This week’s Portrait of the week
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David Cameron, the Prime Minister, cut short a trade mission to South Africa, returning to give a statement on the phone hacking scandal to the Commons, which delayed its summer recess. Rupert
Murdoch, the chief executive of News Corporation, appeared before a select committee of the Commons investigating the scandal, with his son James, the chief of News Corporation Europe and Asia.
‘I was absolutely shocked, appalled and ashamed when I heard about the Milly Dowler case two weeks ago,’ Mr Murdoch Senior told the committee, but the responsibility for what went on at
the News of the World was that of ‘the people I trusted to run it and maybe the people they trusted’. Wendi Murdoch, Rupert Murdoch’s wife, exhibited admirably rapid reactions in
leaping at a demonstrator who attempted to push a plate of foam into his face during the hearing. Rebekah Brooks, who had resigned as chief executive of News International on 15 July, appeared
separately. She had been arrested on 17 July and released on bail after a few hours. Sean Hoare, a former News of the World journalist who had told the New York Times last year that phone hacking
was widespread at the paper, was found dead at home.
Sir Paul Stephenson resigned as Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police ‘as a consequence of the ongoing speculation and accusations relating to the Met’s links with News International at a senior level and in particular in relation to Mr Neil Wallis,’ he said. Mr Wallis had been arrested three days earlier, and had acted as a media consultant to the Met from 2009 to 2010. In his resignation statement, Sir Paul made a reference to Andy Coulson, David Cameron’s former director of communications, who resigned in January: ‘Unlike Mr Coulson,’ Sir Paul said, ‘Mr Wallis had not resigned from News of the World.’ John Yates resigned as an assistant commissioner after being told he was facing suspension by the Metropolitan Police Authority.
Liam Fox, the Defence Secretary, said that by 2020, the Army would be 120,000 strong, with 30 per cent belonging to the Territorial Army. Leuchars was to close as an RAF base and be used for
soldiers returning from stationing in Germany. Police investigating the deaths of three patients at Stepping Hill Hospital in Stockport, from the effects of insulin that had been injected into
containers of saline, arrested a nurse. Peter Paterson, the journalist, died, aged 80. Baroness D’Souza, a Crossbench peer, was elected as the new Speaker of the House of Lords.
Abroad
Leaders of eurozone countries met in a new attempt to bail out Greece, which cannot pay its debts. The United Nations declared that there was famine in two regions of Somalia, meaning that more than 30 per cent of children were suffering from acute malnutrition. Al-Shabab, the Islamist militants in Somalia, lifted a ban on accepting aid from foreign agencies; for its part the UN said aid was being sent to camps run by al-Shabab. British troops handed back control of the city of Lashkar Gah to Afghan forces. Ecuador banned the sale of alcohol for three days after 21 people died from drinking adulterated liquor. Gold reached a new high of $1,600 an ounce.
The Japanese government banned shipment of beef cattle from the Fukushima area but not before more than 500 cows that had eaten radiation-tainted hay had been shipped to other parts of Japan. Iran said it was installing ‘better quality’ centrifuges to improve uranium enrichment at its nuclear plants. The US state department said officials had met representatives of Colonel Gaddafi, not to negotiate, but to deliver a ‘firm’ message that the Libyan ruler must go. Protesters in Syria appeared in the streets in unprecedented numbers. Mount Lokon, on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, erupted again, sending thousands fleeing.
President Barack Obama of the United States and the Congress remained in deadlock on financing the country’s debt beyond 2 August. In a speech in Lhasa, Xi Jinping, who is due to become President of China in 2013, said that the Chinese should ‘fight against separatist activities by the Dalai clique … and completely smash any plot to destroy stability in Tibet’. China had reacted angrily two days earlier to a meeting in Washington between the Dalai Lama and President Obama of the United States. North Dakota amended its constitution in response to anxieties that it might not be a valid member of the United States of America. Dr Julie Bradshaw, an Englishwoman, became the first person to swim round Manhattan Island using only the butterfly stroke. CSH
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