News Corp. Celebrity Hacking - the Disgusting Details

Murdoch Tabloids’ MP Sex, Celebrity Scoops Face Legal Backlash
By Simon Thiel and Lindsay Fortado

July 13 (Bloomberg) -- On March 22, U.K. tabloid News of the World’s front-page headline screamed “MP has Sex Romp in Commons.” Inside was a photo of lawmaker Nigel Griffiths and a woman who wasn’t his wife in underwear and black stockings.

Griffiths, who acknowledged the story was true, is suing the tabloid owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., for obtaining the photos in an “extremely underhand way,” his lawyer David Price said. “My client had a sexual liaison in his office in Parliament, which he photographed, and which was on his computer, and somehow got into the News of the World.”

Politicians and celebrities may join Griffiths in taking legal action, saying U.K. tabloids go too far with news- gathering methods in their push to get exclusives and increase circulation. Potential claims might get a boost after the U.K.’s Information Commission, which oversees the media, on July 9 said 31 journalists at Murdoch’s tabloids, News of the World and Sun, acquired information through “blagging,” or underhand means.

The commission said it provided the information for a 2008 lawsuit, showing the practice was more widespread than thought in 2007, when News of the World reporter Clive Goodman and a private investigator Glenn Mulcaire were jailed for intercepting phone messages left for members of Prince Charles’ staff.

The commission’s statement followed a July 8 report in The Guardian alleging that News of the World, the U.K.’s best- selling Sunday newspaper, systematically used private detectives to hack into cell phones of public figures to obtain personal information. It said News Corp. paid more than 1 million pounds ($1.6 million) to settle lawsuits that claimed journalists got private investigators to illegally bug mobile phones.

No Evidence

News Corp. in an e-mailed statement July 10 denied allegations that News of the World journalists systematically accessed voicemails or employed private investigators to do so.

It said it settled in 2008 a complaint brought by Gordon Taylor, head of the Professional Footballers Association, after reporters on its News of the World newspaper gained information from voicemails. Aside from the Taylor settlement and 2006 Goodman-Mulcaire case, it said there’s no evidence other reporters hacked into phones or told private detectives to do so.

News Corp. spokeswoman Alice Macandrew said since February 2007, the company has worked with journalists to ensure full compliance with the relevant legislation and code of conduct.

“At the same time, we will not shirk from vigorously defending our right and proper role to expose wrongdoing in the public interest,” she said.

London police said July 9 they won’t reopen their probe following the Guardian report because “no additional evidence has come to light” since its investigation three years ago.

‘Merciless Fight’

News Corp. executives will still face questions this week from a Parliamentary Committee, which said it plans to hold hearings on the issues raised by the Guardian.

The hearings may touch on the role of Andy Coulson, formerly deputy editor and then editor of the News of the World and now the press chief of David Cameron, leader of the U.K.’s opposition Conservative Party. He has denied any wrongdoing.

For Adrian Monck, head of the journalism department at City University in London, the attempt by tabloid journalists to obtain personal information illegally is no surprise.

“The intense competition between quite a few publications in a rather small market obviously increases the pressure to produce exclusive, newspaper-selling stories,” Monck said in a phone interview. “There’s a merciless fight for scoops and journalists sometimes overstep the boundaries.”

The U.K.’s eight national tabloids need scoops as they face sliding circulation amid free papers and online information.

‘Higher Circulation’

“Big exclusive stories about well-known people have an enormous commercial value as they guarantee tabloids higher circulation,” said Max Clifford, a top U.K. publicist who has represented clients such as O.J. Simpson, David Beckham and Simon Cowell.

Murdoch journalists weren’t the only ones to use illegal means for obtaining scoops.

The Information Commission said in 2006 that illegal trade in confidential information is rampant in the tabloid world. It said 305 journalists were identified “as customers driving the illegal trade in confidential personal information.” Of those, 58 worked for the Daily Mail, 50 for the Sunday People, 45 for the Daily Mirror, 33 for the Mail on Sunday and 23 for the News of the World, it said. It also included four reporters from the Observer, the Guardian’s sister publication.

The Commission didn’t say how common this practice is at present. Even so, the Guardian report on the News of the World is prompting some celebrities to consider lawsuits.

‘Horrible Feeling’

Clifford is one of them. In 2005, the police and network operator O2 told him that his mobile phone had been tapped by Goodman and Mulcaire.

“At the time, the News of the World assured me and everybody else that it was just two people working off their own back, so I gave them the benefit of the doubt,” he said in a phone interview. “Now, it looks increasingly unlikely that this is the case. It was a horrible feeling to know that others had listened into my private conversations.”

Clifford, who has sued News Group for an unrelated issue, has yet to file a notice of claims on any phone-tapping.

Graham Shear, a media lawyer whose clients have included Jude Law, Daniel Craig and Pierce Brosnan said he has been contacted by clients from the film and television industry as well as a number of professional sportspeople.

Requesting Disclosure

“We will make the necessary inquiries of the public and private bodies, the police, the CPS and others, and ask them to disclose information about named individuals that they’re holding,” he said. “We will be requesting disclosure from different news organizations, and we will be considering different procedures, including Freedom of Information Act, Data Protection Act and pre-action disclosure, if necessary.”

Graham Atkins, a media lawyer whose clients have included Josh Hartnett and Kate Beckinsale, said he has “half a dozen or so celebrities or people of high-public profile” who are “looking” into the matter.

Elle Macpherson, whose phone hacking was revealed in the Guardian report, is “very concerned that her private conversations and those of other people may have been intruded upon,” her lawyer Michelle Lewiston said in an e-mailed statement. The supermodel is “confident in the ability and the determination” of the authorities to take appropriate action.

“This is not a new problem,” City University’s Monck said. “Journalists always have used all kinds of means to get secret information. A hundred years ago, journalists tried to intercept telegrams. Nowadays, they try to intercept phone calls and e-mails.”

News Corp., which also owns the Wall Street Journal and Fox television network, competes with Bloomberg LP, the parent of Bloomberg News, in providing financial news and information.

To contact the reporter on this story: Simon Thiel in London at sthiel1@bloomberg.net.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=alc6Cfo0nTQo

Cronkite Belatedly Called War in Vietnam Unwinnable, Not An Atrocity

by Jay Janson
July 19, 2009
www.opednews.com

Walter Cronkite, toward the end of his life looked like your typical gentle grandfather. This death of one of corporate media's own is being used to portray him as having been trustworthy, and extend this portrayal of trustworthiness to the U.S. media cartel justifying continuing brutal wars of occupation and promoting the predatory financial globalization of human and planetary resources.

Cronkite reported on location during the Vietnam War, and of course for years made no waves, and was no more trustworthy than other reporters who managed to stomach what was being done to that beautiful Buddhist society of ancient cultural roots.

Following Cronkite's editorial report during the Tet Offensive that the Vietnam War was unwinnable, President Lyndon Johnson is reported to have said, "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost Middle America."

Johnson's whimper reminds us that Cronkite was for years not reporting the real conditions in South Vietnam, not reporting the deceptions that led to the creation of the puppet government, not reporting Eisenhower's and South's refusal to hold promised elections, not reporting that Ike confessed, U.S. W.W.II ally Ho Chi Minh would have won by 80% the all Vietnam election blocked, the rampant corruption at every level, the brutal French colonial history, the carnage from years of bombing the delta. Cronkite and CBS had acted like servants and sycophants of our government, dutifully trumpeting almost every lie and distortion passed to them by the Pentagon and White House.

During the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Cronkite was anchoring the CBS network coverage as violence and protests occurred outside the convention, as well as scuffles inside the convention hall. When Dan Rather was punched to the floor (on camera) by security personnel, Cronkite commented, "I think we've got a bunch of thugs here, Dan."

Cronkite would have never in thousand years have called the U.S. Army, Navy and Air Force, crucifying the agrarian French colonial population of Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia, "a bunch of thugs."

Now, as in Walter Cronkite's lifetime, major humanity is still in a fight for a billion lives against the military and banks of the Anglo-American Empire, with the EU, NATO and Japan in tow, China and Russia going along for now, the Third World watchful and apprehensive. Conglomerate owned satellite powered media is not on the side of major humanity, but the tool and protection of its capitalist governance.

But Walter Cronkite's death should not be an occasion of our criticizing him for what he was not. Nor for propaganda to make media be seen as trustworthy. Walter worked in corporate media, a regular guy, pretty much in mainstream. He was no Gandhi, no Nelson Mandela, no Martin Luther King Jr. or Albert Einstein, who were trustworthy and always honest about imperialist foreign policy, but Cronkite did have a few moments of realization that U.S. use of military in foreign policy was less than sane.

The deceased deserve their rest in peace, with some respect for their contributions. Commercial media hype to distract us from conglomerate owned media's mission of war-mongering, support for empire and predatory global financial hegemony is obvious, insensitive and inappropriate to our mourning the passing of a fellow human being.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Cronkite-Belatedly-Called-by-Jay-Janson-090718-320.html

Walter Cronkite: Most Trusted Asset of Operation Mockingbird

Kurt Nimmo
Infowars
July 19, 2009

“It is impossible to imagine CBS News, journalism or indeed America without Walter Cronkite,” said Sean McManus, president of CBS News on the passing on Walter Cronkite. “More than just the best and most trusted anchor in history, he guided America through our crises, tragedies and also our victories and greatest moments.”

I wonder if Mr. McManus knew the real Cronkite — Cronkite the a former intelligence officer who was lured away from his UPI Moscow desk by Operation Mockingbird’s Phil Graham.

Of course he did. Because the corporate media, at least at the level Walter Cronkite occupied, is rife with spooks, government agents, and disinfo operatives. The CIA has “important assets” inside every major news publication in the country, a fact established by numerous FOIA documents. A rare glimpse was also provided by Frank Church’s committee in the mid-70s.

Some of the journalists working the CIA’s side of the street “were Pulitzer Prize winners, distinguished reporters who considered themselves ambassadors-without-portfolio for their country,” Carl Bernstein wrote in an article published in Rolling Stone in October, 1977. “Most were less exalted: foreign correspondents who found that their association with the Agency helped their work; stringers and freelancers who were as interested it the derring-do of the spy business as in filing articles, and, the smallest category, full-time CIA employees masquerading as journalists abroad.”

“It was not until 1982 that the Agency openly admitted that reporters on the CIA payroll have acted as case officers to agents in the field,” writes Alex Constantine in "Tales from the Crypt: The Depraved Spies and Moguls of the CIA’s Operation MOCKINGBIRD."

“Most consumers of the corporate media were — and are — unaware of the effect that the salting of public opinion has on their own beliefs.”

“In the 1950s, outlays for global propaganda climbed to a full third of the CIA’s covert operations budget. Some 3, 000 salaried and contract CIA employees were eventually engaged in propaganda efforts. The cost of disinforming the world cost American taxpayers an estimated $265 million a year by 1978, a budget larger than the combined expenditures of Reuters, UPI and the AP news syndicates.”

Cronkite was a trusted and valued part of that huge mass propaganda effort. Cronkite betrayed his kindly and fatherly demeanor in 1999 when he accepted the Norman Cousins Global Governance Award at the ceremony at the United Nations:

"It seems to many of us that if we are to avoid eventual catastrophic world conflict, we must strengthen the United Nations as a first step toward a world government patterned after our own government with a legislature, executive and judiciary, and police to enforce its international laws and keep the peace. To do that, of course, we Americans will have to yield up some of our sovereignty. That would be a bitter pill. It would take a lot of courage, a lot of faith in the new order. But the American colonies did it once and brought forth one of the most nearly perfect unions the world has ever seen."

It is said Cronkite “somehow spoke for the nation he spoke to,” according to the Los Angeles Times, when in fact — like all corporate media figures — Cronkite was reading from a script provided by the CIA at the behest of the ruling elite.

http://www.prisonplanet.com/walter-cronkite-most-trusted-asset-of-operation-mockingbird.html

Larry King: Encounters with Richard Nixon & John Kennedy

From Larry King dishes lots of dirt in new autobiography
By Glenn Garvin
McClatchy Newspapers
July 18, 2009

... King’s new autobiography "My Remarkable Journey" isn’t exactly chamber-of-commerce-brochure stuff. He dishes plenty of dirt — on himself, and on South Florida, where he broke into broadcasting and for two decades led an often seamy rags-to-riches-to-rags life.

King gambled. He wrote bad checks. He was arrested on charges of stealing $5,000 from financier Louis Wolfson. ... He regrets a lot of what happened, particularly his involvement with the freewheeling millionaire Wolfson. What started as a friendship devolved into a twisted, lurid codependency as King helped Wolfson shuttle clandestine money to favored politicians and causes, then assisted in the financier’s increasingly frantic (and ultimately unsuccessful) efforts to avoid prison on charges of selling unregistered stock.

King says he even agreed to carry Wolfson’s offer of a $4 million campaign contribution to Richard Nixon just as Nixon was about to enter the White House — an unspoken plea for a presidential pardon. But as he talked with Nixon, King flinched.

"I sure am glad I didn’t make the proposition to Nixon — which, to be honest, I almost did," King says. "If I had done it, we would have had the King hearings right along with the Watergate hearings. This would inevitably have come out during the Watergate investigation, and Nixon would have called it a bribe, even though it wasn’t intended as a bribe."

King’s other encounter with a president-to-be was also out there on the fringes of the law. In 1958, soon after arriving in South Florida, he ran into John F. Kennedy on Worth Avenue in Palm Beach. Not as in, "saw him shopping." As in, "rammed his convertible with a ratty old car."

Kennedy was not yet president, but he was America’s most famous senator, and at the moment, its maddest, too. "How could you?" he roared. "Early Sunday morning, no traffic, not a cloud in the sky, I’m parked — how could you run into me?" King knew the truthful answer — that he was a dumb kid newly arrived from the seedy side of Brooklyn and had been gawking at Palm Beach’s fairy-tale boutiques — wasn’t a good one.

’All I could say was, ’Senator, do you want to exchange information from our driver’s licenses?’" recalls King. ’Eventually he calmed down, and he said he’d forget the whole thing if we just promised to vote for him when he ran for president. We did, and he drove away — though not before saying, ’Stay waaay behind me.’ ...

http://www.bostonherald.com/entertainment/books/view/20090718larry_king_dishes_lots_of_dirt_in_new_autobiography/srvc=home&position=recent

David Ignatius: The Mainstream Media’s Chief Apologist for CIA Crimes

by Mel Goodman

The Washington Post’s David Ignatius has become the mainstream media’s apologist for the Central Intelligence Agency.

In Thursday’s column, he has lambasted Attorney General Eric Holder for even considering the appointment of a prosecutor to investigate possible war crimes by CIA officers; congressional Democrats who want to conduct genuine oversight of the CIA; and President Obama who perhaps now understands that an investigation of the CIA is not merely about "petty grievances." ...

Continued: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/16/754290/-David-Ignatius:-The-Mainstream-Medias-Chief-Apologist-for-CIA-Crimes

CIA/Mafia Media Shill Gerald Posner Claims that Michael Jackson "Killed Himself" to Escape Stresses of Performing

Acclaimed "author"/disinformationist Gerald Posner

Gerald Posner - arguably the most obvious CIA/Mafia media shill in the world - is incapable of telling the truth about anything, I do believe. He concocts cover stories like the Case Closed shaggy-dog story that had Lee Harvey Oswald killing John F. Kennedy on his lonesome. The book distorts from the first sentence to the last. Anyone who has studied the Kennedy murder knows this, but Posner is a CIA-Mob propagandist so, of course, all doors to the deeply corrupt corporate media fly open for this sleazy ferret.

Now, with people named Jackson insisting that Michael was murdered, here comes Gerald Posner from the Daily Beast to obfuscate once again with a cover story that turns murder (or, it has been argued, manslaughter) into an accidental overdose. (Blaming the victim is a favorite CIA/Mafia propaganda stunt.) According to Posner, Jackson was trying to "make himself sick." Posner's media appearances are a telltale sign that there was much more to it - the "author" has no credibility whatsoever; his function is covering up Nazi and Mafia crimes, eg. the Kennedy assassination. Of course, media interviewers grovel in his presence, and never question his far-fetched, distorted, serial manipulations of evidence. Posner's "work" on al Qaeda - trumpeting "confessions" obtained through CIA torture, leaked to him, conveniently distracting attention from CIA and DoD involvement in world terrorism - has been discredited by subsequent news reports. The following story is so much "Jesus Juice" - he's covering up, IMhO. My job is to figure out what he's hiding and I'll be attempting to do just that in the weeks ahead. - AC

Jacko Accidentally Killed Himself

1 July 2009

Michael Jackson inadvertently killed himself while trying to get sick enough to avoid tour commitments, according to a prominent author.

Michael Jackson (Reuters Photo)

Jackson's contract with the firm handling the 50-show tour stated that if the singer cancelled any concert, he would have to pay a penalty to the promoters, according to The Daily Beast.

However, most contracts have a medical infirmity clause, whereby if a performer is hospitalised no penalty needs to be paid, reports News.com.au.

Author Gerald Posner says that a top member of the singer’s entourage has told him that Jackson wanted to cancel several shows without having to pay out his touring company.
Jackson intentionally took a large amount of prescription drugs to induce a trip to hospital, according to the advisor,

The advisor reportedly said: "Like a child who doesn’t want to go to school... Michael thought he could get away from his obligations if he had a ''note from the doctor''.”

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Entertainment/International-Stars/Jacko-accidentally-killed-himself-/articleshow/4725160.cms

The Politics of Heroin at Fox News - Rupert Murdoch, the CIA, Nugan Hand Bank & Crimes of Patriots

From: "Introduction to George Shultz, International Terrorist," posted on November 4, 2007
By Alex Constantine

Nugan Hand's Status in the World

... Alex Butterfield, recall, made headlines when he casually announced that the president had tape recorded conversations in the oval office. That was the end of Richard Nixon, who was badly kicked around .. and not one reporter stopped to ponder why a spook in the White House would crucify his boss with this devastating revelation.

Butterfield gave away the store at another key point in history when he spilled the dope beans to Wall Street Journal reporter Jonathan Kwitny, author of The Crimes of Patriots. When asked about Bernie Houghton and other principals at Australia's Nugan Hand Bank, the CIA's cash laundry, Butterfield gave him a few names that broke the bank, so to speak.

Kwitny was referred to General Heine Aderhold, who ran covert operations throughout Asia with John Singlaub, and was in a position to observe the actions of Maurice "Bernie" Houghton at Nugan Hand.

Houghton, it emerged, had been active in the opium trade in the Golden Triangle. Kwitny's investigation led him to dig up a legal claim letter signed by Tom Rahill, an American worker in Dhahrain, Saudi Arabia.

According the this letter, "Mr. Houghton's representatives would visit Aramco construction camps in Saudi Arabia shortly after each monthly payday. We investors would turn over Saudi royals to be converted at the prevailing dollar exchange rate, and receive a Nugan Hand dollar certificate. ... The monies, we were told, were to be deposited in the Nugan Hand Hong Kong branch for investments in various 'secured' government bonds."

But Aramco wasn't the only company that turned Nugan Hand into a burgeoning financial center. "Other large U.S concerns are said by investors to have boosted Nugan Hand, and let salesmen hold meetings on company property. Among them were Bechtel, the giant international construction firm then guided by George Shultz and Caspar Weinberger, and University Industries, Inc. of San Diego." (University Industries is still around, now known as JWP West. The corporate website reports that the company was founded "in the mid-1960s as a water supplier to Long Island and Queens, New York, JWP transformed itself through acquisition. By the start of the 1980s, JWP was the nation's largest computer reseller and the biggest electrical and maintenance contractor. Essentially, clients use JWP to help increase productivity and decrease costs by upgrading their facilities through, for example, more efficient communication and computer systems. JWP designs, installs, and supports these technical systems." For more, see: Pollack, Andrew, "JWP Gains Control of Businessland," New York Times, August 6, 1991, and Steinberg, Jacques, "Water Utility of a Thousand Faces," New York Times, November 2, 1991.. )

Employees of Aramco, Beck, Bechtel and University Industries (officials there actually confirmed Kwitny's allegations, to his complete surprise, with the comment, "sounds like you've got quite a story there.") were directed to Bernie Houghton, who talked them into investing in the bank at a promised return of 18%. Houghton only dealt in hard cash, and was seen leaving Bechtel with garbage bags stuffed full of paper money.

When the bank went bust, the employees lost their investments. The scheme made Enron's stock manipulations look like a putting gteen. ...

http://aconstantineblacklist.blogspot.com/2007/11/introduction-to-george-shultz.html
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From: "Media Mafia (Part Five): The CIA/Mafia's Rupert Murdoch, Jim Cownie, et al," posted September 13, 2007
Edited by Alex Constantine

... Michael Jon Hand, the son of a civil servant, was born in the Bronx on 8th December, 1941. According to Jonathan Kwitny in his book The Crimes of Patriots: A True Tale of Dope, Dirty Money, and the CIA: "Hand passed every class he took, and was noted for exceptional character, courtesy, cooperation, and appearance. His IQ registered an also exceptional 131."

In 1959 his mother died after falling or jumping from a third-floor window. Soon afterwards he attended a one-year course at the New York State Ranger School. This was followed by a year managing a sports school in Los Angeles.

In May 1963 Hand joined the US Army and started his training at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. During the Vietnam War he won the Distinguished Service Cross (DSC). According to the DSC citation he almost single-handedly held off a fourteen-hour Vietcong attack on the Special Forces compound at Dong Xaoi.

In 1966 he left the army to work "directly for the U.S, Government". Friends of Michael Hand have suggested that he was employed on undercover missions for the Central Intelligence Agency in Vietnam and Laos. One reported that he "helped train the mountain people - Montagnards - and worked closely with the Air America crews that supplied them". According to Jonathan Kwitny, Hand worked under William Colby during the Vietnam War.

Michael Hand moved to Australia in September, 1967. At first Hand went to work selling development lots along the Australian coast. The company, Ocean Shores Development, was run by lawyer Fred Miller, a senior executive for the shipping empire owned by Sir Peter Abeles, the longtime business partner, Rupert Murdoch. One of the largest investors in this scheme was the singer Pat Boone. The registered directors included Boone of Beverly Hills, California and Patricia Swan of Sydney, Australia. Swan was Frank Nugan's secretary. ... "

Continues:
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?act=Print&client=printer&f=126&t=7574

MICHAEL HAND JOINS THE CIA

[Rupert Murdoch's CIA-Mafia business partners are the most probable suspects. Hand's partner Frank Nugan was also murdered by Murdoch's CIA-Mafia business partners. Many others have been murdered by Murdoch's CIA-Mafia business partners. The murders by Murdoch's CIA-Mafia business partners are often disguised as "suicides."- AC]

" ... In May 1963 Hand joined the US Army and started his training at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. During the Vietnam War he won the Distinguished Service Cross (DSC). According to the DSC citation he almost single-handedly held off a fourteen-hour Vietcong attack on the Special Forces compound at Dong Xaoi. In 1966 he left the army to work "directly for the U.S, Government". Friends of Michael Hand have suggested that he was employed on undercover missions for the CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY in Vietnam and Laos. ... "
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKhandM.htm

THE CIA'S HAND WORKED FOR PETER ABELES IN AUSTRALIA - ABELES, MURDOCH'S BUSINESS PARTNER, WAS A MAFIA KINGPIN:

" ... Bob Hawk's (Australian Prime Minister from 11th March, 1983 until 20th December, 1991) little mate SIR PETER ABELES was the US MAFIA representative in Australia for many years and is known to have attempted to bribe well known anti-corruption journalist Bob Bottom. Of course Bottom refused but it was well known that Abeles would tie someone up in court for years if they dared to print anything derogatory about him ... "
http://www.wpngnc.org/kissinger.htm

RUPERT MURDOCH, NARCOTICS KINGPIN

" ... Abeles and RUPERT MURDOCH (I seem to have heard that name before) just happened to own 55% of Australia's second biggest domestic airline - ANSETT. Ansett in turn just happened to own a 20% share in another airline - AMERICA WEST Airline. One of their planes was caught in the US chock a block full of DRUGS in the US. The result was intertesting to say the least. ... "
http://www.wpngnc.org/kissinger.htm

MORE ON MURDOCH, NUGAN HAND, THE CIA, DRUGS:

" ... Twenty percent of the stock of AMERICA WEST was owned by ANSETT AIRLINES of Australia and 55% of ANSETT was held by Sir Peter Ables and Rupert Murdock. We know from Jonathan Kwitney's book THE CRIMES OF PATRIOTS that Burny Houghton, perhaps the key figure in the founding of the CIA drug money laundering bank NUGAN)HAND in Australia, had coffee with Sir Peter Ables the night of his first day in Australia. ... "
http://www.wpngnc.org/ables.htm

CIA's Paul Helliwell meets Michael Hand and Frank Nugan

When Frank Nugan was found dead in Australia in 1980, it was accepted as a suicide and the sighs of relief could almost be heard in Langley, on the other side of the globe. But then William Colby's business card was found in Nugan's wallet, and Nugan's partner, Michael Hand, had been a contract agent for the CIA in Vietnam. Australian authorities began tracking Nugan Hand Bank, which developed into the most fun story of Golden Triangle drugs, money-laundering, profiteering, corporate shell games, and financial fraud that has yet surfaced in the CIA's unofficial history.

The most intriguing aspect of Nugan Hand Bank was the list of Yankees who were in on the scam. Theodore Shackley, Richard Secord, Thomas Clines, and Edwin Wilson played peripheral roles, while Gen. Edwin Black ran the Nugan Hand Hawaii office, Gen. Erle Cocke ran the Washington office, Gen. LeRoy Manor ran the Philippine office, Colby was their lawyer, former CIA deputy director Walter McDonald was a consultant, Adm. Earl Yates was president of Nugan Hand, and Robert Jantzen, a former CIA station chief in Thailand, got out of Nugan Hand when he smelled drugs. He needn't have bothered; apart from Kwitny's Wall Street Journal articles in 1982, Nugan Hand received little coverage and no official interest in the U.S.

THE GUARDIAN CLAIMED IN 1999 THAT ABELES - WHO WAS BESTOWED WITH A KNIGHTHOOD IN ENGLAND - WAS ONLY "RUMORED" TO HAVE MAFIA CONNECTIONS, AND THAT THESE WERE "UNFOUNDED" ...

The Guardian July 7, 1999

Peter Abeles "is paraded as an example of 'rags to riches' by hard work — landing in Australia in 1949, penniless, but one year later running his own trucking company.There have been rumours from time to time, UNFOUNDED of course, of organised crime links and reported sightings with mafia connections in the US. ... "
http://www.cpa.org.au/garchive/961edit.htm
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THE AWFUL TRUTH: NOT ONLY DID HE HAVE MAFIA CONNECTIONS, BUT PETER ABELES, CIA-MAFIA COCAINE TRANSPORTER, WAS THE EMINENCE GRIS BEHIND PETER MUNK - THE KEY FRONT MAN FOR ADNAN KHASHOGGI AND GHW BUSH IN BARRRICK GOLD CORP.:

Inside story: the Bush gang and Barrick Gold Corporation

" ... Abeles is reportedly known in Europe as 'the White Knight,' in reference both to his British knighthood, and his reported large role in the cocaine trade. Jonathan Kwitney, in {The Crimes of Patriots} (New York: W.W. Norton, 1987), reports that, after Abeles encountered labor union problems in his American business, Abeles gave to gangster 'associates of ... the most powerful Mafia leader in the United States ... a 20% stake in his U.S. operations.' His partners were indicted for hiding his payments, but Abeles refused to come to America to testify, and charges were dropped. ... "
http://www.afrocentricnews.com/html/bush_gang.html

BARRICK GOLD, IRAN CONTRA AND THE CIA

EXCERPT FROM: "Adnan Khashoggi Linked to 9/11 Terrorists (Part One)," by Alex Constantine (2004):

Decades before burning skyscrapers, codified torture, secret trials and mass detentions, there was Barrick Gold, a mining concern in Canada with roots in the American intelligence establishment. It is fitting that gold, the seductive but dead heart of world capitalism, should christen a story about the most unconscionable event in Wall Street history: 911.

Barrick's incorporation is obscure. Most accounts claim that the firm was founded by Peter Munk, a former radio manufacturer who made a splash in the Canadian press when he disposed of his shares in the company shortly before it was declared insolvent, a golden parachute paid for by investors and the Canadian taxpayer. His name was instantly mud in the investment community, but fortunately for Munk, no indictment was ever brought against him.

Today, his overall worth is estimated at $350 million. Munk's redemption was the work of Saudi entrepeneur Adnan Khashoggi, who would go on to notoriety as an Ollie North intermediary in the Iran-Contra affair.

Khashoggi and Munk kicked off their partnership with a series of hotel investments. In 1983, the Saudi entrepeneur raided his fat cash reserves to purchase Barrick. Munk was installed as chairman.

Khashoggi distanced himself from Barrick shortly after the Iran-Contra scandal broke (but held onto his stock, tied up as collateral for North's arms transfers to Iran in 1985), notes Observer reporter Gregg Palast in a book on the 2000 presidential election, before Bush was invited in.

That was in 1995: "Munk's reputation was restored, at least in his own mind, in part by massive donations to the University of Toronto. Following this act of philanthropy, the university awarded Munk an honorary degree. Several students were arrested protesting what appeared to them as a cash-for-honors deal."

The bonds were positively Sicilian. in 1986, Khashoggi was was arrested for fraud and held in a New York prison. Munk paid his $4 million bail.

This was roughly the same time that Roosevelt cemented relations with Khashoggi, who brought Munk along, on behalf of the CIA. The offshore division of Khashoggi's Barrick Resources controlled Jetborne, Inc., a company in Toronto used by Khashoggi to ship arms to Iran under the direction of Reagan's NSC. ...
http://www.questionsquestions.net/docs04/khashoggi-911.html
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MORE ON PETER ABELES AND THE MAFIA

Sir Peter Abeles
Friday, 25 June , 1999 00:00:00
Reporter: Elizabeth Jackson

REPORTER: But when it comes to Sir Peter Abeles' contribution to Australian society, not everyone is as impressed as the Prime Minister. During the 1980s Wendy Bacon was a journalist with the National Times. Now Associate Professor of Journalism at the University of Technology in Sydney, she says there are still a lot of unanswered questions concerning Sir Peter Abeles.

WENDY BACON: I think he certainly did exert influence. I think that he was involved in activities that otherwise would have got a lot more political, legal and media attention than they did. I'm thinking particularly of some corrupt activities that he was involved in in Australia involving the Transport Workers' Union and also his connections with the US Mafia when his company became involved in the trucking industry in the States in 1969.
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/stories/s31447.htm

Also see:

http://alexconstantine.blogspot.com/2007/08/murder-of-theresa-duncan-jim-cownie.html

http://aconstantineblacklist.blogspot.com/2007/09/media-mafia-part-six-ciamafias-rupert.html