Dear Mr Murdoch,

As you know, I have been uncovering criminality at News International for several years. During which time, the company's management has regularly asked me to provide evidence of its habitual criminality. I have resisted such requests, as I did not believe they were sincere. It was my belief that senior people at the company knew perfectly well about journalists being involved in phone hacking, computer hacking, bribery and blackmail. And that the company had no wish to deal with these problems - did not even see them as such - rather to know what evidence existed in order to destroy it, to muddy the trail, in short, to cover up. For these reasons, I have resisted passing on evidence to you, and have passed it solely to the law enforcement authorities instead.

Nevertheless, I am writing to you today because I believe it may be possible that that era may be drawing to a close. I believe it possible that you and the current executives at the company may have realised that it is now too late to cover up what has gone on at News International. Whether or not you, and your executives, knew about the widespread use within News International of the latest investigative technique to be revealed - burglary - I believe you may now realise that the flat denial and attempt to destroy evidence of previous days will no longer wash with anybody.

BRUSSELS - A brainstorming group of 11 EU foreign ministers has called for a more powerful EU foreign policy chief and less power in general for EU countries.

The group - containing ministers from Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Italy, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal and Spain - published its communique on the "Future of Europe" on Tuesday (18 September) after a meeting in Warsaw.

It said the EU should make a "substantial revision" of the European External Action Service (EEAS), putting the EEAS chief in charge of neighbourhood and development policy as well as a new defence policy designed to create a "European army."

The current EEAS chief, Catherine Ashton, is flanked by neighbourhood commissioner Stefan Fuele and development commissioner Andris Piebalgs, who control the vast bulk of EU money spent in the Western Balkans, the Middle East and Africa.

The new-model EEAS chief would instead control two "junior" neighbourhood and aid commissioners.

BRUSSELS - The European Parliament is pushing for transparency laws that would require all large gas, oil, mining and logging companies listed on EU stock exchanges or domiciled in the EU to disclose payments they make to foreign governments anywhere in the world.

Deputies on Tuesday (18 September) in the parliament's legal affairs committee unanimously voted in favour of a draft law that would require the companies in the sectors to disclose all financial transactions above an €80,000 threshold.

"It's a victory for those lobbying for fairness and justice in these areas and I think it's time the industry recognised that they are at the end of the line in terms of transparency and disclosure," Arlene McCarthy, the British centre-left MEP who drafted the parliament's position, told EUobserver.

Parliament expanded on the European Commission's original text by including forestry, construction, telecommunications and banking sectors in the mix.

Parliament's Greens group has called for a "deep-rooted" reform of the EU's farm policy.

It says that farm funds could be better used and that, in future, there should be a payment 'ceiling' of €100,000 per farmer.

This compares with a commission proposal which says that as part of the reform each farm holding should receive up to €300,000.

Speaking at a news conference in parliament on Tuesday, the group's joint leader Daniel Cohn-Bendit said the figure proposed by his group would ensure "fairer distribution" of EU farm funds.

He said this would allow €7bn to be redistributed between member states and farmers.

"This money should be used for promoting the shift to sustainable farming and long-term employment in rural economies," said Cohn-Bendit.

EU countries are urged to speed up the connections of their gas and electricity grids, according to a draft European Commission report on investment in energy infrastructure, seen by EurActiv.

Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia, as well as Malta, Cyprus, Spain and Portugal, are on a "gas island" because of insufficient infrastructure connections with the rest of the EU, the draft report says.

But perhaps more seriously, dependency on a single gas provider also prevails in countries with a better geographical position, such as Slovakia, Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania, the paper says.

Following the Russia-Ukraine gas crisis in the winter of 2008-2009, the EU took a number of measures to make sure that individual countries are better connected and less vulnerable in the case of a supply disruption from Russia (see background). A few years later, it appears that little has been done, despite available funding.

The government has for the first time been ordered to disclose copies of confidential letters that Prince Charles wrote to ministers.

The publication of the letters will reveal how the heir to the throne has been lobbying ministers behind the scenes with his strongly held opinions.

In a significant ruling published on Tuesday, three judges in a freedom of information tribunal decided the public is entitled to know how the prince seeks to alter government policy.

"The essential reason is that it will generally be in the overall public interest for there to be transparency as to how and when Prince Charles seeks to influence government," they ruled.

"The rescue [for Spain] will only bring more budget cuts," the leader of the Socialist party, the main opposition party, Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, said in a TV interview on Spanish national TV on Monday, criticizing Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy.

He said he "would not have requested" financial help from Brussels and that one of the major problems in the country is the "distrust" towards the prime minister, because "for Rajoy, the country is getting out of hand."

During the interview, the Socialist leader called on Rajoy to clarify as soon as possible what the government plans to do with the pension system, because, he said, not only has Rajoy not been clear on whether the benefits will be changed, but Rubalcaba said he is also sure that there are plans to change the system. He said he believes the retirement age will be postponed to 67 years and that contributions to the system will have to be paid throughout the whole working life.

Everyone will be aware of the far-reaching measures the caretaker government is taking to bring the government finances under control, finance minister Jan Kees de Jager told parliament on Tuesday.

'The financial crisis will not go away,' De Jager said. 'People are right to be worried about their jobs, the housing market. Growth expectations over the next few years are modest... we are all going to feel it.'

The credit and debt crises have affected the economy so deeply the budget deficit has to be cut and reform is vital. The five-party agreement reached in April will reduce the budget deficit back to 2.7%, in line with eurozone rules, he said.

n a document released on Tuesday after a meeting between 11 foreign ministers in Warsaw, the bloc, which includes all the largest European countries outside Britain, charted a vision for the "future of Europe".

As well as calling for a single, elected head of state for Europe, the bloc demanded a new defence policy, under the control of a new pan-EU foreign ministry commanded by Baroness Ashton, which "could eventually involve a European army".

In order to "prevent one single member state from being able to obstruct initiatives", a reference to British opposition to a European army, the German-led grouping demanded an end to existing national vetoes over foreign and defence policy.

Opposition to Pedro Passos Coelho is rising both inside his government, and among the public; there is talk of a break in the coalition, or the appointment of a new government without elections; Spain issues short term debt at improved rates, but spreads are slowly creeping up again; there is an intense debate about whether and when Spain should apply for a programme; among those who favour immediate action are Charles Dallara and Jose Manuel Gonzales Paramo; but Spanish business associations and politicians are more cautious; the Spanish press is full of stories about how Mariano Rajoy plays the tactical game - by pushing all the reform measures into the 2013 budget, so as not to be seen as accepting external conditions; the Spanish press reports on Jean-Claude Juncker's remarks that the eurozone will impose tough conditions on Spain; France has started the ratification process for the fiscal pact, with a focus on structural deficits and an independent commission to warn when the country is coming of the trajectory; Bloomberg writes of an accelerating deposit flight from southern Europe - totalling €326bn from Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Greece in the year to July; the Dutch Liberal and Labour parties started coalition talks; Mark Rutte says there will be more austerity; the ECB may soon decide to publish minutes of its meetings; Giorgio Napolitano warns Italian politicians not to mess with the country's euro membership; the spreads of residential mortgage-linked securities has fallen since July, but the benefits are not likely to be passed on to consumers; Ralph Atkins says a banking union is also a pre-requisite for a much more integrated capital markets; Nicola Borri and Giuseppe Ragusa says another goal of the OMT is to improve the sterlisation process; Joachim Jahn is appalled by Vivianne Reding's interpretation of the bailout clause in the European Treaties; Paul de Grauwe and Yuemei Ji, meanwhile, argue that Germany's Target 2 surpluses exaggerate the overall risk, since the Bundesbank can easily refuse to convert speculative euro deposits by non-residents.

European banks pledged last year to cut more than $1.2 trillion of assets to help them weather the sovereign-debt crisis. Since then they've grown only fatter.

Lenders in the euro area increased assets by 7 percent to 34.4 trillion euros ($45 trillion) in the year ended July 31, according to data compiled by the European Central Bank. BNP Paribas SA (BNP), Banco Santander (SAN) SA, and UniCredit (UCG) SpA, the biggest banks in France, Spain and Italy, all expanded their balance sheets in the 12 months through the end of June.

They have Mario Draghi to thank. The ECB president's decision nine months ago to provide more than 1 trillion euros of three-year loans to banks eased the pressure to sell assets at depressed prices. The infusion, designed to encourage firms to lend, succeeded in averting a short-term credit crunch by reducing their reliance on markets for funding. It also may be making European lenders dependent on more central-bank aid.

"Deleveraging isn't taking place, especially in Spain and Italy," said Simon Maughan, a bank analyst at Olivetree Securities Ltd. in London. "The fact that we haven't got on with it, or very slowly, suggests that when the time comes we'll need another ECB injection to roll over the first one, just to keep the balance sheets of Italian banks in business."

The chart below from the Tax Policy Center shows the distribution of federal income taxes paid by income level in 2011.

It contains a number of interesting factoids, including the following:

• 7,000 people made more than $1 million but paid no income tax.
• 22,000 people made between $500,000 and $1 million but paid no income tax.
• 81,000 people made between $200,000 and $500,000 but paid no income tax.
• 381,000 people made between $100,000 and $200,000 but paid no income tax.

So that's 491,000 Americans who made more than $100,000 a year who paid no income tax. (Clearly dependent victims who refuse to take responsibility for their lives!)

(Reuters) - Striking platinum miners at Lonmin's Marikana mine in South Africa accepted a pay offer on Tuesday, ending six weeks of violent unrest that claimed 45 lives and rattled Africa's largest economy.

The strikers, grouped on a bare soccer pitch near the mine, 100 km (60 miles) northwest of Johannesburg, cheered when they were told that management were offering a 22 percent pay rise, and said they would return to work on Thursday.

"I am happy - and forward with the struggle," said one of the striking miners, Sithembile Sohati.

"It's a huge achievement. No union has achieved a 22 percent increase before," Zolisa Bodlani, a worker representative at Marikana, told Reuters.

(Reuters) - Already reeling from a secret video showing him deriding 47 percent of the U.S. electorate, Republican Mitt Romney's campaign hit more trouble on Tuesday when new images surfaced in which he accused Palestinians of not wanting peace.

The videos, taken at the same closed-door fundraiser in Florida in May, have knocked Romney's gaffe-plagued campaign even more off stride and raised fresh questions about whether he can come from behind in the polls and win the White House in November.

"I look at the Palestinians not wanting to see peace anyway, for political purposes, committed to the destruction and elimination of Israel, and these thorny issues, and I say there's just no way," Romney said in the latest video clip published by liberal Mother Jones magazine.

(Reuters) - NATO ordered a cutback on Tuesday in operations with Afghan forces in response to a surge of so-called insider attacks on foreign servicemen, but said the restriction was temporary and would not derail a 2014 handover of security to Afghans.

The order indefinitely suspending most mentoring operations came from the second most senior U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Lieutenant-General James Terry, and applies to all front-line missions involving units smaller than an 800-strong battalion.

But a senior NATO spokesman, U.S. Colonel Tom Collins, said the order was only a "temporary and prudent response" to current threats of insider attacks and a week of mounting anger across the Muslim world over a film mocking the Prophet Mohammad.

DOHA, Sep 18 2012 (IPS) - A suicide car bomber has killed 12 people in the Afghan capital, nine of them foreigners, officials said, in an early-morning attack claimed by an armed group which said it sent a female attacker to avenge an anti-Islam film.

A number of those killed on Tuesday were foreign workers for an international courier company, a senior police source said, and one was an Afghan translator.

"At around 6:45am (0215 GMT) a suicide bomber using a sedan blew himself up along the airport road in District 15. As a result, nine workers of a foreign company and three Afghan civilians are dead, and two police are wounded," police said in a statement.

Kabul police chief Mohammad Ayoub Salangi said the bomber blew herself up alongside a minivan, carrying foreigners.

Somali troops backed by African Union forces have clashed with al-Shabab fighters, an al-Qaeda-linked Somali militia, as they try to advance towards the key port town of Kismayo, sources from rival sides have said.

Heavy fighting broke out on Monday near Birta-dher, about 40km from Kismayo, the biggest bastion of al-Shabab in southern Somalia, witnesses said.

Military officials confirmed that Somali and Kenyan troops launched an attack on the barracks of al-Shabab fighters in the area.

"The fighting is going on for the second day after our forces supported by Kenyan troops launched a final military offensive on al-Shabab positions in the Kismayo corridor", Mohamed Farah, Somali military spokesman at the frontline, said.

"The operation is aimed to root out the militants before we secure control of the port town", he said.

Like many children, 4-year-old Anna Woltjen pesters her mother during shopping trips for sweets and snacks. She has a fondness for all kinds of goodies but saves the hard sell for her favorite brands: Cookie Dough Bites, SuperPretzel and Icee frozen treats.

The New Jersey preschooler also asks for her mother's iPhone to play some of her favorite games, including "Cookie Dough Bites Factory," "SuperPretzel Factory" and "Icee Maker."

U.S. food companies are reaching children by embedding their products in simple and enticing games for touch-screen phones and tablets. The new medium is far cheaper than Saturday morning TV commercials and could prove as effective.

N'DJAMENA, Sep 18 2012 (IPS) - Chad has more than 400,000 square kilometres of arable land, but poor rainfall and a reliance on basic agricultural techniques have left the country with a grain deficit in the past two years. The government is turning to mechanisation in a bid to improve harvests. Chad became an oil producer in 2003. But despite the financial rewards raked in from this, the northern and eastern parts of this Sahelian country have suffered famine since 2010.

Chadian President Idriss Déby Itno, whose fourth term began in 2011, has put youth and the countryside at the head of his priority list. He wants to put an end to what he has called "the hellish cycle of famine". But the cereal deficit has stubbornly remained at more than 500,000 tonnes a year since 2010.

A factory to assemble tractors was opened in N'Djamena in 2009.

The U.S. federal government is significantly underestimating the costs of carbon pollution because it is using a faulty analytical model, according to a new study published in the Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences.

A more appropriate accounting of costs would pave the way to cleaner, more economically efficient sources of power generation, the study found.

"This is a wake-up call for America to start aggressively investing in low carbon sources of energy. The very real economic benefits will accrue quickly and increase over time," said Dr. Laurie Johnson, chief economist in the climate and clean air program at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

"With approximately 40 percent of all carbon emissions in the U.S. coming from power plants, the economic advantages of clean electricity sources are significant," she said.

Johnson, who co-authored the study (with Chris Hope of Judge Business School, University of Cambridge) "The Social Cost of Carbon in U.S. Regulatory Impact Analyses," said the model used by the government is incomplete because it all but ignores the economic damages that climate change will inflict on future generations. That model was the product of an interagency task force comprised of six cabinet agencies and six executive branch offices.

The real benefits of carbon reduction range from 2.6 to more than 12 times higher than the government's estimate.

Here's an illustrative tale of how science is used and abused in government policy making. In some circumstances, as with the imminent badger cull, you can take scientific evidence and extrapolate it to breaking point in order to justify the decision you have already taken.

Today, on the issue of bees and pesticides, we see the opposite. Despite serious evidence of great harm being caused to bees by sub-lethal doses of neonicitinoid pesticides - published in the world's most prestigious journals - the government has decided that no changes to regulation whatsoever are required, because the case has not been proven beyond all doubt.

So extrapolation is fine if you like where it takes you, but abhorrent if you don't. Evidence-based policy making remains as dreamy a concept as ever, it seems, even with something as critical as keeping the nation's pollinators in good health and our food supply secure.

A diamond field containing trillions of carats has been discovered hidden under a giant meteorite crater in Siberia, Russian scientists have disclosed.

Specialists say the diamonds, which are "twice as hard as normal", could be used for industrial purpose but not for jewellery.

The stones were created by the impact of a bolide - a large projectile - smashing into the Earth 35 million years ago, leaving the 62-mile wide Popigay crater under which they are buried.

The existence of the diamonds was known in Soviet times but this is the first occasion the full scale of the deposit has been disclosed.

RAYAGADA, India , Sep 18 2012 (IPS) - The deafening din of the lunch gong is sweet music to the 200-odd tribal girls rushing down the stairway, clutching stainless steel plates and tumblers.

Sikhsya Niketan (House of Education) in Chattikona administrative block of Rayagada district is a residential school meant exclusively for girls of the Dongria Kondh tribe in eastern Odisha state. The school is part of the federal government's intensified efforts to take universal education to extremely marginalised groups in India.

Odisha's 62 tribal communities make up 22 percent of the total population and account for 50 percent of people living below the poverty line in the state. They are partly responsible for Odisha's low human development indicators as compared to other Indian states.

The Dongria Kondhs, who number about 8,000, live in 120 villages located at an altitude of 5,000 feet above the sea level on the Niyamgiri hill plateau, coveted by mining companies for its valuable mineral deposits.

Till date, only two Dongria Kondh girls have managed to complete school. The first, Kasturi Melaka, did so as recently as in 2010.

The highest-resolution camera ever built has begun its quest to pin down the mysterious stuff that makes up nearly three-quarters of our Universe.

The Dark Energy Survey's 570-million-pixel camera will scan some 300 million galaxies in the coming five years.

The goal is to discover the nature of dark energy, which is theorised to be responsible for the ever-faster expansion of the Universe.

Its first image, taken 12 September, focussed on the Fornax galaxy cluster.

In time, along with its massive haul of individual galaxies, it will study 100,000 galaxy clusters - the largest stable structures we know of - and 4,000 supernovae, the bright dying throes of stars.

This enormous survey is a collaboration between US, UK, Brazilian, Spanish and German astronomers.

A scrap of papyrus dated to the fourth century has written on it in the ancient Coptic language, "Jesus said to them, my wife," reopening the debate about whether Jesus was married, as some early Christians believed.

The words on the honey-colored fragment are the first to show Jesus referring to a wife, according to Karen King, a professor of divinity at Harvard Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who presented the finding today at the International Congress of Coptic Studies in Rome. The writing in black ink is in the language of Egyptian Christians, on a fragment of about 1.5 by 3 inches (4 by 8 centimeters).

Ever since I learnt about confirmation bias I've started seeing it everywhere

So far, the Teachers Foundation of Malaysia has organised 10 seminars across the country. Attendance at the last event on Wednesday reached 1,500 people, a spokesman for the organisation said.

"It is a multi-religious and multicultural [event], after all, all religions are basically against that type of behaviour," said the official.

...

The latest seminar for the teachers and parents was run by deputy education minister Puad Zarkashi, his office confirmed.

Santiago Carrillo, the leader of the Spanish Communist Party between 1960 and 1982, died in Madrid on Tuesday afternoon at the age of 97, his family has confirmed. Carrillo had been admitted to hospital in July due to blood circulation problems but was later discharged.

A revolutionary from a young age, Carrillo began working for left-wing newspaper El Socialista in 1930 and at just 19 years of age he was elected secretary general of the Socialist Youth. That same year, 1934, Carrillo formed part of the National Revolutionary Committee that attempted an insurrection against the Catholic conservative Spanish Federation of the Autonomous Right, which had come to power in the November elections of 1933. The workers' uprising was led by Francisco Largo Caballero, the future Civil War prime minister who would become the foil for Carrillo's early political life. Both men were jailed for their involvement and while in prison Carrillo distanced himself from the increasingly moderate Largo Caballero.

A French court on Tuesday banned Closer magazine from any further publication or resale of topless pictures of Prince William's wife Catherine.

 An injunction granted by the court also ordered the magazine to hand over all files of the pictures in its possession to representatives of the royal couple within 24 hours and said it would be fined €10,000 ($13,000) for every day's delay.

The ruling prevents Closer, which published the pictures on Friday, from reusing them in print or on its website, as well as from selling them to markets where they have not been published.