|
|
|
|
|
Special to the tribune Shyam Bhatia in London Wendi Murdoch has emerged as the real hero of this week’s series of political dramas at which her husband, Rupert, chief executive of News Corporation, offered his apologies for the phone-hacking scandal. Opinion is still divided as to whether Rupert emerged the victor or the victim of Tuesday’s hearing before a House of Commons Select Committee where he was grilled about the wrongdoings at his now defunct News of the World newspaper. Shares in News Corporation rose 5.5 per cent immediately after the hearing, although there were plenty of subsequent references to Mr Murdoch as “frail” and “doddery” and even more questions about how much longer he could be expected to head his news empire. But there is universal praise for Wendi and the way she delivered a series of left hooks at the man who tried to attack her 80-year-old husband during the course of his televised testimony before British MPs. Her spirited defence has become such a talking point that it even managed to overshadow the following day’s expression of regret by Prime Minister David Cameron. Cameron, who cut short a visit to Africa to appear before an emergency session of the House of Commons, told MPs on Wednesday that with “20/20 hindsight he would not have hired Andy Coulson as his chief media adviser, adding that he would offer a “profound apology” if Coulson is later found guilty in the phone-hacking saga.“I regret and am extremely sorry for the furore it has caused”, Cameron said. “With 20/20 hindsight and all that has followed, I wouldn’t have offered him the job and I expect he wouldn’t have taken it.” Cameron’s apology was in many ways predictable, but it pales into insignificance compared with the previous day’s events and Mrs Murdoch’s karate-style blow against her husband’s attacker. One newspaper headline read, ‘Kung fu! Hnawww! He was lucky Wendi didn’t chop him in two.’ In China she has been praised by a variety of private Internet news outlets. One commented, ‘The image of Chinese women just got a lift’. Another said, ‘This adds value to the image of Chinese wives.’ She was sitting directly behind her husband when 26-year-old Jonathan May-Bowles, described as a left wing campaigner and occasional comedian, attempted to throw a plate of foam at Mr Murdoch, shouting, “You greedy billionaire.” Shortly before launching his attack, May-Bowles recorded on his twitter account, “It is a far better thing that I do now than I have ever done before-splat.” Born Deng Wenge (meaning cultural revolution) in 1968 and the daughter of a factory engineer from the city of Xuzhou, she was befriended as a 19-year-old by an American couple who were travelling in China. Jake and Joyce Cherry then sponsored her student visa application to learn English. One of Rupert Murdoch’s biographers, Bruce Dover, notes how two years later Wendi married Jake Cherry before separating from him and going on to Yale University from where she gained an MBA. Dover describes her as “hard working and eager to learn, but also ambitious and single-minded in her desire to succeed.” Wendi met Rupert Murdoch in Hong Kong in 1997 when she was 29 and the media tycoon was 68. They were married two years later at a ceremony on the media tycoon’s yacht. Another Murdoch biographer, Michael Wolff, tells how the couple is madly in love and have a shared passion for business. Their first daughter, Grace, was born when Mr Murdoch had turned 70. A second daughter, Chloe, was born a year later.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
| HOME PAGE | |
Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir |
Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs |
Nation | Opinions | | Business | Sports | World | Letters | Chandigarh | Ludhiana | Delhi | | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | E-mail | |
