News of the World, Murdoch hacking scandals: 'Shocked, appalled and ashamed', attacked!

Tweet

'Shocked, appalled and ashamed': quotes from Murdoch hacking hearing 

Rupert Murdoch ... the most humble day of his life. Photo: Reuters

Selected quotes from the Murdochs' appearance at the parliamentary inquiry into media phone hacking, which produced reactions ranging from table-banging, to abject apology, to staunch denial of any knowledge of wrongdoing.

- "I just want to say one sentence. This is the most humble day of my life." - Rupert Murdoch's opening remarks.

- "No." - Rupert Murdoch's remark when asked by Labour MP Jim Sheridan if he accepted that "ultimately you are responsible for this whole fiasco".



- "The people that I trusted to run it [his media empire] and then maybe the people they trusted." - Rupert Murdoch when asked who he blamed.

- "We felt ashamed at what happened. We had broken our trust with our readers." - Rupert Murdoch explains why the News of the World tabloid was shut down after 168 years.

- "We have seen no evidence of that at all and as far as we know the FBI haven't either." - Murdoch on allegations the paper hacked 9/11 victims.

- "I would like to say just how sorry I am and how sorry we are, to particularly the victims of illegal voicemail interceptions, and to their families." - James Murdoch's opening statement.

- "The News of the World is less than 1 per cent of our company. I employ 53,000 people around the world who are proud and great and ethical and distinguished people, professionals in their work. I'm spread watching and appointing people whom I trust to run those divisions." - Rupert Murdoch on his empire.

- "Endemic is a very hard, a very wide ranging word. I also have to be very careful not to prejudice the course of justice that is taking place now." - Rupert Murdoch in answer to Labour Party lawmaker Tom Watson, who asked Murdoch when he became aware that criminality was "endemic" at the News of the World.

- "I was absolutely shocked, appalled and ashamed when I heard about the Milly Dowler case only two weeks ago." - Rupert Murdoch on allegations that the News of the World hacked into the murdered teenager's phone.

"I was invited within days [of the general election in May last year] to have a cup of tea to be thanked for the support by Mr Cameron. No other conversation took place." - Rupert Murdoch revealing that he had been invited to have a cup of tea with Prime Minister David Cameron within days of the election that brought Cameron to power at the head of a coalition government.

- "There are no immediate plans for that." - James Murdoch, saying no plans were afoot for News International, the British newspaper wing of News Corp, to launch a new Sunday tabloid to replace the News of the World.

- "Because I believed her and I trusted her and I do trust her. In the event she just insisted. She was at a point of extreme anguish." - Rupert Murdoch when asked why he did not accept former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks's original offer to resign before she finally quit last Friday.

- "They caught us with dirty hands." - Rupert Murdoch on opposition within the media industry to his abandoned BSkyB bid.

- "Your wife has a very good left hook [sic]." - British Labour MP Tom Watson after protester and comedian Jonnie Marbles pelted Rupert Murdoch with foam and his wife Wendi hit back.



- "You naughty billionaire." - Jonnie Marbles after the attack.

 

Rupert Murdoch attacked during hearing  

Rupert Murdoch was attacked with what appears to be a pie during a hearing before members of Parliament. The videotape appears to show a protester heading toward Rupert Murdoch. Murdoch's wife, Wendi Deng, then lunged at the protester.

  - "As Mr Murdoch himself said, I'm afraid I cannot comment on an ongoing police investigation." - Jonnie Marbles to reporters later.

- "Once that trust was broken, we felt that that was the right decision. Of course, it wasn't the right decision for the hundreds of journalists who worked on there, had done nothing wrong, were in no way responsible. Every single one of them [the journalists] will be offered a job." - Rebekah Brooks on the decision to close the News of the World.

AFP  Newscribe : get free news in real time

Related posts:

Wendi Deng, Murdoch's Tiger wife loyalty and ambition !

The world is run by Tiger Wives, Tiger Moms  

The polarised world of politics

Tweet

Musings By Marina Mahathir

Politicians of every stripe have two bad habits. Firstly, they think that those who don’t belong to any political party are incapable of having a single political thought. Secondly, when non-politicians think of a good populist idea, politicians of all stripes rush to hijack it.

Image via Wikipedia

George W. Bush, that giant of intellectuals, famously said after the Sept 11, 2001 attacks that “Either you’re with us, or you’re against us.”

Those words unleashed a world polarised by politics with no hope for peace, which necessarily requires a coming to the table of all sides to discuss common issues.

This “Us versus Them” mentality is an affliction that has befallen not only American politicians but many others around the world, including in our own country.

It creates an illness known as hyperpartisanship, which can be defined simply as “if you’re not on my side, you must be wrong.”

It’s the only explanation I can give for the consistently delusional statements that tend to come out from our politicians’ mouths.

To their minds, nobody can be right unless they’re on the same side.

Additionally, if you don’t agree with them, then you must surely be on the “other” side. Politicians can’t seem to fathom anything but a bipolar world.

They can’t seem to get it into their heads that firstly, there may yet be a third (or fourth, fifth) way of looking at things, and secondly, that the ones with these different perspectives could conceivably be civilians.



Politicians of every stripe have two bad habits.

Firstly, they think those who don’t belong to any political party are incapable of having a single political thought.

They forget that every five years or so, it is they who insist that we think of politics when we go and vote.

Secondly, when non-politicians think of a good populist idea, politicians of all stripes rush to hijack it.

Non-politicians, otherwise known as civil society, then have to fight them off tooth and nail.

How many times have we had politicians turning up at big events organised by non-politicians and trying and making it sound as if it’s a big endorsement of themselves?

Some politicians are certainly more delusional than others. Since Bersih 2.0 shocked them, they have been working overtime to demonise it.

It is one thing to badmouth the rally in the days before it happened but it’s quite shocking to see the pathetic attempts to paint it as a riot when it was clearly not.

From calling the teargassing “mild” to denying that the police had fired teargas into the Tung Shin Hospital, to trying to check the motives and bank accounts of those who went for the rally, our dear leaders insult us every day.

Yet all they have to do is, instead of surrounding themselves with sycophants who will only tell them what they want to hear, read all the heartrending and heartwarming personal accounts written by the many ordinary people who went to the Bersih 2.0 rally.

These were housewives, retirees and young people, all fearful of what violence they might encounter, but who steeled themselves to go and exercise their right to voice their opinions.

These were people who had probably never done anything more confrontational than argue with a salesperson in their entire lives, who faced teargas and water cannons fired at them by a government they probably voted in.

How much courage does it take to insult your own people from an airconditioned room compared to facing the FRU?

If our leaders think teargas is something mild, they should ask the FRU to try it on them. I was lucky that day because I chose a route where the police decided not to deploy their gas and water cannons on us.

But many of my friends and colleagues were not so lucky. I feel ashamed that I suffered no more than tiredness, compared with what they so courageously went through.

And all our hapless leaders can do is call them names. The people who went to Bersih 2.0 are Malaysians who will forever feel united and bound to each other because of that experience. Some may have been politicians and NGOs but so many more were just people of every race, religion, age and creed.

So many have said they never felt more Malaysian than they did that day. At a time when everyone has been lamenting how divided we are, we came together. What more could we have wished for?

Perhaps we should take another leaf from Sept 11. In the wake of the death and destruction wreaked by the US government to avenge the World Trade Centre deaths, some of the families of those who died, horrified by such violent vengeance, started an NGO called Not In Our Name.

Perhaps those many decent Malaysians, the “silent majority” our leaders like to claim as their own, can come out and say that, even if they disagree with Bersih 2.0, they will not stand by and let their fellow citizens be insulted and abused in this way.

At least, not in their name.

Malaysia establishes diplomatic ties with Vatican Papal

Tweet

The Vatican said the talks between the two leaders had been "cordial"

The Vatican and Malaysia have agreed to establish diplomatic ties, following a meeting between Pope Benedict XVI and Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak.

The move comes after years of talks between the Catholic Church and the government of majority-Muslim Malaysia.

Mr Najib's visit was said to have been intended to reassure Christians in his country, who have long complained of discrimination.

Ethnic and religious tensions have risen ahead of expected national polls. On Monday Mr Najib met the Pope at his summer home near Rome.

In a statement, the Vatican said that during their "cordial conversations, the positive developments in bilateral relations were discussed and an agreement was reached to establish diplomatic relations between Malaysia and the Holy See".



The Vatican said the two leaders had also discussed the importance of cultural and religious dialogue for the promotion of peace, Associated Press news agency reports.

Mr Najib's meeting with the Pope is significant for Malaysia's Christian community, which makes up about 9% of the population.

Malaysia's constitution promises freedom of worship to all faiths, but a string of religious disputes in recent years has raised fears among the country's religious minorities that their rights are being eroded, says the BBC's Kuala Lumpur correspondent Jennifer Pak.

Pigs heads In 2009 the authorities tried to enforce a ban on Christians using the word "Allah" when referring to God in the Malay language - Christian leaders said the word had been used in their bibles for decades.

The authorities' efforts heightened tensions, leading to arson attacks on churches and tit-for-tat defacing of mosques, including the leaving of pigs' heads at doorways to Islamic prayer halls.

Ramon Navaratnam, who works for a Malaysian inter-faith council, said earlier that forming ties with the Vatican would give the concerns of Christians a better hearing.

"We now will be saying things the way we have, what is right, what is wrong, what we like, what we don't like about religious freedoms or the lack of it, and we know we will have somebody in the Vatican who would be able to at least talk to them, the government, privately and say 'look, we can't accept this. Please moderate your views'," he said.

Mr Navaratnam said the government could no longer ignore religious minorities, most of whom are ethnically Chinese and Indian.

However, some Malay Muslim groups have become more vocal in demanding privileges and support from the government.

In 2008, Chinese and Indian minorities across Malaysia, who are mainly Christians, Hindus and Buddhists, abandoned the government and voted for the opposition.

Many complained of racism and a lack of religious freedom.

Newscribe : get free news in real time

More on This Story/Related Stories

• Malaysia to release 35,000 Bibles 16 MARCH 2011, ASIA-PACIFIC
• Allah row signals Malay race fear 12 FEBRUARY 2010, ASIA-PACIFIC
• Mixed result for new Malaysian PM 07 APRIL 2009, ASIA-PACIFIC 

Poor attitude caused jobless, low income, poor career!

Tweet

The problem with fresh grads

By P. ARUNA aruna@thestar.com.my

 PETALING JAYA: Poor attitude -including asking for too much money - is the chief reason why employers shy away from hiring fresh graduates. Another common complaint is that many graduates are poor in English.

A survey by online recruitment agency Jobstreet.com showed that 55% of employers cited unrealistic expectations of salaries while 48% of them said poor English was the main reason why Malaysian fresh graduates from both public and private institutions remain unemployed.

“While previous surveys named poor English as the main cause for unemployment, bad attitude has now topped the list,” said its chief operating officer Suresh Thiru.

He said their attitudes were so bad that some did not even bother to inform the companies if they were running late or unable to attend scheduled interviews.

It was announced that the number of jobless graduates had increased from 65,500 to 71,600 although the overall unemployment rate had dropped from 3.4% last year to 3.1% during the first quarter of this year.

Another study by recruitment agency Kelly Services showed that fresh graduates asked for flexible working hours and expected their work to accommodate their personal life, not vice versa.

Its marketing director Jeannie Khoo said employers were also turned off by the lackadaisical attitude and lack of drive to improve among many of them.

“They have the misconception that they can earn high salaries at entry-level. They enter the banking industry expecting to earn RM3,000 while the market rate is only RM2,200,” she said.

PricewaterhouseCoopers Malaysia head of recruitment Salika Suksuwan said some candidates had many offers in hand but acted unprofessionally in rejecting job offers - by not turning up for interviews or the first day at work.

“We sometimes have to call them and remind them about a scheduled interview when they didn't turn up,” she said.

Talent Corp CEO Johan Mahmood Merican urged fresh graduates not to make demands on their salary.
“It is more important to join a company that can develop your skills and prepare you for future opportunities,” he said.

In a related development, Human Resource Deputy Minister Datuk Maznah Mazlan said half of the applicants who registered with the JobsMalaysia portal (www.jobsmalaysia.gov.my) had found employment.

Speaking when launching the Graduan Aspire 2011 employment fair yesterday, she said about 300,000 job applicants were currently registered with the website.

Star readers come to fresh grads’ defence

By P. ARUNA aruna@thestar.com.my

PETALING JAYA: Readers of The Star have come to the defence of unemployed graduates who are accused of demanding high salaries, saying it was almost impossible to survive in the city with the entry-level pay offered by many companies.

Karthikumaran Nadarajan, 26, who was unemployed for six months, said he had never demanded a high salary and had attended every interview.

The electrical and electronics graduate felt that job offers had not come his way due to stiff competition, especially for jobs advertised on major online recruitment agencies.

It was reported yesterday that poor attitude including asking for too much money was among reasons why employers shied away from hiring fresh graduates.

A survey by online recruitment agency Jobstreet.com showed that 55% of employers cited unrealistic expectations of salaries while 48% of them said poor English was the main reason.

Photography graduate Noorezerey Abdul Ghafar, 23, has been unemployed for the past two years and has not received any offer despite actively applying for jobs online.

“I have never been demanding about salary,” he said.

On The Star's Facebook page, some readers agreed that many fresh graduates had bad attitude while many defended fresh graduates.

“I absolutely agree. Poor attitude, arrogance, and they think they deserve a high pay with their bad English,” said reader Patrick Yau while human resources practitioner Vincent Cheong said he had seen some fresh graduates who even had difficulty filling up an application form.

“Worst of all, they demand high salary and benefits to support their social life expenses,” he said.
Another user Yew Lee Yin said some showed up for interviews wearing unsuitable attire and others never bothered to show up.

However, David Hamtaro said anyone living in Kuala Lumpur needed to earn a minimum of RM3,000 to be able to survive while Ong Joo Parn argued that employers needed to realise that the cost of living had gone up.

Bank Negara training aims to make youths marketable

KUALA LUMPUR: Despite holding an industrial bio-technology degree, Thiyagarajan Subramaniam had difficulty finding a job as he was unable to speak English fluently and lacked self-confidence.

However, now he is an administrator at IBM and is able to speak the language more confidently after joining the Bank Negara's Graduates Programme (GP), a corporate social responsibility initiative.

He said the programme, which is aimed at enhancing employability of graduates under the age of 25 from low income families, helped him discover that he could quickly come up with ideas and to be more disciplined.

Prior to joining the programme, the 26-year-old attended more than 10 interviews with multinational companies but none got back to him after that.

“I took up some part-time jobs for income as it was difficult to get a job in bio-technology,” Klang-born Thiyagarajan said.

Fellow coursemate Edmond Leo Lopus, 26, repeatedly sent his resume to various companies but only one offered an interview after he had completed his degree in Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering in October 2009.

But his fortunes changed once he was accepted in the Bank Negara's Graduates Programme. Even before completing 23 months of on-the-job training at Swedish Motor (Volvo) through the programme, he was absorbed as a process quality engineer at the company.

“This is my dream job as I've always loved cars and aeroplanes,” he said.

Johor-born Siti Syarah Sanip (pic) said she was afraid of ending up like her friends, who did better than her in university but worked as cashiers and salesmen after not being able to secure a corporate job.

After joining the programme, she now works as a junior executive at Proton Holdings Berhad's finance and planning department and is grateful to Bank Negara for choosing her to join the programme.

Bank Negara assistant governor Marzunisham Omar said 98% out of the 500 of the programme's first batch have been employed while 14 participants from the 200 graduates in the second batch secured permanent employment after one month of attachment.

He said training for the second batch started on March 28 and would end next year. He added that plans for a third batch were in the pipeline.

A recent Jobstreet.com survey cited poor attitude and poor English as among the reasons many fresh graduates were having difficulty in securing jobs.

Jobstreet.com chief operating officer Suresh Thiru said previous surveys named the poor command of English as the main cause for unemployment, but bad attitude had now topped the list.

US debt impasse a global issue

Tweet

GLOBAL TRENDS By MARTIN KHOR

The political deadlock in Washington on whether and how to increase the United States’ debt limit is causing anxiety over a possible default and the consequent global economic downturn.

 

A Chinese 100 yuan banknote is placed under a $100 banknote. (Petar Kujundzic/Courtesy Reuters

THE deepening of the Eurozone debt crisis last week through contagion, spreading to Italy, was more than matched by the growing chance that the US government would not be able to pay its bills or service its debts starting Aug 2.

Week-long negotiations took place between US President Barack Obama, and the Democrat and Republican party leaders to avert a partial closing down of the federal government.

The US currently has a limit to its federal debt of US$14.29tril. This limit will be reached by Aug 2.

Congress has to approve raising this limit before then, or else the Administration will have to postpone meeting some of its financial commitments.

Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke warned that default would send shockwaves throughout the global economy.

The alarm bells rang even louder when two rating agencies, Moody’s and Standard and Poor, warned they might downgrade US debt from its AAA status if the political impasse continues.

There are several reasons why the world, and especially the developing countries, should be alarmed at this situation.

First, many developing countries hold many billions of dollars of US Treasury bills as part of their foreign reserves.

An actual default raises the unthinkable prospect of the countries having to take a haircut, being only paid back a part of their bonds. This is unlikely to happen.

But even the prospect of default and a credit status downgrade would reduce the value of their bonds. Moreover the recent decline of the dollar’s value will likely accelerate, causing further losses.

Last week, China (which holds US$1.15tril in Treasury bonds) called on the United States to adopt responsible policies and measures to protect investors of US bonds.

Second, economic growth in the developing economies will be hit if the standoff or the eventual solution causes the US economy to move to a standstill or a new recession.

Whatever the final deal between the President and the two Parties, its centrepiece is certain to be deep cuts in government spending. This will reduce effective demand in the economy.

The effect will be opposite to the Obama administration’s recession-busting fiscal stimulus that enabled the economy to bounce back after the 2008-09 recession.

Third, the uncertainties in Washington emphasise the present unhealthy dependence on the US dollar as the international reserve currency.

The need for reform to reduce this dependence on a single currency, for example, by greater use of the special drawing rights (a basket of major currencies) as a global reserve currency, has been advocated by several prominent economists such as Joseph Stiglitz, Jose Antonio Ocampo and Yilmaz Akyuz as well as policy makers such as the Governor of the Chinese Central Bank.

A default in servicing US debt has moved from the unthinkable to the possible, though still in the realm of most unlikely. It may reignite the debate on reform of the global reserve system.

The facts of the impasse in Washington are as follows.

The current debt limit of US$14.29tril is forecast to be reached on Aug 2, so no new loans are allowed after that.

The administration estimates that the debt limit has to be increased by US$2.4tril so that the govern­ment can meet its commitments up to November 2012, after the Presidential elections.

Many Republicans in Congress, especially those under the influence of the Tea Party group, want the government to achieve budget balance through slashing spending without any increase in taxes, and to achieve budget balance.

A few Republican leaders, however, are willing to consider a small increase in taxes, or rather in closing tax loopholes, but they are finding difficulty in convincing their colleagues. They also want spending cuts to exceed the rise in the debt limit.

The President and Democrats are willing to cut spending significantly, but want also to raise taxes of the rich, so that both can contribute to the deficit reduction.

Democrat leaders are adamant that social and medical security should not be affected by the cuts, though Obama is willing to allow some cuts there as well.

If the extreme stance of the Tea Party faction becomes the overall Republican line as well, a deal would be extremely difficult.

To meet it, the Democrats and President would have to move their compromise position to the degree of total capitulation.

If the deadlock continues, a possible solution may be the proposal of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell: the president submits his plan to increase the debt limit and to cut the budget, the Congress rejects it, the President vetoes the rejection, and his proposal is adopted unless two-thirds of Congress rejects it again.

This will allows all sides to claim that they stuck to their positions, while avoiding a crisis.
If there is still no agreement by Aug 2, then the administration will have to choose which items not to pay and when.

These include interest on Treasury bills, social security, medicare, defence vendors, unemployment benefits, food stamps, military pay, federal salaries.

Priority will be given to debt servicing, so a default on Treasuries is very unlikely unless the impasse lasts a long time.

The other services and salaries will be hit, and increasingly so as long as there is no deal.

As almost everyone will agree, this is no way to run a government, and the US governance system is becoming dysfunctional.

This has serious effects on the rest of the world. So the universal hope is that some solution will be found before Aug 2.

Global Unease on U.S. Debt Impasse

By Jonathan Masters, Associate Staff Writer

With the deadline for a U.S. credit default less than three weeks away, President Barack Obama and top Republican lawmakers remain at odds over a deficit reduction plan that both sides view as a prerequisite to any hike in the debt limit. The impasse continues to fuel apprehension within the global financial system, with two of the "Big Three" credit rating agencies--Moody's and Standard and Poor's--considering downgrading the United States (WSJ) from its AAA status. Moody's cited the "rising possibility" the U.S. debt limit will not be raised in time to avoid default. Economists warn that a significant loss of confidence in the U.S. debt market could prompt foreign creditors to unload large portions of their holdings, sparking a sharp increase in U.S. borrowing costs and calling into question the dollar's role as the world's reserve currency.


Most economists agree that the impact of an outright government default would be severe. Federal Reserve Chairman Benjamin Bernanke has warned a default would usher in a new financial crisis. While some suggest the market still assumes the issue will be resolved, they say a default would do unprecedented injury to the full faith and credit of the United States and roil international markets (DowJones) in a sea of uncertainty.

China, the largest U.S. creditor, has reiterated its call for a swift compromise in the debt talks. Beijing would be particularly exposed to any acute shock to the bond market, with about 70 percent of its $3.2 trillion foreign exchange reserves invested in U.S. Treasuries (Reuters). Historically, the U.S. debt market has been driven by huge investments from surplus countries like China, which have viewed the United States as the safest place to store their savings.

The Economist notes that while a default may not precipitate an immediate sell-off by foreign banks due to a lack of immediate alternatives, the event would discourage future holdings of such magnitude. As the largest economy and home to the world's reserve currency, the United States has traditionally attracted investors looking for a financial safe haven. But some analysts suggest the current fiscal crisis, including the threat of default, could accelerate a shift in the way global capital is allocated (TIME)--away from developed nations like the United States and Japan and into emerging markets such as China and India. The Wall Street Journal reports that in addition to China, investors in Japan, Russia, and a number of Persian Gulf states will increasingly look for alternative investments to diversify their sovereign holdings.


Bill Gross of the investment management firm Pimco writes that global investment managers are keen to punish defaulting countries (WashPost) severely, adding that alternatives like Canada and Germany are only a wire transfer away. He says a default may prompt foreign banks to rethink their currency preferences, jeopardizing the reserve status of the dollar. A 2010 survey by the McKinsey Global Institute found fewer than 20 percent of business executives surveyed expected the dollar to be the dominant global reserve currency by 2025. However, with a systemic debt crisis racking Europe, some analysts claim there is still no viable alternative to the dollar (DowJones) in the short to medium term.


But an impression of eroding U.S. power is already gaining traction. The latest Pew Global Attitudes poll finds: "In fifteen of twenty-two nations, the balance of opinion is that China either will replace or already has replaced the United States as the world's leading superpower." The poll says the "United States is increasingly seen as trailing China economically."

Selected Analysis:

The United States has entered its "own age of austerity," with the solution to country's fiscal woes coming only through long-term spending reductions, particularly in entitlement programs, writes Mort Zuckerman in the Financial Times.

A period of austerity brought on by debt mistakes will have "profound consequences, not just for Americans' standard of living but also for U.S. foreign policy and the coming era of international relations," write CFR President Richard N. Haass and former Deputy Treasury Secretary Roger C. Altman in Foreign Affairs.

This report from the Brookings Institution addresses the nature and quality of U.S. political leadership, the sources of the nation's governance problems, and some strategies to work around them.

The New America Foundation's Maya MacGuineas recommends an immediate increase in the debt ceiling and the negotiation of big budget deal ($4 trillion) that will keep the nation's debt from outpacing the economy.

Weigh in on this issue by emailing CFR.org.