planning process can only start with a realistic assessment of the “Prevailing Environment”. The prevailing environment is all-pervasive; it includes the domestic environment, the environment of the enemy country(s), neighboring countries, the international community; in short, every conceivable aspect. This is where intelligence input begins to become invaluable for the military planners. So, let’s just go back in time and try to list the intelligence input that could have been provided to the US military for a realistic assessment of the prevalent environment: Within the US there is support for this war. The UN has sanctioned the invasion. Despite some reservations, NATO has agreed to invoke Article 5 declaring the 9/11 attacks “an act of war by a foreign state against a NATO member state”. NATO allies will contribute forces for this operation and, while the bulk of invading troops will be American, they will be operating under the NATO umbrella. Among neighboring countries: China will remain a ‘silent observer’; India will support the war effort; Iran opposes the invasion by US but is so strongly opposed to Taliban that it will accept it, what is more, it is in no position to pose any problems to us. Neighboring Central Asian countries are of no significance and, will probably agree to base US troops on their soil. Pakistan: this country is of critical importance for the successful conduct of war in Afghanistan. Not only does it provide the shortest logistic route for provisions to be transported to Afghanistan, it was the one neighbor that has very close ties with Taliban. The Pakistan government has agreed to provide us all possible assistance; however, since this decision has, in all likelihood been made under duress, it must be viewed cautiously. Consequently, it is more than likely that there will be elements in the Pakistan military and the ISI who are opposed to this decision and might covertly suborn the government’s overt support for our operations. However, the Pakistani Pashtun tribes bordering Afghanistan are strongly opposed to the Taliban and, if contacted, could be of invaluable assistance. Afghanistan: Afghans, across the ethnic divide, including and especially the Afghan Pashtun are fed up with the despotic Taliban and they await American invading forces with hope and expectations of a better future. While we have allied ourselves with the Northern Alliance, it would be worth bearing in mind that this alliance consists predominantly of Afghans who are ethnically Tajik, Uzbek, and Turkmen. On the other hand, the Afghan population is predominantly Pashtun. Since there has been no census in Afghanistan for decades past, we have no figures to quote, however, estimates of the Afghan Pashtun population range from 48per cent to 60 per cent ; while the combined population of Tajik/Uzbek/ Turkmen is estimated in the range of 25 per cent . Undisputedly, Taliban are exclusively Pashtun; however, they constitute a very small portion of the Afghan Pashtun population, while the majority of the Pashtun is also alienated with the Taliban. Afghans, across the ethnic divide are proud of their origins and, even after the breakup of the erstwhile USSR, there has been no movement among the Tajik/Uzbek/Turkmen population to rejoin the newly created independent countries of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, or Turkmenistan, despite Soviet encouragement. However, internecine ethnic rivalry and enmity frequently asserts itself. It would be advisable, therefore, to employ the Northern Alliance with caution and keep them on a tight leash so as not to alienate the majority Pashtun population of Afghanistan. Finally, the end-game product should seek to establish an Afghan regime which is pro-US but is acceptable to the Afghan population. Any effort to emplace a “puppet” regime is likely to backfire against the fierce independent spirit of the Afghan. Now put yourself in the place of the military commander planning the operation for invasion of Afghanistan with this wealth of information available to him. I have not referred to other intelligence information deliberately, like terrain, composition and capabilities of the Taliban, since most of these would be available to him as a matter of course. But imagine how differently the military operation could have been planned, if this input was available. Had I been in command, my next step would have been to identify what is called in military parlance, the “Center of Gravity” of the enemy; and almost immediately, I would have identified this as the leadership—of both: Al-Quaida and Taliban. Immediately I would have sought information of the entire Al-Quaida and Taliban hierarchy and their locations. I would also have tasked my military intelligence, MI, operatives to help identify Afghan Pashtun who could be allied with, including disillusioned Taliban (in all likelihood, the erstwhile “exclusive” CIA asset, Jalaluddin Haqqani would have been named as a possibility). I would have further tasked US MI operatives to initiate contacts with these people with the help of Pakistani intelligence, and contacted Pakistan’s ruler and military chief for assisting my MI personnel, through Pakistan’s MI, not the ISI, which was more likely to still have pro-Taliban leanings. I would have spoken with my Commander in Chief, C-in-C, President George W. Bush, requesting a brief delay in launching the operation so as to have all this information available so that the invasion commences with surgical strikes to eliminate the enemy’s Center of Gravity! Not only would the war have been over almost before it began, there would have been no needless slaughter of Pashtuns by the Northern Alliance that began the alienation of Afghans. Instead of the mistrust of all Afghan Pashtun; with the help of Pashtun “assets” acquired before launching the operation, I would have known whom to trust! Imagine the difference between what could have been and what is! Even Aryn Baker, writing for The Times in ‘The unwinnable war’ notes that. The resulting lawlessness has Afghans across a broad spectrum of society waxing nostalgic for the era when a single Talib in the town square would dispense justice with a quote from the Koran and a flick of his lash. “Even as a liberal, I can say that the Taliban time was better,” says Gholam Sadiq Niazi, a Soviet-trained technocrat in Afghanistan’s oil-and-gas industry. “It doesn’t matter if I have to go to mosque five times a day or grow a beard, as long as we have rule of law.” Niazi is no radical. He speaks from a comfortable, middle-class apartment in central Kabul. Financially, he says, he is better off now than in 2001, but what’s the point, he asks, if someone could murder him tomorrow for his property and get out of jail with a bribe or political connections? The sister of an 11-year-old rape victim whose politically connected attacker was never prosecuted once shouted at me with rage and frustration, “If the Taliban were still here, that rapist would have already been executed by now.” And she is married to an Afghan American who returned home in hope but they have decided to leave, in despair. She adds, “We don’t want the foreigners to leave,” says women’s-rights activist Shoukria Haider. “We know they are the only thing standing between us and a return to civil war. But the longer [they] stay, the more violence we see, so we are caught. We want the violence to end too.” And these are middle class citizens of Kabul; a city that was, at the best of times a little European island, in the real Afghanistan! Just imagine that! Instead of the mutual hate that exists today: Americans hating and despising the Pashtun Afghan and they reciprocating with greater intensity; there would have been peace and the American forces would have been considered as respected allies and guests. Instead of which, in 2002, there began, what should more accurately have been referred to as another “Afghan Resistance Movement”, which it was against the Soviet invasion. But that term was unacceptable to American forces of invasion, which referred to it as a “resurgence of Al-Quaida and Taliban”. It is ironic that those Afghan, including Pashtun, who hated the Taliban, should, with the passage of time, accept that title with pride; merely because the hate for Americans became so strong that, symbolically, Taliban are again viewed as the Muslim David(s) who challenged the might of the US Goliath! While the US military grossly erred to create the current quagmire where it has landed itself in a no-win situation, should it be held solely responsible? Needless to say, if the Prevalent Environment had not been made available to him, the military commander should have insisted that it should be, but it should also have been a matter of routine for any worthwhile “Intelligence” Agency! I am in no position to say what the US military commander would have done if he had this information available to him; I can only say with certainty that I would have refused to even plan, let alone launch, such a massive invasion, without this input. Military logic dictates that the US military could (and should) have planned it differently, but who can say? Perhaps he would have succumbed to “political compulsions” of his C-in-C to go in and be seen to be teaching everybody the lesson that, “You don’t mess with the US”. Perhaps the US military is too arrogant to plan operations that avoid loss of life of non-Americans? Who can say? But even a novice would conclude, as do I, in the capacity of a consumer of intelligence, that the CIA failed to do its job as an intelligence agency. It might be “one hell of a killing machine” but it isn’t much of an intelligence agency! One other factor needs to be vectored in; with the passage of time, CIA began outsourcing its operations by hiring private intelligence organizations like Xe (Blackwater) to do their dirty work. This was basically to retain “deniability” for the responsibility of operatives not on the CIA’s payroll. According to the American constitution, all CIA operations have to be sanctioned by the President and the CIA is answerable to Congressional/Senate Committees on intelligence. Personally, I am convinced that, for some time past, the CIA has been the only real “rogue” intelligence agency in the world and does pretty much as it pleases, perhaps I am in error. However, outsourcing assignments to keep ex intelligence operatives well employed has the additional advantage of being able to deny responsibility when faced with awkward questions. In concluding this analysis, it needs also to be borne in mind that US operations involving, what is now referred to as, “Fourth Generation Warfare”, or 4GW, has been in countries other than its own. To kill indiscriminately, therefore, is a natural and easy way out. We have seen this being demonstrated in each instance; from Vietnam to Iraq/Afghanistan; even though it might be self-defeating. In the case of the CIA, I see it as a natural outcome of the genetic error in their creation, which I referred to earlier. Indeed, it is “one hell of a killing machine”, but the CIA has a lot to answer for its failure to deliver on, what should have remained its primary role: intelligence! SHAUKAT QADIR is a retired brigadier and a former president of the Islamabad Policy Research Institute. He can be reached at shaukatq@gmail.com

The Independent has informed me that I have exhausted my 20 free articles for the month of October and must pay $6.95 if I wish to continue to copy its future articles for the remainder of month. I do not wish to incur this expense. So where practicable, I shall use excerpts from its articles dealing with the hacking scandal until November 1, when hopefully, I shall be awarded the opportunity to copy 20 articles for that month for reproduction in this topic. The Independent for October 26, 2011 carried the following articles: 1) Headline: “Police in plea to hacking inquiry.” “The Metropolitan Police and Crown Prosecution Service today urged the judge in charge of the inquiry into phone hacking to make sure it does not affect the criminal investigation running alongside of it…..The judge decided today that the inquiry will start November 14. Its first part will look at the culture, ethics and practices of the press and its relationship with the police and politicians.” 2) Headline: “Exclusive - Met finds secret phone at centre of NI hacking.” “Specialist detectives from the Metropolitan Police have discovered the existence of a secret mobile phone within News International’s east London headquarters that was used in more than 1,000 incidents of illegal hacking. The Independent has established that the phone, nicknamed ‘the hub’, was registered to News International and located on the News of the World’s news desk. Operation Weeting, the Metropolitan Police hacking inquiry, has evidence that it was used illegally to access 1,150 numbers between 2004 and 2006. Weeting officers regard the existence of the phone over two years as significant new evidence, showing that the phone hacking was carried out within the paper’s newsroom.”

Revealed – the capitalist network that runs the world www.newscientist.com http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21228354.500-revealed--the-capitalist-network-that-runs-the-world.html  Updated 13:15 24 October 2011 by Andy Coghlan and Debora MacKenzie  Magazine issue 2835. The 1318 transnational corporations that form the core of the economy. Superconnected companies are red, very connected companies are yellow. The size of the dot represents revenue. [click on above link] AS PROTESTS against financial power sweep the world this week, science may have confirmed the protesters' worst fears. An analysis of the relationships between 43,000 transnational corporations has identified a relatively small group of companies, mainly banks, with disproportionate power over the global economy. The study's assumptions have attracted some criticism, but complex systems analysts contacted by New Scientist say it is a unique effort to untangle control in the global economy. Pushing the analysis further, they say, could help to identify ways of making global capitalism more stable. The idea that a few bankers control a large chunk of the global economy might not seem like news to New York's Occupy Wall Street movement and protesters elsewhere But the study, by a trio of complex systems theorists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, is the first to go beyond ideology to empirically identify such a network of power. It combines the mathematics long used to model natural systems with comprehensive corporate data to map ownership among the world's transnational corporations (TNCs). "Reality is so complex, we must move away from dogma, whether it's conspiracy theories or free-market," says James Glattfelder. "Our analysis is reality-based." Previous studies have found that a few TNCs own large chunks of the world's economy, but they included only a limited number of companies and omitted indirect ownerships, so could not say how this affected the global economy - whether it made it more or less stable, for instance. The Zurich team can. From Orbis 2007, a database listing 37 million companies and investors worldwide, they pulled out all 43,060 TNCs and the share ownerships linking them. Then they constructed a model of which companies controlled others through shareholding networks, coupled with each company's operating revenues, to map the structure of economic power. The work, to be published in PLoS One, revealed a core of 1318 companies with interlocking ownerships (see image). Each of the 1318 had ties to two or more other companies, and on average they were connected to 20. What's more, although they represented 20 per cent of global operating revenues, the 1318 appeared to collectively own through their shares the majority of the world's large blue chip and manufacturing firms - the "real" economy - representing a further 60 per cent of global revenues. When the team further untangled the web of ownership, it found much of it tracked back to a "super-entity" of 147 even more tightly knit companies - all of their ownership was held by other members of the super-entity - that controlled 40 per cent of the total wealth in the network. "In effect, less than 1 per cent of the companies were able to control 40 per cent of the entire network," says Glattfelder. Most were financial institutions. The top 20 included Barclays Bank, JPMorgan Chase & Co, and The Goldman Sachs Group. John Driffill of the University of London, a macroeconomics expert, says the value of the analysis is not just to see if a small number of people controls the global economy, but rather its insights into economic stability. Concentration of power is not good or bad in itself, says the Zurich team, but the core's tight interconnections could be. As the world learned in 2008, such networks are unstable. "If one [company] suffers distress," says Glattfelder, "this propagates." "It's disconcerting to see how connected things really are," agrees George Sugihara of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California, a complex systems expert who has advised Deutsche Bank. Yaneer Bar-Yam, head of the New England Complex Systems Institute (NECSI), warns that the analysis assumes ownership equates to control, which is not always true. Most company shares are held by fund managers who may or may not control what the companies they part-own actually do. The impact of this on the system's behaviour, he says, requires more analysis. Crucially, by identifying the architecture of global economic power, the analysis could help make it more stable. By finding the vulnerable aspects of the system, economists can suggest measures to prevent future collapses spreading through the entire economy. Glattfelder says we may need global anti-trust rules, which now exist only at national level, to limit over-connection among TNCs. Sugihara says the analysis suggests one possible solution: firms should be taxed for excess interconnectivity to discourage this risk. One thing won't chime with some of the protesters' claims: the super-entity is unlikely to be the intentional result of a conspiracy to rule the world. "Such structures are common in nature," says Sugihara. Newcomers to any network connect preferentially to highly connected members. TNCs buy shares in each other for business reasons, not for world domination. If connectedness clusters, so does wealth, says Dan Braha of NECSI: in similar models, money flows towards the most highly connected members. The Zurich study, says Sugihara, "is strong evidence that simple rules governing TNCs give rise spontaneously to highly connected groups". Or as Braha puts it: "The Occupy Wall Street claim that 1 per cent of people have most of the wealth reflects a logical phase of the self-organising economy." So, the super-entity may not result from conspiracy. The real question, says the Zurich team, is whether it can exert concerted political power. Driffill feels 147 is too many to sustain collusion. Braha suspects they will compete in the market but act together on common interests. Resisting changes to the network structure may be one such common interest. When this article was first posted, the comment in the final sentence of the paragraph beginning "Crucially, by identifying the architecture of global economic power…" was misattributed. The top 50 of the 147 superconnected companies 1. Barclays plc 2. Capital Group Companies Inc 3. FMR Corporation 4. AXA 5. State Street Corporation 6. JP Morgan Chase & Co 7. Legal & General Group plc 8. Vanguard Group Inc 9. UBS AG 10. Merrill Lynch & Co Inc 11. Wellington Management Co LLP 12. Deutsche Bank AG 13. Franklin Resources Inc 14. Credit Suisse Group 15. Walton Enterprises LLC 16. Bank of New York Mellon Corp 17. Natixis 18. Goldman Sachs Group Inc 19. T Rowe Price Group Inc 20. Legg Mason Inc 21. Morgan Stanley 22. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc 23. Northern Trust Corporation 24. Société Générale 25. Bank of America Corporation 26. Lloyds TSB Group plc 27. Invesco plc 28. Allianz SE 29. TIAA 30. Old Mutual Public Limited Company 31. Aviva plc 32. Schroders plc 33. Dodge & Cox 34. Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc* 35. Sun Life Financial Inc 36. Standard Life plc 37. CNCE 38. Nomura Holdings Inc 39. The Depository Trust Company 40. Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance 41. ING Groep NV 42. Brandes Investment Partners LP 43. Unicredito Italiano SPA 44. Deposit Insurance Corporation of Japan 45. Vereniging Aegon 46. BNP Paribas 47. Affiliated Managers Group Inc 48. Resona Holdings Inc 49. Capital Group International Inc 50. China Petrochemical Group Company * Lehman still existed in the 2007 dataset used Graphic: The 1318 transnational corporations that form the core of the economy (Data: PLoS One)

News Corp shareholders urge Rupert Murdoch to heed 'unprecedented investor dissent' News Corporation’s board members may have survived a shareholder vote, but they do not appear to have silenced angry investors. Daily Telegraph By Katherine Rushton, Media, telecoms and technology editor 9:37PM BST 25 Oct 2011 Rupert Murdoch successfully saw off a vote to strip him of his join chairman and chief executive role, but still faces shareholder pressure The Local Aurthority Pension Fund Forum (LAPFF), which represents 54 members with combined assets of more than £100bn, has renewed calls for a board overhaul in response to “unprecedented investor dissent”. Ian Greenwood, chairman of LAPFF, said a swing of support away from News Corp board members, demonstrated by voting at its annual general meeting last Friday, showed "a clear desire for change" amongst shareholders. "The level of investor opposition to certain board members is even higher than many had expected. Therefore the board needs to move swiftly to institute genuinely independent representation. "News Corp would also benefit from a clear separation of powers at the head of the company," he said. A string of powerful institutional investors had been calling for Rupert Murdoch’s combined chairman and chief executive role to be split and for his sons, James and Lachlan Murdoch, to be ousted from the board, inthe run up to News Corp’s annual general meeting last Friday. Mr Murdoch successfully saw off the shareholder revolt, helped by the fact that his family controls 40pc of voting rights. However, the full breakdown of voting rights, published late on Monday evening, has laid bare how the company’s annus horribilis has shaken shareholder confidence in every member of its board and sparked fresh anger amongst investors. The proportion of votes cast against his son James, the deputy chief operating officer of News Corp once regarded as Rupert’s heir apparent, more than tripled to 34.9pc. Lachlan Murdoch also suffered a severe loss of support, as the percentage of votes against him grew tenfold to more than a third of all cast. Rupert Murdoch, chief executive and chairman, was opposed by 14pc, up from just over 2pc in 2010, and infuriated investors at the meeting with his abbrasive attitude. But the biggest surprise of the vote was arguably a swing of support away from those board members who are not part of the Murdoch family. The number of votes against Viet Dinh, who is leading an internal investigation into the News of The World phone-hacking scandal, soared from 4m to nearly 95m.

James Murdoch a 'dead man walking' following shareholder vote Although News Corp has been performing well, the drip-drip of the phone-hacking scandal has taken its toll on the boss's son By Dan Sabbagh guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 25 October 2011 15.30 EDT Forty-eight months ago, James Murdoch's eventual assumption of the top job at his father's News Corporation seemed only a year or two away. But even his close allies now concede that he is unlikely to take over when Rupert Murdoch, 80, steps aside, after it emerged that a majority of the company's non-family shareholders voted against his re-election to the board on Monday evening. Chase Carey, the firm's president who runs its Fox television and cable channels, and who won the support of 78% of independent investors and is now described as being "lined up" to take over eventually, as James Murdoch contends with the personal fall out from the phone-hacking crisis that closed the News of the World and shareholder vote that saw him win the backing of only 42% of non-family investors. The disparity in voting demonstrates the popularity of Carey, who is well known among the firm's Wall Street investors, while those close to the younger Murdoch say he will now have to spend "five years or whatever it takes" proving himself in the US before he can hope to run the business that his father built up when he inherited an Adelaide newspaper in the early 1950s. Despite the vote result, Rupert Murdoch's 38-year-old son is determined to hang on at the company, and is in the process of relocating to New York. He was re-elected to the board with the help of the Murdoch family's 40% bloc vote, but now has to endure further questioning by MPs on 10 November and another vote at the end of that month, this time to re-elect him as director of BSkyB, where he is chairman. The News Corp shareholder vote was also a rebuff to Murdoch's elder brother, Lachlan. Of non-family shareholders 64.5% voted against his reappointment, although unlike the former, Lachlan Murdoch is no longer an executive at News Corp, and is instead acting-chief executive of Australian broadcaster Channel 10. Their sister Elisabeth Murdoch, who runs News Corp's UK TV production arm Shine, chose not to stand, a decision that at least means that she was spared a protest vote, although she remains a family outsider, having already fallen out with her father and siblings over the handling of the hacking crisis. Friends say James Murdoch will need to appear before parliament as both contrite and in control of current events, in contrast to Les Hinton, his predecessor as chairman of News Corp's UK subsidiary News International, who when recalled on Monday repeatedly told MPs he "didn't remember" what had happened at the NoW when he was in charge and when phone hacking was alleged to have taken place in the period running up to 2006. MPs want Murdoch to explain why his recollection of the circumstances surrounding the £725,000 settlement paid to Gordon Taylor, chief executive of the Professional Footballers' Association, differ from Colin Myler, the final editor of the NoW, and Tom Crone, the paper's chief lawyer. Murdoch says he cannot recall being shown the critical "for Neville email", which implied that phone hacking at the paper was not restricted to a single "rogue" reporter. Some insiders argue that he is now a "dead man walking" because he has to contend with a drip-drip of revelations about the scale of hacking in the period prior to the arrest of Clive Goodman, the former royal editor who was later jailed. Murdoch's position as a family member means that he is under no immediate pressure to leave, but the issues that News Corp has to face, including several potential criminal trials of former NoW staff, means he is at risk of slow-motion damage – what one insider described as a "tragic choreography". The allegations stem from the period before he joined News Corp from BSkyB in December 2007. But the pressure on him has mounted because News International failed to launch a thorough internal investigation – and because the company did not begin turning over large volumes of information to the police until last winter, more than a year after the first allegations that phone hacking went wider than Goodman first surfaced in the Guardian in July 2009. What frustrates News Corp is that for all the problems stemming from phone hacking, the firm has been performing well financially, with operating profits up 13% to $4.9bn (£3bn) last year. But the strongest performing units, the Fox broadcast network and the Fox cable channels, are run by Carey, while Murdoch's units in Europe and Asia have either been the source of problems such as hacking, slower profit growth for Sky Italy or heavy investment, where €1.15bn has been spent buying a 49% stake in Sky Germany. Murdoch also has to win the support of City investors to remain as a director of BSkyB. A year ago, he won 98% of the votes, and at the height of the phone hacking crisis won the backing of the satellite broadcaster's board after the abortive bid for BSkyB. But some City investors are preparing to vote against him, such as Aviva, which opposed his appointment last year and is expected to do so again. Some believe that News Corp's problems stem, in part, from its shareholder structure, which is designed to entrench the Murdoch family's control at a company that had a $29bn turnover last year. The company has voting and a larger amount of non-voting shares, which means Rupert Murdoch controls 40% of the votes but a total economic interest of about 12%. Prof Charles Elson at the University of Delaware, who specialises in corporate governance, said: "What you are saying is that you – the management – are brighter than the shareholders. That's the problem with dual-class shareholder structures; these kind of things are going to happen." But James Murdoch still has some influential supporters. Rich Greenfield, a Wall Street analyst with BTIG, said: "If you don't like the Murdochs, you shouldn't invest in News Corp." He added that it was pointless to discuss whether James Murdoch should take over the company until such time as his father has signalled he intends to step down.

Phone hacking: book publishing executives targeted Agent who worked with Linda McCartney and publisher of Katie Price autobiography told they may have been under surveillance By Dalya Alberge guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 25 October 2011 08.38 EDT The police investigation into phone hacking by the News of the World has now spread to the publishing world, with a high-profile agent and a celebrity book publisher targeted. Peter Cox, who worked with the late Linda McCartney, and John Blake, who has worked with Katie Price and Jade Goody, have each been told by the police that they appear to have been targeted by illegal surveillance. Cox told the Guardian he was "stunned" to learn from the Metropolitan police's Operation Weeting that someone had been eavesdropping on him: "It's a little like coming home to find your place has been burgled, the same sort of feeling, invasion of privacy. Unless it's actually happened to you, it's difficult to explain." Angered by what he describes as a "violation", he added: "I'm quite interested in suing the hell out of them." Both men regularly worked on high-profile books. One project was particularly sensitive because it involved royalty, a source revealed. Police from Operation Weeting have now shown Cox handwritten notes reproduced from his own calls. For legal reasons, his lawyers have advised him against revealing details. He said: "It's difficult for me to say anything, but it was about one specific project … which had major serial potential … Those were the days when a big serialisation was worth a good six figures plus national television advertising." His suspicions had been raised some time previously when journalists from various papers tried in vain to discover the contents of audiotapes of McCartney in his possession. Cox co-authored a book with the former Beatle's wife. Cox's stable of authors includes Michelle Paver, whose books have so far sold 3.5m copies worldwide. Yesterday, he warned publishing colleagues that they too could have been targeted over any books of commercial interest to the News of the World, particularly if rival papers had acquired serialisations. He advised: "Agents and publishers should check if they had any projects that [could be] of competitive significance, especially to the News of the World." Blake, a publisher of celebrity books and a former journalist on the Sun, appeared more sanguine. He was "surprised, not shocked" to be contacted by the police: "I was vaguely flattered in a pathetic way." Asked why News of the World journalists might have hacked into his phone, he said: "We deal with a lot of people they might be interested in." His authors have included Katie Price, the glamour model turned writer, and Jade Goody, the late reality television star, and this week he launches a book by mercenary Simon Mann. The two men are the latest in what is thought to run into thousands of phone-hacking victims. The revelation that the phone of the murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler had been hacked by the News of the World led to confirmation last week that her family will receive £2m in compensation, with Rupert Murdoch personally donating a further £1m to charity. On being told of the publishing development, Mark Lewis of Taylor Hampton, solicitors for the Dowler family, said: "It comes as no surprise that the police have started to notify people in all walks of life … If a story was good enough to go in a book, it would be good enough to go straight into a newspaper. Agents and publishers were obvious targets." A spokeswoman for News International, which also publishes the Times, declined to comment, saying only: "We are co-operating fully with the police

Forum members are familiar with Howard Hunt's confession but it is being posted here for the benefit of future researchers into Watergate and JFK's assassination.

James Murdoch's future under threat News Corp shareholders lodge protest vote against James and Lachlan Murdoch following media company's annual meeting By Dominic Rushe guardian.co.uk, Monday 24 October 2011 18.28 EDT James Murdoch's future at News Corporation looks increasingly precarious as shareholders delivered a damning verdict on his tenure amid widespread criticism of his handling of the hacking scandal. Following a contentious meeting in Los Angeles last week News Corporation shareholders lodged a massive protest vote against James and his brother Lachlan Murdoch. A majority of independent shareholders voted against the re-election of chairman Rupert Murdoch's sons James and Lachlan Murdoch. James Murdoch received the largest vote against his re-election at 35%. James, 38, faces a second grilling in the Parliament next month over phone-hacking at The News of The World, one of News Corp's UK newspapers. Some 34% of shareholders voted against Lachlan Murdoch 40. After subtracting the shares controlled by Rupert Murdoch, 67% of the votes went against James Murdoch and 64% against Lachlan, said Julie Tanner, assistant director of News Corp investor Christian Brothers Investment Services (CBIS), who last week called for Rupert Murdoch to step down as chairman after the "extraordinary scandals" at the company. "Shareholders are saying loud and clear that this board has failed as a group," she said. Rupert Murdoch, chairman and chief executive officer, proved far more popular with investors, receiving 86% of votes, although a sizeable number of shareholders, representing 12 million votes, abstained. The votes are a particular embarrassment as Murdoch went into the meeting with at least 47% of voting shares on his side, thanks to the family's control of the company's voting shares and the support of their largest outside shareholder, Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal. Thanks to the Murdoch's controlling share interest the company defeated attempts to throw the Murdochs and others off the board from major shareholders including the giant Californian pension funds CalPERS and CalSTRS, the Church of England and Hermes, the BT pension fund. A combative Murdoch faced hostile shareholders at the company's meeting in Los Angeles on Friday and said News Corp was dealing with the situation. While he acknowledged the seriousness of the hacking scandal Murdoch described attacks on News Corp as "unfair" and said the company was the "stuff of legend." Shareholder critics called for the Murdochs to step down at the meeting and criticised the pay deals of the company's top executives. The firm delayed releasing the results of the ballot until late Monday. Father Seamus Finn of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, who attended the meeting, said: "The vote clearly demonstrates a profound lack of confidence in this company's leadership." Earlier Les Hinton, former chairman of News International, which runs the company's UK newspapers, had defended James Murdoch saying he saw no reason why he should resign his position. Michael Wolff, Murdoch biographer and author of The Man Who Owns the News, said it was now inevitable that James Murdoch would leave. "James will probably go by himself, that's what everybody will be waiting for. I wonder too if Lachlan will step off the board. But could this drag on for another year? Yes." Wolff said the size of the vote against Murdoch's son had created "a very difficult family moment." Chief operating officer Chase Carey received strong support from the company's shareholders, garnering 91% of the votes cast. Former New York city school Chancellor Joel Klein collected 96% of the votes cast. Natalie Bancroft, scion of the family that sold Dow Jones to News Corp, also received a huge vote against, as shareholders called for greater independence on the News Corp board. Tanner said the votes against the Murdoch sons and Bancroft showed shareholders were serious about wanting more independence at News Corp. "The overwhelming influence of the Murdoch family is not acceptable anymore," she said.

Murdoch Sons Drew Opposition in Votes The Wall Street Journal By RUSSELL ADAMS October 25, 2011 The re-elections of Rupert Murdoch's sons, James and Lachlan, to the board of News Corp. drew heavy opposition at the company's annual meeting last Friday, with about one-third of voting shares that were cast going against the pair, according to a securities filing on Monday. The voting tallies released on Monday reflect the level of discontent among shareholders. some of whom took the opportunity of Friday's meeting to voice their displeasure at the elder Mr. Murdoch and other directors. Above, Rupert Murdoch and his son, James, in London in July. James Murdoch, News Corp.'s deputy chief operating officer, received 433 million votes in favor of his re-election as a director but about 232 million, or 34%, of the votes were cast against him. About 224 million votes, or about 33% of the total, were cast against the re-election of his brother Lachlan, according to the filing. Roughly 91.8 million votes, or about 13% of those cast, went against Rupert Murdoch, the company's chairman and chief executive. News Corp. owns The Wall Street Journal. The Murdoch family and Saudi investor Prince Alwaleed bin Talal together control nearly half of the voting shares of News Corp. The prince expressed support for Rupert and James Murdoch as recently as July. Excluding their stakes, the vote against James Murdoch represented about 75% of the votes cast. On the same basis, the votes against Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch represented about 30% and 72%, respectively, of the votes cast. A News Corp. spokesman declined to comment on the tallies. James Murdoch has come under fire in recent months for his role in News Corp.'s response to allegations that journalists at the company's now-defunct News of the World newspaper in Britain intercepted voice messages in pursuit of scoops. The scandal, which resulted in more than a dozen arrests and multiple criminal investigations, also elicited calls for an overhaul of the News Corp. board, which some shareholders say lacks the independence to provide proper oversight. The voting tallies released on Monday reflect the level of discontent among shareholders. some of whom took the opportunity of Friday's meeting to voice their displeasure at the elder Mr. Murdoch and other directors. Other directors whose independence has been questioned by shareholder advisory groups also drew significant opposition.Andrew Knight, who used to work for the company, drew 214 million votes against, while Natalie Bancroft, a member of the family that sold control of The Wall Street Journal to News Corp., drew 222 million votes against her re-election. Write to Russell Adams at russell.adams@wsj.com

Les Hinton: I was right to say phone hacking was not rife Former News International executive stands by his statement to parliament in 2009 despite having seen Clive Goodman letter By James Robinson guardian.co.uk, Monday 24 October 2011 10.02 EDT Les Hinton, one of Rupert Murdoch's key executives when phone hacking was taking place at the News of the World, has defended his decision to tell MPs two years ago there was no evidence the practice was rife. Appearing before the culture, media and sport select committee via satellite from the US, the former chairman of the News of the World's UK parent News International said he had been right to tell parliament in 2009 that hacking was restricted to a single reporter. It has subsequently emerged that when Hinton gave that evidence, he had seen a letter sent in 2007 by the paper's former royal editor Clive Goodman, which alleged hacking was widely discussed at the title during news meetings. "I don't think I'd regard Mr Goodman's letter as evidence of anything," Hinton told MPs on Monday. "They were accusations and allegations." Hinton insisted that the company "reacted very responsibly" to Goodman's letter, which resulted in an enquiry by Harbottle & Lewis that found no evidence to support the reporter's claims. Challenged about why he had told the same committee in September 2009 that NI had found nothing that indicated a "suspicion" of hacking – a phrasing that Paul Farrelly, the MP questioning Hinton, said should have encompassed the Goodman letter. In response, Hinton insisted his statement of two years ago had been "valid". Hinton, who was executive chairman of NI until 2007, appeared to suggest he had not overseen two separate external investigations into the hacking allegations, by law firms Burton Copeland and Harbottle & Lewis, but had delegated them. He also repeatedly said he struggled to recollect events which happened up to four years ago. That prompted Labour MP Paul Farrelly to jokingly compare Hinton to a mushroom. "You seem to have been kept in the dark by a lot of people," Farrelly said.

Phone hacking: James Murdoch to face MPs again James Murdoch, the executive chairman of News International, is to give evidence for a second time to a parliamentary investigation into phone-hacking. Daily Telegraph 2:10PM BST 24 Oct 2011 Mr Murdoch will appear on November 10. The announcement came after Mr Murdoch's predecessor Les Hinton was grilled by video-link by the cross-party Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee. Mr Hinton, the most senior casualty of the hacking scandal so far, told MPs there was ''no reason'' why Mr Murdoch should resign from his post at News International (NI). A close lieutenant of Rupert Murdoch who had worked with the News Corp chief for more than 50 years, Mr Hinton quit as CEO of the company's Dow Jones subsidiary in July as the scale of hacking which took place under his watch at NI-owned News of the World became apparent. Mr Hinton acknowledged that some of the evidence previously given to the committee by NI executives, when they insisted that hacking at the Sunday tabloid was limited to a single rogue reporter, had turned out to be ''not accurate''. But he challenged MPs' suggestions that this meant executives had been ''untruthful'', insisting that events had become clear only over the past couple of years and the full picture of what happened was still not known. And he told them: ''I see no reason why James Murdoch should resign.'' James Murdoch took over responsibility for News International from Mr Hinton when he moved to the US in December 2007 to head News Corp's recently-acquired Dow Jones operation, including the Wall Street Journal. While the bulk of alleged phone-hacking is believed to have happened during Mr Hinton's time in charge, the crucial £425,000 out-of-court payment to Professional Footballers Association chief Gordon Taylor - sparked by the emergence of the "for Neville" email, which proved that hacking went beyond a single reporter - took place after he had left. Mr Hinton acknowledged that he had seen a letter in 2007 in which former News of the World (NoW) royal correspondent Clive Goodman said that knowledge of phone-hacking was widespread on the paper. Goodman was complaining about his dismissal for gross misconduct after being jailed for eavesdropping on the phone messages of the royal household, and was threatening to take the company to an employment tribunal. Mr Hinton, who had already agreed a £90,000 pay-off to the reporter, said he was advised that NI was likely to lose any tribunal, and therefore agreed a further £153,000 - bringing the total payment to Goodman to £243,000. "I acted upon the view that we would most likely or probably lose and, rather than go through that process, it was better for the company to get ahead and get it behind us," said Mr Hinton. But he said a "pretty thorough" internal investigation found no basis for Goodman's claims about widespread wrong-doing at the News of the World. He denied misleading the committee at a previous appearance in 2009 when he said there was "never any firm evidence provided or suspicion provided" of more than one NoW reporter being involved in hacking. "I didn't regard Mr Goodman's letter as evidence," said Mr Hinton. "They were allegations made by an employee who had been dismissed because of gross misconduct. "We acted, I think, very responsibly to what Mr Goodman had claimed and at the end of it, we discovered no basis to what he was claiming, so I think therefore my statement is valid." But he accepted that events had "evolved quite significantly" since that point and told MPs: "I think it is clear that, based on events over the last 12 months or so, that some of the answers you were given were not accurate - whether calling them 'untruthful' is the appropriate word, I don't know." During the 70-minute evidence session, Mr Hinton repeatedly said he could not remember details of events in the phone-hacking scandal. Committee member Tom Watson sarcastically congratulated him: "You're not doing badly, Mr Hinton. You have only said you can't remember seven times so far. In 2009 you used it 32 times." Mr Hinton refused to discuss details of the severance package agreed with News Corporation when he quit in July, though he said he no longer had a company car, office space or any employment from the company. He said he had not been interviewed by police or by Viet Dinh, the News Corp board member who is leading an internal investigation, about the hacking scandal.

Rupert Murdoch: News Corp's great dictator on the brink He was as combative, up against it and past his prime as 2011's other fallen tyrants. This was likely his last shareholders' meeting By Michael Wolff guardian.co.uk, Sunday 23 October 2011 08.00 EDT Under normal circumstances, Rupert Murdoch doesn't have much patience for the annual shareholders' meetings that are required by law of American public companies. He regards them as a farce, because they cannot change the outcome in a company where a voting majority is secure, and as an exercise in liberal corporate law designed to put him personally on the spot. Still, his handlers, whose job is, in part, to protect him from himself, have long made him train for these meetings as though he's going into a presidential debate. Without rigorous practice, he is quite liable to not pay attention and appear quite bewildered, or pay too much attention and explode in fury, or worse, truthful exasperation. "He's going to keep asking me why there are no women on the board," Murdoch once told me as his PR aide, Gary Ginsberg, was trying to cajole him into a practice session. "He wants to make sure I don't say, 'because they talk too much.'" The fine line at News Corp has always been between Murdoch's almost deadset insistence that he be able to treat the company as his private preserve, and his handlers' (lawyers, CFOs, press people) more straightforward understanding that it is, in fact, a public company. On this basic issue, push could not have come more to shove than at Friday's meeting. The fundamental sham of a public company – one run first and foremost by and for the Murdoch family, and countenanced by one of the famous quiescent corporate boards in American business – was being challenged by long-oppressed but newly galvanised shareholders. It was a recognisable Murdoch in the midst of it all – as combative, determined, up against it and past his prime as the year's other fallen dictators. His hearing is shot and he won't admit it; thus he somehow seems to answer off-point (his handlers are allowed to mention his hearing issues, but there is a lot of prepping so that he can anticipate the questions). His mind wanders and he has to forcibly refocus; hence his pauses. But he remains sharp as a tack when he feels impatient or personally under fire. Stephen Mayne, his long-time Australian gadfly antagonist, played his part, and Murdoch seemed almost relieved to play his. They've been doing this for years. Of course, there was Tom Watson, the British MP, whom Murdoch seemed to tolerate – if just barely – as an obvious publicity-seeker. And the various others whom he surely believed he had effectively dismissed, both by his own tartness and by closing down the meeting early. In some sense, it rather seemed that Murdoch just regarded this as shareholders – those dumb sons-of-bitches – doing what shareholders always do: complain into the wind. Just a little more so, with a little more security, with the company having to retreat to a fortified room behind the Fox gates (rather than the usual junky theater in mid-town Manhattan where they ordinarily conduct the meeting) – and with Murdoch himself having to offer a bit more self-justification than he might be used to. There was nothing really to indicate Murdoch might suspect that more had changed this year than at any time in the past, that his company would not be able to run as a private entity any more, that the forces set in motion would mount, not subside, and that, likely, this would be the last annual meeting over which he would preside.

[Poster's note: As interesting as this article is, I found the comments by readers at its end to be even more intriguing.] ----------------------------------------- CIA Opens Books with Surprises for Lee Wanta, Libya and More Reagan Era To Be Declassified by Gordon Duff, Senior Editor www.Veteranstoday.com September 20, 2011 http://www.veteranstoday.com/2011/09/20/cia-opening-its-books-some-surprises-in-store-wanta-libya-and-more/#.TqND8wJW1SA.email Something unusual has happened. An era is going to be uncovered, a time of BCCI, Iran Contra, the fall of the Soviet Union, one of corruption and triumph. What we know is this, the files are being opened and interviews never before authorized are scheduled. More curious, perhaps the most curious of all, the FBI is notifying former intelligence agents and officials that the project has the official ‘green light.’ The fist interviews and, perhaps the first book, will outline relations between President Reagan and Emil Lee Wanta, letting a few into the dream world of White House insiders. I have had my perceptions of Reagan shattered more than once. The official cover story, the myth sold by the Bush clan, that Reagan came into office, was almost immediately gunned down and for the next 8 years, George H. W. Bush was “defacto” president while Reagan remained a “doddering fool.” I spent an evening going over notes with Lee. His memory of the period is volumes, much of which isn’t going to be of interest to many. While White House intelligence coordinator, Wanta worked in a grey environment of jockeying for influence, internal strife and one thing he makes clear: President Reagan despised and distrusted his vice president and refused to allow him to be briefed on anything. Reagan felt he was saddled with a potential “rogue operator” who would use his experience as former CIA director to use the White House as a platform for personal business interests inconsistent with national policy. Of the issues which have current standing, Libya will be high on the list, for awhile at least. Tony Blair is doing the rounds in Tripoli today for JP Morgan, the Rothschild partner that worked so closely with Gaddafi on his plans to put together a series of Banks based on the African Union. The deals offered, if things go as expected, will be intended to impact the new Libya as they did the old, bleeding the majority of oil cash into private accounts and leaving a pittance for the people. This was Gaddafi’s policy and it may well be the policy of the new government as well, if writers like Franklin Lamb are right. During talks with Wanta I was able to verify some issues involving Gaddafi. Gaddafi was placed in office in 1969 by the CIA as personal protege of Director Richard Helms. Helms admired Gaddafi greatly and valued the relationship between the US and Libya as one of the most critical and strategic for America during that vital period. The cover stories, that rogue CIA agents were training IRA terrorists in Libya got a laugh out of Wanta. “This was Gladio, of course, the bastardized anti-Communist program that set up terror organizations across Europe as a “fall back” defense in case of a successful Soviet invasion. Libya was the staging ground for Gladio, a program operated, not out of Italy as reported, but out of Switzerland, by the ‘P2,’ a Freemason organization that eventually operated in 26 countries, across not only Europe but Latin America as well.” “Later on, it was the P2 that had me arrested in Switzerland, put in solitary confinement and emptied the US Treasury accounts I managed, hundreds of millions of dollars. By that time, they had become little more than organized crime, particularly after they had murdered so many people during the Italian elections.” Filling out the history of the Reagan era, in particular, the project to “crash the ruble,” the financial trading scheme run by Wanta through the Department of Treasury that netted trillions in assets that Reagan intended to be spent paying off the national debt, as Wanta relates. In actuality, it was much more than that, with Treasury getting control of $23 trillion dollars leaving $4.3 trillion to Wanta’s companies. This would all sound imaginary if it weren’t for the court filings backing it all up and the arrests, Wanta in particular, and murders surrounding the disposition of these funds, which represent the combined assets of the American people. The money exists, has existed, enough to erase our national debt. The concept of Wanta’s own funds, seized by the Federal Reserve, $4.3 trillion dollars less $1.7 trillion in taxes owed, immediately put into the “General Fund” is frightening to some. This kind of money is unimaginable power, particularly in the hands of someone jailed for failing to be adequately dishonest. Wanta, a devout Catholic, lay clergy, is a simple working class kid from Milwaukee, one who has shunned the trappings of wealth though he, at one time, controlled the greatest fortune in the history of our beleaguered planet. Sometimes we review accounts and where they have gone, some in billions, the names of powerful political families known to all are tied to the looting of these accounts, some names predictable, some surprising. Most embarrassing are bank security photographs of high ranking government officials, cabinet officers, looting bank accounts held in trust for the American people. All of the money involved, taxpayer funds, all belonging to the American people, more than enough to fund a high speed rail system for America or housing for a century of homeless veterans. Ah, but back to Libya and the “teaser” Wanta left me: “I had some familiarity with Gaddafi during the late 70s and early 80s. I had, by 1982, been able to confirm that our “hostility” toward Gaddafi was a CIA deception plan tied to his usefulness in assisting operations around the world, much as with Osama bin Laden.” There is a rationale for Gaddafi to consider the UN action against him, based on his history of cooperation with NATO, a betrayal in fact. How could a man, so heavily invested in the Rothschild banks, a silent partner in the Carlyle Group with Bush, Baker, John Major, Frank Carlucci, be attacked by NATO? Then again, I watched Ambassador Mark Siljander, a Reagan favorite, friend of Baker and Edwin Meese indicted by the Bush administration under circumstances, were I allowed to mention them (I serve on his legal team) as incredulous. I am showing restraint here. I look at the indictment of Steve Rosen, former head of the Rand Corporation, member of the Bush/Rice National Security Council arrested for spying for Israel. News reports fail to mention Rosen’s position as top Bush advisor on the Middle East but, instead, mention his later employment with AIPAC, the Israeli lobby. Rosen sued AIPAC for firing him, they claimed they couldn’t have an “accused spy’ working for them. His claim? As AIPAC is a spy organization, firing me is the height of absurdity. Rosen’s case was dropped and investigations against other Bush advisors, in fact ALL Bush advisors were dropped after a 3 year FBI “sting” operation that included wiretapping the White House. “Play by play” of the tapes included, among other things, passing on nuclear secrets, done by people currently, not only ‘free as birds’ but chirping to the news every day. Moreover, dozens of hours of FBI transcripts cover sexual liaisons of what is typically termed an “unnatural” nature, described in punishing detail and tedious repetition. The prosectutions were halted, the FBI agents reassigned and the targets, Rosen the least of them, still, to a large extent, run America, certainly run the Republican Party. But we still aren’t getting to that “teaser” on Libya. How do I say this? According to Trowbridge Ford, Reagan was told by his vice president, George H.W. Bush that John Hinckley, the man who tried to murder him 69 days into office, the most obvious CIA “MKUlta” case we know of, was working for Gaddafi. Ford has put some top level intelligence on Veterans Today but this just didn’t jell. Hinckley’s family was directly tied to Bush. They were family friends. I saw nothing that could have tied Gaddafi to this. Ford went on further stating that Gaddafi planned and executed the Berlin club bombings at the behest of the Soviet Union and, in return, suffered a devastating air attack at the hands of the United States, the 1986 bombing of Tripoli. I am now told that all the groups Gaddafi was said to control, the IRA or a group pretending to be “IRA,” the Red Brigades and others had been working for NATO all along as part of the Gladio program, the whole thing was a NATO “cover and deception” program, an integral part of the Cold War. Thus, the “retaliation” against Gaddafi was nothing more than theatre as were other incidents of pretended confrontation with the long term CIA asset, as previously stated, a strong parallel to Osama bin Laden. The CIA’s version of events is different, more than a bit. Operation Gladio - Taxpayer Funded Terror The “disco bombings” were not Gaddafi but rather “P2/Gladio” operations, part of a series of bombings that began in 1969 and went on into the 1990s. The reason for the attack on Libya is classified, not “up for grabs,” not yet anyway. I will keep working on that but, rather than simply invent something, best tell you that I just don’t know. What I do know is this: The 1986 bombing of Tripoli that supposedly killed “Gaddafi’s daughter,” a subject of much conjecture, was planned between the Reagan administration and Gaddafi. Gaddafi agreed to the bombing to provide him with “needed cover and credibility.” The operation began with the landing of Special Forces personnel in Tripoli. They secured the Gaddafi family and arranged for “selected targets.” Those included the communications antenna arrays near the Gaddafi compound, army barracks and an air field. All targets were “painted” by American Special Forces personnel on the ground working with Libyan permission. One American plane was lost due to mechanical failure. The results? Gaddafi claimed a great victory over the United States. He fired two SCUD missiles at Italy and America continued to blame Gaddafi for terrorism that had nothing to do with him, he continued to be the “front man” for false flag terrorism much as Osama bin Laden was blamed for attacks in Africa and on 9/11 though we were able to confirm that he was on the CIA payroll at the time. Was Gaddafi ever under total NATO control? Was he ever a full ally of Israel, a nation he worked closely with on WMD programs? Why was Libya given so much latitude in keeping its WMD programs alive if all this weren’t true? Some of the key elements, proof if you choose to accept it, came out recently when former Bush special envoy, David Welch, met with Gaddafi representatives in Cairo, at the Four Seasons Hotel, on August 11, 2011. Welch, now head of Bechtel Corporation, the “top of the food chain” when it comes to American multi-national corporations involved in military construction and “big oil” reiterated continued support for Gaddafi, albeit 11th hour. They May Want Him but Will They Get Him ? The real discussions, taking into account that Gaddafi was “dead meat” politically, involved the disposition of his billions spread across the banks of Europe, the United States and his defense holdings, partnered with the Bush family. We still know little about Gaddafi. Was he really working for an independent Africa, free of western financial machinations or acting as a ‘front man’ for Rothschild interests in Africa? That is never going to be known. We do know the banks he proposed would never have worked, the currency he wanted to put in place, a ‘pan-African’ replacement for the dollar and euro were not supportable with Libya’s tiny gold reserves. We also know his partners in the African Union to be among the most corrupt politicians in Africa. Was his attempt still, taking on what could never be done, still an honest effort? Will we ever understand Gaddafi, who to this day may well be alive and, under some circumstances, still have a role to play? Will Gaddafi ever admit his position during the Cold War, was he a CIA asset of simply “playing the grand game” of East v. West?