Googie Withers

A striking presence on stage and in the great days of British film, she played the prison governor of TV's Within These Walls

Googie Withers in Dead of Night (1945). 
Followers of postwar cinema may well recall Googie Withers's striking presence in It Always Rains On Sunday, an unusually intense film for the Ealing Studios of 1947. She played a bored wife who gives shelter to an ex-lover, now a murderer on the run, a role taken by her real-life husband John McCallum. The lovers were shown as unsympathetically as they might have been in French film noir, and the weather was bad even by British standards. What Withers, who has died aged 94, brought to that performance was to define her strength in some of her most powerful roles. Too strong a face and too grand a manner prevented her being thought conventionally pretty, but she was imposingly watchable because of an obvious vigour and sexuality. Thus equipped, she acquired great skill at playing wives in various states of dissatisfaction because of the implied sexual shortcomings of their husbands. She was especially effective in roles created by the playwright Terence Rattigan. These included the not entirely unsympathetic wife in the stage version of The Deep Blue Sea (1952) – the "respectable" but emotionally unsatisfied wife of a judge who throws herself at a weak and irresponsible ex-RAF wonderboy. Another Rattigan creation that might have gone to Withers was the part of the wife of the dried-up and professionally despised schoolmaster in the film of The Browning Version (1951). In the event, Jean Kent provided one of the most harrowing moments to that date in British cinema when she tried to destroy her husband's remaining hopes with such vicious hatred that the scene was often booed and hissed in 1950s cinemas. Withers, while making the cause of the wife's frustration just as plainly sexual, might well have conveyed a certain residual warmth and humanity that would have transformed melodrama into drama. Withers was a loss to the British stage and screen when she followed her husband to his native Australia in the 1960s. They had married in 1948, and had two daughters, Joanna and Amanda, and a son, Nicholas. From 1955 onwards, she alternated between productions in the northern and southern hemispheres. But while her touring work focused more on Australia and New Zealand, she still made the first three seasons of a British TV series, Within These Walls (1974-75), as the governor of a women's prison, which gave her her biggest national and international audience. Georgette Lizette Withers was born in Karachi, in pre-partition India, to a British naval captain who hated the thought of his daughter going on the stage and a Dutch mother who quietly encouraged her. The captain, who tried to run a Birmingham foundry after leaving the Royal Navy through poor health, was a high-handed man who clashed with fellow directors whom he openly despised, and lost his job. His daughter inherited his imperious inability to keep his opinions to himself, but in her case it was softened by her feminine humour. At 12, while a boarder at Fredville Park private school near Dover, she took dancing lessons, initially to straighten bandy legs. At the same age she made her first professional appearance, in the chorus of a children's show at the Victoria Palace, London. She persuaded her parents to send her to the Italia Conti school after she had worked her normal school day at the Convent of the Holy Family in Kensington. A fall during dancing class permanently weakened an arm and indicated a less arduous form of dancing. She did cabaret in Midnight Follies at the Mayfair hotel and the Kit Kat Club. At 16 she was the youngest member of the chorus of Nice Goings On and was soon appearing in other popular musicals. From 1935 onwards, she appeared in more than 60 television series and films, including some of the finest movies of the time: One of Our Aircraft is Missing (1942), They Came to a City (1944, from the JB Priestley novel); Miranda (1948), in which Glynis Johns played the mermaid and Withers the all-too-normal woman; and Jules Dassin's Night and the City (1950), with Richard Widmark. On the stage she was a beguiling Beatrice in Stratford-upon-Avon's production of Much Ado About Nothing (1958), and though her move to Australia often brought her under the umbrella of her husband's theatre management, she continued to play in often adventurous work in Britain, including Ionesco's Exit the King for the Edinburgh Festival and the Royal Court theatre. A production of Somerset Maugham's The Circle at the Chichester Festival theatre in 1976 was so successful that it went to the West End, Canada and on tour in Britain. Withers's Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest (1979) at Chichester managed to step out of the shadow of Edith Evans's high-camp shadow without losing impact. In the 1970s, when traditional leading ladies were less in demand, Withers's career became more variable. In 1971 she appeared in a film produced and directed by her husband, and featuring her daughter Joanna, called Nickel Queen, otherwise known as Ghost Town Millionairess, an examination of socialites and riff-raff in an Australian town dominated by nickel production. It was not well received, one comment being that it was an appalling bit of Australiana that made Barry Humphries's film The Adventures of Barry McKenzie (1972) look like a refreshing can of Foster's. Her appearance three years later as Faye Boswell in Within These Walls was more successful. Giving her formidability a greyer hue, she played a prison governor striving to be, as well as a disciplinarian, as sensitive as possible to the problems of the prisoners. The series led to further successes in the 1980s, when on television she appeared in distinguished productions including Northanger Abbey, the series based on the Anita Brookner novel Hotel du Lac and the Kingsley Amis novel Ending Up. She was still active in the 1990s, appearing in two highly praised films. Country Life (1994), directed by Michael Blakemore, was a version of Uncle Vanya set in Australia in 1919, showing what was on the collective mind of one part of the British Empire as Chekhov had shown what was on the minds of a fading Russian social class. She also appeared in Shine (1996), a film based on the career of David Helfgott, the pianist struggling against family pressures and mental instability, whose real-life interpretation of Rachmaninov's Third Piano Concerto was used in the film and became a controversial attraction in the concert hall. Withers played the writer Katharine Susannah Prichard, who helped Helfgott in his ambition to get away from his possessive father and to London for his higher musical training, but died before she could enjoy his success. Personally, despite the theatrical grand manner, she had common sense as well as taste and some skill at human relations. She was a great trouper of the old school who, coming back to England in 1967 to play the forceful mayoress in Shaw's Getting Married, found the country "changed and lacking in energy". The woman who was once called "the best bad girl in British films" was always prepared to help make up any deficiency in that respect. Her husband died last year, and she is survived by her children. • Googie (Georgette Lizette) Withers, actor, born 12 March 1917; died 15 July 2011

Mani Kaul

Mani Kaul's Duvidha (In Two Minds), 1975, with Raisa Padamsee and Ravi Menon.

 

Those who think of Indian cinema as the glitz of Bollywood on the one hand and the eloquent classicism of Satyajit Ray on the other miss a third important strand, manifested best by the radical director Mani Kaul, who has died from cancer aged 66. Kaul was a totally uncompromising film-maker who never sought popularity but pursued his own concerns, influenced by Ritwik Ghatak, his Bengali teacher and a great director in his own right, and by Robert Bresson and Andrei Tarkovsky among the foreign giants of the cinema. Watching Bresson's Pickpocket (1959), he once said, was one of the formative experiences of his life.
 

Mani Kaul in 1988.

  He was, however, entirely his own man, who understood Indian art, music, literature and theatre as much as film. He was a stern critic of orthodox storytelling and especially the modern gyrations of Bollywood. "If film shows you something you already know," he once said, "where will it lead us?"
His own version of true cinema led to Kaul being admired by the more adventurous Indian and European critics and often adored by the film students he taught, but largely ignored by the public. Recently, opportunities were few and far between. In his last year, when he was fighting illness, he had a chance to direct a film about the Italian director Roberto Rossellini's visit to India in the 1950s. The screenplay was to be based on Dileep Padgaonkar's book Under Her Spell, but Kaul was too ill to start the shoot.
He was born in Jodhpur, in Rajasthan, to a Kashmiri family. His uncle was the actor-director Mahesh Kaul. Mani studied at film school first as an actor and then as a director. His first feature, Uski Roti (Our Daily Bread, 1970), became one of the key films of the new Indian cinema of the time. It tells the story of a woman who waits for her truck-driver husband every day with his food. When he doesn't appear, she begins to doubt his loyalty and finds out that he has a mistress in another town. The film is not an orthodox narrative, dealing instead with silence, mood and imagery. It caused a huge stir, even being lambasted in the Indian parliament by a member who said it was so boring she would never forget it. Kaul took the intended insult as high praise.
His most famous film was Duvidha (In Two Minds, 1975), an adaptation of a folktale from Rajasthan that visually copied the Rajasthani miniature style of painting. The story is simple. A merchant's son returns to his village with his bride but has to go away on business. She is left alone and a "ghost", possibly the product of her fertile imagination, assumes the form of her husband. When the real husband returns, the ghost is tied up in a leather bag, much to the woman's distress.
The film, beautifully shot, was shown widely in European arthouses. But India had and has no such cinemas, one of the main reasons why the films of Kaul, his fellow radical Kumar Shahani and many other talented film-makers could never make a real mark. Though funded by the Indian government's Film Finance Corporation (FFC) and given the promise of a screening on national television, the films of the Indian new wave were essentially on a hiding to nothing. They could not be shown in the huge cinemas where Bollywood's successful epics attracted full houses, and were often considered abstruse and uncommercial.
Kaul's group of documentaries, very unlike those put out by the FFC with sonorous, often English voiceovers, were as distinctive as his features. The best known is probably Dhrupad (1982), in which he examines one of the purest forms of Indian classical music. The film argues that both folk and classical idioms were derived, over some 2,000 years, from tribal music and the celebration of nature and the cycles of life. In the last shot, which extends for some six minutes, the camera pans eloquently over the skyline of Mumbai, looking at the slums and skyscrapers, accompanied by the Dhrupad form, to bring pattern and meaning to the chaotic existence of the sprawling city.
Although Kaul's body of work was considerable – he made two films, Nazar and Idiot (both 1991), based on the work of Dostoevsky – his inability to finance the films he wanted led him to teaching film in India, Europe and America, and also to studying the Indian music he loved. He became an accomplished singer in the process.
Although he took the hard road as a film-maker, achieving, at least latterly, far less than he deserved, his influence was considerable. It was once said of Kaul that he refused to be a passive carrier of the national artistic tradition and, with equal vehemence, was unconcerned with importing into India the western avant-garde experiment. Now that he has died, as is often the case in India, his work may well be studied with added appreciation. But not by the famous Bollywood director who once met him and said afterwards: "I simply didn't know what to talk to him about."
Kaul is survived by two sons and two daughters.

The Brady Bunch creator Sherwood Schwartz dies aged 94

Sherwood Schwartz created shows The Brady Bunch and Gilligan’s Island. 

Sherwood Schwartz, the creator of television shows The Brady Bunch and Gilligan's Island, has died at the age of 94.
Sherwood, who was still producing television in his 90s, started out writing jokes for Bob Hope's radio show. Gilligan's Island was first broadcast by CBS in 1964, featuring seven travellers marooned on a deserted Pacific island.
Critics did not fall for its humour – but audiences loved its comedy. The show ran until 1967, and was later revived as a cartoon, several TV films and, in 2004, a reality series The Real Gilligan's Island, in which Schwartz was involved.
His nephew, Douglas Schwartz, said Schwartz had been working on a big-screen version of Gilligan's Island. "Sherwood is an American classic, creating Brady Bunch and Gilligan's Island, iconic shows that are still popular today," he said.
His uncle was a "second father," and a mentor who guided him through show business said Douglas Schwartz, who created Baywatch.
Schwartz launched The Brady Bunch – a story about a widow with three daughters who married a widower with three sons – in 1969. The show ran for five years and spawned a number of spin offs, as well as a hit 1995 film starring Shelley Long and Gary Cole.
"I think writers have become hypnotised by the number of jokes on the page at the expense of character," Schwartz said in an interview with the Associated Press in 2000.
"If a show is good, if it's written well, you should be able to erase the names of the characters saying the lines and still be able to know who said it. If you can't do that, the show will fail."
Schwartz grew up in Brooklyn, studied for a biological science degree, and landed a gig writing for Bob Hope when still in college via his brother, Al.

Hamid Karzai's brother assassinated in southern Afghanistan

Ahmed Wali Karzai, brother of Hamid Karzai, has been shot dead in Afghanistan.

Ahmed Wali Karzai, the powerful half-brother of the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, has been killed by one of his security guards inside his own house in Kandahar, according to the local chief of border police.
"Ahmed Wali Karzai was killed at about 11.30am. He was killed by his bodyguard inside his house," said General Abdul Razaq. Razaq said an investigation into the assassination was under way.
A tribal elder in Kandahar province also confirmed the death of Ahmed Wali Karzai.
Karzai was seen as a keystone of security in the south and his assassination will raise fears about a potential power and security vacuum in the insurgent-ridden region.
Haji Padsha, an elder of the Alikozai tribe, said Ahmed Wali Karzai had been shot on his return from a meeting with foreigners at the former house of Mullah Mohammed Omar, the fugitive leader of the Afghan Taliban.
Karzai had come under criticism in the past from local Afghans for renting the property to international officials. It was reported in the New York Times in 2009 that he received rent from the CIA and American special operations forces for allowing them to occupy a large compound outside the city that is the former home of Mullah Mohammed Omar. The Kandahar Strike Force, an militia run by the CIA, also shares the compound.
Ahmed Wali Karzai was a powerful figure in Afghan politics. He was said to be a key figure in the illegal Afghan opium trade and was also reported to be on the payroll of the CIA, both allegations he denied. He said international forces used these charges to deflect their own failings in Afghanistan.
Ahmed Wali Karzai was the head of the provincial council in Kandahar, Afghanistan's second biggest city, and had been the target of previous assassination attempts.
In 2009 four suicide bombers stormed the provincial council office in Kandahar, killing 13 people. Ahmed Wali Karzai claimed he was the target of the attack.
The government media and information centre in Kandahar sent out a message via Twitter confirming the death of Ahmed Wali Karzai.

Würzel

Few fans of the English heavy metal band Motörhead would recognise the name Michael Burston, but if presented with his stage name, Würzel, the majority would respond with unequivocal enthusiasm. The guitarist, who has died aged 61 after suffering from heart disease, came closer than any of the group's many members to being the face of the band, with the exception of Motörhead's founder, Ian "Lemmy" Kilmister. Much of Burston's enduring popularity came from his unaffected good nature, his reluctance to avoid playing the role of the rock star and his expert musicianship.
Fans also identified with Burston because of the unlikely manner of his emergence into the public eye. Before joining the band, he worked as a builder and played rock guitar at small club and pub gigs. Although he had developed a dexterous, blues-indebted style that impressed local audiences, his childhood dream of stardom was fading rapidly. "I knew deep down that the only thing I would really be happy doing was playing rock'n'roll," he recalled, "but I did think, 'I'm 30 years old – am I going to do anything? How am I going to carry on playing these pubs forever?'"
Burston read, in an interview with Lemmy, that the guitarist Brian Robertson had recently left Motörhead. As he remembered, "I wrote [Lemmy] a letter and sent a tape, and he phoned me up for an audition. He also said, 'We'll probably end up with an unknown guitarist', and there was no one in the country who was more unknown than I was."
Born in Cheltenham, Burston served in the army as a corporal before playing in a series of unsuccessful local rock bands. He earned the nickname "Wurzel" as a soldier because of his West Country background and dishevelled appearance, which led his fellow recruits to compare him with the TV character Worzel Gummidge. When Burston joined Motörhead in 1984, Lemmy – who described him as "nearly a basket case" in his 2002 autobiography – encouraged him to add an umlaut, in line with the spelling of the band's name. Würzel became the madcap court jester and counterfoil to Lemmy's sterner image.One of his first performances with the band was in an episode of the cult comedy The Young Ones, in which Motörhead performed their signature tune, Ace of Spades.

 
Würzel onstage in 2008. He continued to make guest appearances with Motörhead years after leaving the band. 
 
For the next decade, the British rock press regularly reported on Burston's antics, including a memorable encounter with the Rolling Stones at the 100 Club in London. "It was downstairs in the basement," remembered Lemmy. "Würzel ran down there, all excited, and, just as he comes to the bottom, [Stones bassist] Bill Wyman comes along, and he hits him full-on and lands him flat on his back ... Great start to the evening, you know? 'Hello, Bill, I've always been a fan of yours. Oh sorry, have I knocked you out?'"
Despite his comic image, Burston was a serious musician whose composing and performing skills benefited Motörhead greatly. He played on nine studio and live albums between 1984 and his departure in 1995, with the interplay of his guitar and that of his fellow six-stringer Phil Campbell lending the music great versatility and power. Motörhead's lineup, never a particularly stable entity, changed frequently during Burston's time in the band. He never really came to terms with living in America, where Motörhead had relocated, and finally left the band after the departure of his good friend, the drummer Phil Taylor.
Burston then performed as a guest on releases by metal bands such as Warhead, and on the 2001 album Artful Splodger by the punk group Splodgenessabounds. He had accumulated a loyal fanbase during his time in Motörhead and many expected him to commence a solo career, but apart from a 1998 album of ambient music, Chill Out Or Die, this failed to materialise.
His friendship with Lemmy remained strong, despite their earlier troubles, and he was often invited to perform guest spots at Motörhead's shows, including the Guilfest event in 2009. In recent years, Burston had formed a new band, Leader of Down, but none of their music has been released.
He is survived by his partner, Jem.

• Würzel (Michael Burston), guitar player, born 23 October 1949; died 9 July 2011

News of the World

News of the World

Front page of the final issue of the News of the World
Type	Weekly newspaper
Format	Tabloid
Owner	News Group Newspapers (News International)
Editor	Colin Myler
Founded	October 1, 1843
Ceased publication	July 10, 2011
Headquarters	Wapping, London
Circulation	2,606,397 (April 2011)
Sister newspapers	The Sun, The Times, The Sunday Times
Official website	www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/

The News of the World was a national tabloid newspaper published in the United Kingdom.  The newspaper was published by News Group Newspapers of News International, itself a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, and was the Sunday sister paper of The Sun. After 168 years in print, the last edition of the paper was published on 10 July 2011. The newspaper concentrated on celebrity-based scoops and populist news. The paper's fondness for sex scandals gained it the nicknames "News of the Screws" and "Screws of the World". It had a reputation for exposing national or local celebrities as drug users, sex freaks or criminals, setting up insiders and journalists in disguise to provide either video or photographic evidence, and phone hacking in ongoing police investigations. Sales averaged 2,812,005 copies per week in October 2010. On 16 September 2010, it was announced that the online website of the paper would be placed behind a paywall.
The editor Andy Coulson resigned on 26 January 2007 over the royal phone tapping scandal. He was succeeded by Colin Myler, a former editor of the Sunday Mirror who had latterly worked at the New York Post. Previous editors of the paper include Piers Morgan and Rebekah Wade, who replaced Phil Hall in 2000. On 7 July 2011, News International announced that the News Of The World will be permanently closed that week, the last issue being produced on Sunday 10 July 2011. The closure was in response to the developing phone hacking scandal, after a private investigator allegedly hacked into the phone of murdered British teenager Milly Dowler, possibly interfering with the police investigation and causing distress to the girl's parents. The allegations led to a public backlash and the loss of advertising revenue, as a number of companies advertising with the paper pulled out pending an investigation. The scandal deepened when the paper was alleged to have hacked into the phones of families of soldiers killed in action. As a result of the scandal, James Murdoch, Chairman and Chief Executive of News Corporation, Europe and Asia, announced on 7 July 2011 that the 10 July 2011 edition of the paper would be the last.
On 8 July 2011 former editor Andy Coulson was arrested by police investigating phone hacking and corruption allegations. On the same day ex-NoW royal editor Clive Goodman, jailed for phone hacking in 2007, was also arrested over similar corruption claims.

History

First issue of The News of the World.

1843 to 1968

The newspaper was first published as The News of the World on 1 October 1843, in London by John Browne Bell. Priced at just three pence (equal to £1.04 today), even before the repeal of the Stamp Act (1855) or paper duty (1861), it was the cheapest newspaper of its time and was aimed directly at the newly literate working classes. It quickly established itself as a purveyor of titillation, shock and criminal news. Much of the source material came from coverage of vice prosecutions, including transcripts of police descriptions of alleged brothels, streetwalkers, and "immoral" women.
Before long, the News of the World established itself as the most widely read Sunday paper, with initial sales of around 12,000 copies a week. Sales then suffered because the price was not cut following the abolition of newspaper taxes and the paper was soon no longer among the leading Sunday titles, selling around 30,000 by 1880, a greater number but a smaller proportion, as newspaper sales had grown hugely. The title was sold by the Bell family in 1891 to Lascelles Carr who owned the Welsh Western Mail. As editor, he installed his nephew Emsley Carr, who held the post for 50 years. But the real engine of the paper's now quick commercial success was George Riddell, who reorganised its national distribution using local agents. Matthew Engel in his book Tickle the Public: One Hundred Years of the Popular Press (Gollancz, 1996) says that the News of the World of the 1890s was "a very fine paper indeed". The paper was not without its detractors, though. As one writer later related:

Frederick Greenwood, editor of the Pall Mall Gazette, met in his club one day Lord Riddell, who died a few years ago, and in the course of conversation Riddell said to him, "You know, I own a paper." "Oh, do you?" said Greenwood, "what is it?" "It's called the News of the World — I'll send you a copy," replied Riddell, and in due course did so. Next time they met Riddell said, "Well Greenwood, what do you think of my paper?" "I looked at it," replied Greenwood, "and then I put it in the waste-paper basket. And then I thought, 'If I leave it there the cook may read it' — so I burned it!"

By 1912, the circulation was two million and around three million by the early 1920s. Sales reached four million by 1939. This success encouraged other similar newspapers, of which the Sunday People, the Daily Mail, the Daily Express and the Daily Mirror are still being published.
In 1928, the paper began printing in Manchester on the presses of the News Chronicle in Derby Street, moving in 1960 into Thomson House, Withy Grove (formerly known as Kemsley House) when the News Chronicle closed. The move to Thomson House led to the immediate closure of the Empire News, a paper printed there and mainly circulating in the North of England and Wales with a circulation of about 2.5 million. Officially the Empire News and News of the World merged but Thomson House was already printing the Sunday Pictorial (to become the Sunday Mirror) and Sunday Times and did not have any further capacity with the News of the World arriving.
The paper's motto was "All human life is there". The paper's name was linked with sports events as early as 1903 when the golfing tournament The News of the World Match Play Championship began (now under British PGA auspices). The News of the World Darts Championship existed from 1927 on a regional basis and became a national tournament from 1947 to 1990. There was also a News of the World Championship in snooker from 1950 to 1959 which eclipsed the official professionals' competition for a number of years. In athletics, the Emsley Carr Mile race was started in 1953 in memory of the former editor, and was still run in recent times. The paper's Football Annual was a long-standing publication, and a Household Guide and Almanac was also published at one time.
By 1950, the News of the World had become the biggest-selling newspaper in the world with a weekly sale of 8,441,000 and individual editions sold over 9 million copies.

Murdoch ownership

The newspaper passed into the hands of Rupert Murdoch's News Ltd. in 1969, snatching the paper from Robert Maxwell's Pergamon Press after an acrimonious year-long struggle. Maxwell's foreign origin, combined with his political opinions, provoked a hostile response to his bid from the Carrs and from the editor of the News of the World, Stafford Somerfield, who declared that the paper was—and should remain—as British as roast beef and Yorkshire pudding.
News Ltd. arranged to swap shares in some of its minor ventures with the Carrs and by December it controlled 40 percent of the NOTW stock. Maxwell had been supported by the Jackson family (25% shareholders), but Murdoch had gained the support of the Carr family (30%) and then-chairman William Carr.
In January 1969, Maxwell's bid was rejected at a shareholders' meeting where half of those present were company staff, temporarily given voting shares. It was Murdoch's first Fleet Street acquisition. Maxwell accused Murdoch of employing "the laws of the jungle" to acquire the paper and said he had "made a fair and bona fide offer... which has been frustrated and defeated after three months of [cynical] manoeuvring." Murdoch denied this, arguing the shareholders of the News of the World Group had "judged [his] record in Australia."
Illness removed Sir William Carr from the chairmanship in June 1969, and Murdoch succeeded him.
The newspaper has often had to defend itself from libel charges and complaints to the Press Complaints Commission as a result of certain news-gathering techniques, such as entrapment, and contentious campaigns. Some of the best-known cases have been the "Bob and Sue" case with reporter Neville Thurlbeck, and various cases involving journalist Mazher Mahmood.
From 1981 a magazine (Sunday) was included with the paper, and in 1984 the paper itself changed from broadsheet to tabloid format. The paper was printed in Hertfordshire, Liverpool, Dinnington near Sheffield, Portsmouth and Glasgow, with a separate edition produced in Belfast. It was also printed at a number of sites abroad including Dublin, Madrid, Brussels, Cyprus and Orlando in Florida, USA.
In 1985, the News of the World moved out of Thomson House when the building was bought by the tycoon Robert Maxwell (and renamed Maxwell House) and after a short spell on the Daily Express presses in Great Ancoats Street moved to a new plant at Knowsley on Merseyside.

End of publication

It was announced on 7 July 2011 that, after 168 years in print, the newspaper will print its final edition on 10 July 2011 following revelations of the ongoing phone hacking scandal, with the loss of 200 jobs. The paper has announced that all proceeds from the final edition will go to "good causes", and advertising space will be given to charities.
Downing Street said it had no role in the decision. James Murdoch has claimed that the company is fully co-operating with ongoing police investigations.
The 10 July 2011 edition of the News of the World carried its final headline, "Thank You and Goodbye", superimposed on top of a collage of past front pages. The back cover featured quotes from George Orwell in 1946, and a recent quote from a NotW reader, Jeanne Hobson. The final edition also included a 48-page pullout documenting the history of the paper. On 9 July 2011, after production of the final edition wrapped, editor Colin Myler led the staff out of the building, where he held a press conference thanking the staff and its readers, concluding, "In the best tradition, we are going to the pub."
There is speculation that News International will launch a Sunday edition of The Sun to replace the News of the World.

Folk singer Facundo Cabral killed in Guatemalan ambush

Argentinian singer's concert promoter was apparently the target of well-planned operation, say officials

Facundo Cabral performs in Quetzaltenango.
One of Latin America's most admired folk singers, Facundo Cabral, was killed in an ambush by gunmen in Guatemala on Saturday. The interior minister, Carlos Menocal, said the Argentinian singer and novelist was on his way to Guatemala's main airport when three carloads of gunmen surrounded Cabral's vehicle and opened fire. The minister said early investigations indicated the bullets were meant for the driver, Cabral's Nicaraguan concert promoter Henry Farinas, who was wounded. Cabral, 74, rose to fame in the early 1970s, one of a generation of singers who mixed political protest with literary lyrics and created deep bonds with an audience struggling through an era of revolution and repression across Latin America. The Guatemalan president, Álvaro Colom, said he had called his Argentinian counterpart, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, to tell her of the killing. "It seemed to hit her hard and she asked me to keep her informed about how the investigation is developing," he told Argentina's Radio 10. Colom later laid the blame at "people involved in organised crime. They are not street killers. It's a well-planned operation." Officials said they were not sure of the motive. Cabral's vehicle was trailed by another carrying four bodyguards, who opened fire and tried to chase the attackers, Menocal said. Officials later found one of the vehicles apparently used in the attack alongside a road towards El Salvador. Menocal said flak jackets, pistols and the magazine of a Kalashnikov assault rifle were found inside. Menocal said Cabral had initially planned to take a hotel shuttle to the airport, but accepted a ride from Farinas. Cabral became internationally known in 1970 through his song No soy de aqui ni alla – I'm not from here nor there – which was recorded hundreds of times in many languages. By the time Argentina fell under military rule in 1976, Cabral was identified as a protest singer, and he fled to Mexico where he kept recording, writing books and giving concerts. His concerts were a mix of philosophy and folklore, spoken-word poems and music reflecting his roots in the gaucho culture of rural Argentina. On stage, he celebrated the wisdom of Mahatma Gandhi and Mother Teresa, the humanism of Walt Whitman and the observations of Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges. "Facundo Cabral was our last troubadour. As much a philosopher-poet as a singer, he was a living testament to the search for what unites us in culture and society," said the Argentinian singer Isabel de Sebastian. "After his concerts, you'd feel that our life in common was richer, more mysterious, more profound." He lived mostly on the road, in hotels and with friends, telling interviewers that he owned no home. He was particularly proud that Unesco declared him to be an "international messenger of peace" in 1996. By the end, he often used a cane and had trouble with his vision, but refused to slow down. "I always ask God, 'Why have you given me so much?' You've given me misery, hunger, happiness, struggle, enlightenment ... I've seen everything. I know there's cancer, syphilis and springtime, and fried apple dumplings," Cabral said at 71, during an Associated Press interview in Miami. He never thought of retiring. "I can't stop, I wouldn't be able to," he said. "I breathe on the road ... on stage I'm 50 years younger, it pleases me to excite people with life." Cabral gave his last concert on Thursday in Quetzaltenango.