Murdoch  Iraq

Iraq and the Rupert Murdoch connection: The media mogul's network of pro-war campaigners

July 2016 http://www.independent.co.uk

Back in 2003, the Murdoch-owned press beat the drum for the Iraq War, but few of the key players got a mention in the Chilcot report

The screaming headline on the front of today’s edition of The Sun added to the shredding of Tony Blair’s reputation. “Weapons of Mass Deception,” it blared. That was bit rich, considering the role of The Sun and the rest of the global media empire owned by Rupert Murdoch in the run-up to the Iraq war.

 

Paul Dacre, editor of the Daily Mail, summed it up in his evidence to the Leveson inquiry – “I’m not sure that the Blair government – or Tony Blair - would have been able to take the British people to war if it hadn’t been for the implacable support provided by the Murdoch papers. There’s no doubt that came from Mr Murdoch himself.”

 

On one side of the Atlantic, the TV channel Fox News, owned by Murdoch, shot up the ratings as they beat the drum for the Iraq war. By the end of March 2003, they had 5.6 million prime-time viewers, compared with CNN’s 4.4 million. On this side of the ocean, his four newspapers performed a similar function; and that’s not counting all the other titles in the News Corp empire, which rallied round with startling unanimity. One analyst estimated that 175 editors around the world all, happily, shared Murdoch’s enthusiasm for the invasion. 

 

Few of those who helped to spread this enthusiasm in the UK get a mention in the Chilcot report, yet their collective influence on events was huge. And many of the key players have continued, happily, to work for Murdoch. 

 

Rupert Murdoch

 

Tony Blair’s relations with Washington in the run up to war were not always easy. A faction in the White House that include the US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld did not care whether the British took part in the invasion of Iraq or not. Eight days before the invasion, in March 2003, Rumsfeld plunged Blair into despair by announcing at a press conference that the US might start the invasion without the British. That evening, the exhausted Prime Minister had an unexpected phone call, from Rupert Murdoch. The Chilcot report says that Downing Street has no record of this call, implying that the tycoon did not need to go through the Downing Street switchboard. According to the diary kept by Blair’s spin doctor, Alastair Campbell. Murdoch “was pressing on timings, saying how News International would support us etc. Both TB and I felt it was prompted by Washington, and another example of their over crude diplomacy”.

 

Rupert Murdoch has long-standing ties with the US Republican party, which is good for business and suits his right wing prejudice. Fourteen years ago, he was helping prepare public opinion on both sides of the Atlantic for the invasion of Iraq – and even expressed the view that one benefit of the invasion would be cheaper oil. Now, he is a keen backer of Donald Trump. In March, he married the former model, Jerry Hall, his fourth wife. He is 85, she is 60.

 

Rebekah Wade (now Brooks)

 

Appointed editor of The Sun in January 2003, the former editor of the News of the World seemed even keener on the “war on terror” than her spectacularly jingoistic predecessary, David Yelland. The Sun argued that “a swift and successful war that proves to the world just what a deadly menace Saddam has been for years will cement Blair's place in history”. When Liberal Democrats leader Charles Kennedy emerged as a leading opponent of the war, The Sun ran his picture on the front page with a snake in the background, and the caption: “Spot the difference. One is a spineless reptile. The other is a poisonous snake.” Other opponents of the invasion – Jacques Chirac, Robin Cook, Clare Short – were also savagely denounced.

 

Appointed chief executive of News International in 2009, Brooks resigned at the height of the phone-hacking scandal in 2011, but was acquitted in 2014 of any involvement in the scandal (though her ex-lover Andy Coulson was convicted). She was reappointed CEO last September.

 

Robert Thomson

 

The publicity shy Australian former Editor of The Times was said to be closer to Murdoch than any other man. In 2002 and 2003, crucially, he swung The Times behind the war.

 

According to the Chilcot report, John Williams, head of the FCO news department, referred approvingly to The Times’s coverage in a message to Jack Straw’s Private Office (11 March 2003), stating that “the process of preparing media and public opinion for possible action on Iraq is under way”. Thomson’s paper remained enthusiastic once the invasion was underway, and on 10 April 2003 its splash headline declared: “Victory in the 21-day war”

 

Thomson left The Times at the end of 2007 and moved to the US, where, after a spell as editor-in-chief of Dow Jones and managing editor of The Wall Street Journal (both Murdoch-owned), he became chief executive of News Corp in January 2013.

 

Michael Gove  [Gove, Michael]

 

In 2003, Gove was assistant editor of The Times, and so keen for military intervention that Tony Blair was almost a peacenik by comparison. In an article on 3 December 2002, he condemned “that unhappy section of the British Left whose antipathy to Western policy makes them Saddam’s useful idiots” and asked: “Why is it that so many of those whose political creed should be driven by a desire to emancipate those who are suffering choose to object to a course of action which would deliver millions from misery?” Now better known for his passionate, eloquent and unqualified support for another high-risk adventure, Brexit, Gove does not rate a mention in Chilcot. Earlier this week, however, the veteran Tory MP Ken Clarke was caught on camera giving his assessment of Michael Gove, who was then still in the running for the Tory leadership. “With Michael as prime minister we'd go to war with at least three countries at once,” he joked.

 

Sir John Scarlett

 

Few people come out of Chilcot so badly as the then chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, which was heavily criticised, notably for ignoring the possibility that Iraq might not have had any WMDs. “At no stage was the hypothesis that Iraq might not have chemical. Biological or nuclear weapons or programmes identified and examined by the JIC ... Iraq’s statements that it had no weapons or programmes were dismissed as further evidence of a strategy of denial.” Scarlett, who was also responsible for producing the “dodgy dossier”, was later knighted and made the head of MI6. Since leaving that position in 2009, he has found a number of lucrative roles – including one as a director of Times Newspaper Holdings. He has also written columns for The Times.

 

José María Aznar

 

The only European head of government to rival Tony Blair in his anxiety to keep in with Washington was the Spanish Prime Minister. According to the polls, 91 per cent of the Spanish public opposed the war, but Aznar used Spain’s seat on the UN Security Council to support the US. He lost office in an election in 2004. Spain is mentioned seven times in the Chilcot report, always as a firm ally of the US and UK. In 2006, Aznar joined the board of directors of News Corporation.

 

Michael Gove
Zionism  Israel control of UK government  Political Mafia

Wife: Vine, Sarah

[2016 July] Iraq and the Rupert Murdoch connection: The media mogul's network of pro-war campaigners   In 2003, Gove was assistant editor of The Times, and so keen for military intervention that Tony Blair was almost a peacenik by comparison. In an article on 3 December 2002, he condemned “that unhappy section of the British Left whose antipathy to Western policy makes them Saddam’s useful idiots” and asked: “Why is it that so many of those whose political creed should be driven by a desire to emancipate those who are suffering choose to object to a course of action which would deliver millions from misery?” Now better known for his passionate, eloquent and unqualified support for another high-risk adventure, Brexit, Gove does not rate a mention in Chilcot. Earlier this week, however, the veteran Tory MP Ken Clarke was caught on camera giving his assessment of Michael Gove, who was then still in the running for the Tory leadership. “With Michael as prime minister we'd go to war with at least three countries at once,” he joked.

[2016 June] Brexit- What is the Hidden Globalist Game? the Brexit movement is overwhelmingly dominated not just by common or garden variety Zionists, but by hard-core Zionist ultras of a particularly toxic variety. For example, Boris Johnson, the part-Jewish de facto frontman for Brexit, describes himself as "a passionate Zionist" and supports with an equal passion both the corrupt City of London and mass migration to Europe.  But compared to Michael Gove, the other leading Tory Brexit spokesman and senior British cabinet member, Boris is a veritable peacenik. Gove has never seen a Zio-war he didn't like. A former journalist with the Zionist London Times newspaper, he once penned the following excruciating line about war criminal Blair: "I can't help myself! I love Tony!".

[2016 March] The Weekly Sabbos Goy Award Goes to Michael Gove (must watch)  Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump should watch this video and learn from this spineless British gentleman so they can improve their act before the next AIPAC gathering.

[2012 May] The United Jewish Kingdom By Gilad Atzmon  it was the Jewish Lobby led by Lord Levy that financed the Labour government that took us into an illegal War in Iraq? The student may argue that some people mistakenly identify Jews (as a collective) with the horrendous non-ethical acts of just a few Jews, this is where prejudice, plays its role.  Bearing in mind it was also Jewish chronicle writers such as David Aaronovitch and Nick Cohen who were supporting this criminal act in the mainstream media, such an answer is coherent and consistent with the facts.  Another honest student may suggest that with 80% of the Tory MPs (including education minister Michael Gove ) being CFI  members there is a reason to believe that the British Government is under the control of a foreign power.


Zionism  Israel control of UK government

Murdoch articles
Murdoch

[2016 July] Iraq and the Rupert Murdoch connection: The media mogul's network of pro-war campaigners

[2014 vid] Outfoxed • Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism • FULL DOCUMENTARY FILM exposes Fox News

Poll Backfires on Murdoch’s Pro-Vaccine Agenda

Propaganda Fail! Another Murdoch Poll Backfires

Rupert Murdoch: The evil empire, British politics, phone hacking and a murdered teenager   Murdoch was a keen advocate of the Iraq invasion and famously stated that "The greatest thing to come out of this for the world economy...would be $20 a barrel for oil. That's bigger than any tax cut in any country."

[2012 Oct] Ben Fellows: ‘Murdoch Newspaper Does a ‘BBC’ to Protect Pedophiles and Child Abusers’

[2012 Oct] Former Child Actor is Let Down After Opening Up to Media: ‘I named names, but they’ve buried my story’

[2012 July] Murdoch and Vaccines: Exposure of Crimes Reveals a Much Larger Story    Whatever the answer to questions about the new DNA vaccines, it is obvious that Rupert Murdoch’s connections to the pharmaceutical industry and vaccines are very deep.  No investigation of Murdoch’s crimes should omit his efforts to use his media empire to prevent exposure of potential dangers from the MMR vaccines and possibly all the new DNA vaccines.

Rupert Murdoch’s Press Bullies Australian Parents – While Human Rights Vanish Under Reactionary Australian Government Vaccine Policies Australia’s Government under the premiership of Julia Gillard [Labor] has adopted an extremist approach to childhood vaccination.  Australian’s reactionary laws mean parents can be cut off from child care benefit payments if their children have not had all the mandated vaccines on time.

[2012 June] Campbell's diaries tell how Rupert Murdoch 'tried to rush Blair into Iraq War'

[2012 June] UK's Leveson Plays Cat and Mouse with Public Interest Over Murdoch MMR Investigation By John Stone  When it comes to the MMR affair the UK’s inquiry into the conduct of the press and Rupert Murdoch’s News International media empire seems to have been biased, have hidden historical connections and to be anything but transparent. Four family members of vaccine damaged children who submitted evidence to the Inquiry have found themselves arbitrarily rebuffed at News International’s behest.

Rebekah Brooks becomes principal “sacrificial scalp” but far worse is coming with Operation Motorman

[2011 Nov] James Murdoch and Hufschmid's Stalking of Bollyn by Christopher Bollyn

Rupert Murdoch: Key figure in 9/11 and the 9/11 wars? by Christopher Bollyn

[2011 Oct] Arnon Milchan - "Mr. Israel" and 9/11 by Christopher Bollyn

[2011] RUPERT MURDOCH - A PORTRAIT OF SATAN

[2011] Selling Wars--The Blood on Murdoch’s Hands

[2011 May] How the Murdoch press keeps Australia's dirty secret by John Pilger

[2011 Aug Phony Letterman Threat Tracked to Israeli SITE  a Fox News broadcast.  Fox says it is Palestinians celebrating the 9/11 attacks.  In fact, the video is older (1991), a simple holiday celebration unrelated to anything, supplied by Israeli intelligence just as the stories about Saddam and the poor babies in Kuwait, you remember, the ones taken from their incubators?
    This one, perhaps one of the most vicious propaganda attacks on the US ever made, pure racism, pure Islamophobia, came from Rupert Murdoch and the same folks who invented the threat against David Letterman.  This video makes up one small piece of evidence leading investigators to Tel Aviv when looking for the real perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks.  You see, this video was prepared and passed on to Fox News prior to 9/11.

  what needs to be spotlighted, I think, is the possible role that Murdoch’s London Times may have played in the professional evisceration of respected British gastroenterologist, Dr. Andrew Wakefield.....Rupert Murdoch has hefty financial interests and ties to the pharmaceutical industry, international banking connections, and stock market power brokers who hold the world’s financial interests in their ‘covetous’ hands.....Rupert Murdoch’s son, James—heir apparent, according to Newton, oversees GlaxoSmithKline, another major H1N1 vaccine maker. Many more of Rupert Murdoch’s business associates sit as members of the boards of directors of Merck & Company; Kolberg, Kravitz, Robertz & Company (KKR); and even one of KKR’s top echelon personnel was one of the founders of the Coalition to Advance Healthcare Reform (CAHR) now known as “ObamaCare.”

[2011 July] Murdoch and Vaccines - Exposure of Murdoch's Crimes Open Up A Much Larger Story By William Newton  Whatever the answer to questions about the new DNA vaccines, it is obvious that Rupert Murdoch's connections to the pharmaceutical industry and vaccines are very deep.  No investigation of Murdoch's crimes should omit his efforts to use his media empire to prevent exposure of potential dangers from the MMR vaccines and possibly all the new DNA vaccines.

[2011 Aug] A life unravelled … whistleblower who incurred wrath of the Murdoch empire

[2011 Aug] European Unrest: Entirely Staged Political Theatre By Gordon Duff

[2011 Aug] The Rothschild They Murdered by Henry Makow Ph.D.  "Murdoch sent a  hotline  fax  to  his  600-odd  editors and news managers around the world,  ordering  them  to  report  Amschel's death  as  a  heart  attack,  if  at all," said British broadcast reporter Ian Gooding.  "No  one  around  here  has ever seen such pressure to kill  a  front-page  story.   But  in  the  end,  the cover-up was complete."

[2011 July] An Elaborate Fraud, Part 1: In Which a Murdoch Reporter Deceives the Mother of a Severely Autistic Child  & part 2: In Which a Murdoch Newspaper’s Deceptive Tactics Infect the British Medical Journal

[vid] Bill O'Reilly: Murdoch creation. Attacking 9/11 victim's son (psychopath)

[vid] Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism  "The revolutionary thing that Fox has done is that it's eliminated journalism from the TV news. There is no journalism at the Fox News Channel." - Bob McChensey

[vid] A Complete 911 Harley Shirt Guy Scene -911 Actor Mark Humphrey Is -FOX Freelancer- -Mark Walsh  Canadian-born actor Mark Humphrey plays the infamous Harley Shirt Guy fake witness who first mouths what will become the official story script. Everybody knows it's a common practice to allow the character to share the same first name as the actor playing the role. It reduces potential slip-ups. Torontonian accent. Love it.

[2011 July] UK media ignore Murdoch role in Iraq war

[2011 July] Murdoch’s Deeply Hidden Jewish Roots — A Biography By Christopher Bollyn

[2011 July] Murdoch and Vaccines: Exposure of Crimes Reveals a Much Larger Story By William Newton

[2011 July] A Word Or Two on What Isn’t Being Said By Gordon Duff

[2010 Oct] Eric Hufschmid and Rupert Murdoch by Christopher Bollyn

Sunday Times’ Boss, Glaxo, & US MMR Vaccine Court Cases

[2010 Dec] Jeremy Hunt's links with Rupert Murdoch empire under scrutiny

[2010 March] Brian Deer Hired to "Find Something Big" on MMR By John Stone

[2003 Oct 3] Did Rupert Murdoch Have Prior Knowledge of 9-11? by Christopher Bollyn 
[2003 Sept 25] Fox News Tries to Smear Bollyn by Christopher Bollyn 

[2002] Rupert Murdoch's Jewish origins: a matter of controversy  And that, as I am sure you know, makes him a Jew according to the law of the Talmud, and indeed according to the present laws of Israel.

Brit milah
Circumcision (male)  Judaism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brit_milah

See: Khitan (Islamic circumcision)

[2015 June] New York to reconsider rules on ‘oral suction’ circumcision Since 2000, New York’s health department has linked oral suction circumcision to 17 cases of infant herpes, including two deaths.

How hormones can be manipulated through circumcision and meat eating

[2012 March] Investigation to open into death of two-week-old Brooklyn infant following circumcision

[2012 March] WHY RABBIS MUST SUCK THE BLOOD OF A CIRCUMCISED INFANT

[1999] Jewish circumcision: an alternative perspective

Quotes
The bris is nothing more than pedophilia masquerading as a religious ritual. If a gentile engaged in the conduct of the Jewish mohel of sucking on an infants penis he would be prosecuted under the New York Penal Code § 130.50 for engaging in a criminal sexual act in the first degree. ...Anyone convicted of criminal sexual conduct in the first degree is subjected to the potential punishment of up to 25 years in prison and is put on the rolls as a registered sex offender. There are similar laws in every state against fellatio on infants. The laws are simply not enforced against Jewish mohels. The conduct of the mohel in sucking on the penis of an infant during circumcision is just one example of the permissive attitude toward pedophilia within orthodox Jewry. [2011] Solving the Mystery of Babylon the Great by Edward Hendrie

"The foreskin is disgusting." Talmud, Nearim 31 B

Throughout your generations every male among you shall be circumcised when he is eight days old -- Genesis 17:12

During the first eight days only three lower Chakras are developed. All the higher Chakras remain undeveloped in the body of a circumcised Jew. 
In other words - a circumcised Jew is only half a person - with mutilated soul and brain.
Jewish circumcision ritual produces real bio-robots that cannot tell the difference between good and evil, and who cannot be reprogrammed.
We have all seen that religious Jews wear a skull cap. The meaning of it is very profound - that skull cap covers the highest, seventh human chakra - Sahasrara, which is located at the top of the head.
The Jews close it, thus cutting themselves off the Cosmos. How hormones can be manipulated through circumcision and meat eating

"Every male among you shall be circumcised on the eighth day, both those born in your house and any not of your blood but bought with your money." Genesis 17

'CIRCUMCISION.  Allah, we are told, created man in his own image. He therefore must be responsible for the creation of the foreskin. A Muslim woman claimed that there are two reasons why Islam demands circumcision : 1 ) Health; the foreskin is dirty and 2 ) the koran says that circumcision is mandatory. If the foreskin is “dirty”, it means that its creator made a mistake. But Allah cannot make mistakes, so the foreskin cannot be dirty, so there can be no possible need to remove it. Circumcision is a blatant insult to God, implying that he is a bungling designer and that he is imperfect, hence NOT God. It is a Satanic suggestion. Historically, the Koran was entangled in a “Satanic Verses” scandal. By insulting the work of God, it proves that it is indeed the work of the Devil. Circumcision is how the Devil gets HIS brand on his Devil-worshipping followers. It’s the sign that they reject and scorn God’s work, his grand and perfect design of the human body. It’s an obscene mockery of Allah. Circumcision is the ultimate Satanic ritual, and stands as a symbolic representation of the horrific, evil episode when the Devil ordered Abraham to perform human sacrifice on his son, and Abraham agreed. Islam is PURE SATANISM, as of course is Judaism, which also demands circumcision.'  ~ Mike Hockney. (Hyperreason)

 

Nutrition

'I'm alive four years after they told me there was no hope thanks to taking vitamin C - now my goal is to live until I hit 100'

When Co Antrim sports physiotherapist Bob Granville was told his heart disease was incurable he started to take high doses of vitamin C. Here he explains to Una Brankin how the controversial therapy has given him a new lease of life.

PUBLISHED26/04/2016


Preparing potion: Bob making his vitamin C drink

At the height of his prominent career as a sports physiotherapist, Bob Granville could run 10 miles, four days a week. Despite his life-long fitness and good diet, the father-of-four from Co Antrim fell prey to coronary disease, with a very poor prognosis.

After a heart attack at 67, he underwent triple by-pass surgery. Less than seven years later, his chest pain was so severe he could barely walk.

"The doctor told me there was nothing he could do for me; the coronary disease was too far gone," Bob says. "I went from getting severe angina attacks once every six weeks, to once a month, to once a fortnight, to six or seven attacks a night.

"But I'm not one for taking things lying down, so I went for a second and third opinion and it cost me between £300 and £400. A surgeon told me he couldn't operate but recommended a trouble-shooter cardiologist for rejects like me. He said if I'd no success with him, not to be wasting my money any further and just to accept my condition was incurable." Now 78, Bob has beaten the odds - thanks, he claims to high-dose vitamin C. Fresh-faced and clear-eyed, he comes to meet me in the Europa after catching the bus from his daughter Lynn's house in Glengormley, where he minds her dogs while she's out working as a health psychologist.

He has four grandchildren and one great grandchild, but lost his treasured wife, Dorothy, to lymphatic cancer over 20 years ago.

"I'm not afraid of death but I'd like to see the grandchildren grow up - you relive your life through them, don't you?" he says.

"When I had the heart attack about 11 years ago, the doctor thought it was just very painful indigestion and sent me home, but I had a pain in my left arm, so Lynn brought me back and insisted on a blood test.

"I had to have a triple by-pass and was off my feet for six months. They had to fit another stent a while after the operation and I was back in hospital on a cocktail of drugs.

"I had terrible angina pains but after about six months, I was able to get up and out a bit, and exercise more. I was doing all right until the pains came back, four years ago."

For 50 years, Bob ran a successful physiotherapy and acupuncture clinic in Glengormley and worked as the sports physio for several GAA clubs, including Tyrone in the days before Mickey Harte's tenure.

He retired when he began to find it difficult to run up and down the football pitch, but nothing was to prepare him, in his retirement, for those dreaded five words from the doctor: 'There's nothing we can do'.

"Anyway, I went to see this trouble-shooter cardiologist and he told me it was too difficult to put in another stent. I was at a complete loss but I went online and did a load of research, and discovered the power of high-dose vitamin C," he says.

"I ordered a book by the guy who did all the research into it, Linus Pauling, and he recommended taking 12,000 milligrams of vitamin C a day. Now, the so-called official recommended dose is 80mg for a female and 90mg for a male and when told my GP about taking the high dose, she said I was nuts.

"She said it would be no use and it could kill me. I said 'I'll be dead in two or three weeks anyway; my heart can't take this constant pain. So, I went on ahead and bought a kilo bag and some baking soda - you add that to the high-strength vitamin C and take it with water three times a day."

To Bob's astonishment, the effect was almost immediate.

"Within three days, the pain had entirely gone. I could walk almost a mile. Three months later, I walked 10 miles on Hadrian's Wall with my daughter - I was the slowest there but I did it." When Bob went back to see his GP, she suggested that his recovery was possibly due to remission.

"But here I am four years later with no pain. I'm alive four years after they told me there was no hope. I know I still have this serious condition but I feel reasonably well.

"I'm a trained physiotherapist with a good knowledge and understanding of nutrition, and I can have a scientific view of these things. I've studied the orthomolecular science behind high-dose Vitamin C and I know it works," he claims.

"You see, we may think we have a balanced diet but none of us are getting enough Vitamin C to ward off free radicals and cancer cells. It's not about living forever, and you have to die of something - it's about staying healthy for as long as possible. Linus Pauling's book saved my life."

One of the most famous forerunners of high dose vitamin C treatment for illness - from the cold to cancer - Linus Carl Pauling, who passed away in 1994, was a physical chemist and peace activist who won two Nobel Prize awards; one in chemistry in 1954, followed by a Nobel Peace Prize in 1962.

The New Scientist magazine ranked him as one of the 20 greatest scientists to ever live. Despite being a well-respected scientist, his views on vitamin C were all firmly rebuffed by the medical community. Many felt Pauling was too far out of his field of expertise with his research into nutrition, and he was largely ignored by mainstream medicine and nutritional science

"These big pharmaceutical companies don't want you to know of the benefits of high-dose vitamin C and they denounce people as quacks if they promote it," says Bob.

"They don't want sales of their drugs and chemo affected, but they protest too much. If they weren't worried about it, they'd ignore it.

"I know that vitamin C could have saved my wife, in conjunction with her chemo.

"I tried desperately to save her but it was too late.

"I didn't have the knowledge then, that I have now, and all I want to do is share it, to help people but don't get me wrong - I take the tablets the doctor gives me, too. It's belt and braces; you take all when you're at risk of dying."

Bob believes his daily vitamin C dosage - to which he adds lycopene, B Complex and vitamins A, B12 and E - has helped him ward off colds and kept arthritic pain in his neck at bay. He avoids sugar - "a killer" - and caffeine, and his only complaint these days is lateral cartilage problem in one of his knees, which has slowed him down at his Newtownabbey Walking To Health Club.

"I've a bit of pain standing up but I'm all right once I get going. I used to be walking at the front, as the leader; now I'm at the back, but I'm trying to get my fitness back again," he concludes.

"I have palpitations from time to time; had them from I was 20 years of age. But it's not the serious type; just an irregular heartbeat.

"I'm very lucky to be sitting here talking to you today. Now my goal is to live to be 100."

Antioxidants help to protect health of heart

Vitamin C is one of the most well-established traditional antioxidants and its potent health benefits have been demonstrated over time, especially for the prevention and treatment of infectious diseases.

While most animals have the ability to produce vitamin C internally, three species cannot. Guinea pigs, primates, and humans must obtain their vitamin C from their diet. It plays a role in the body's production of collagen, carnitine (which helps body turn fat into energy), and catecholamines (hormones made by the adrenal glands). Vitamin C is also used by the body for wound healing, repairing, and maintaining the health of bones and teeth, and plays a role in helping the body absorb iron.

A powerful antioxidant, vitamin C also helps prevent damage caused by free radicals. Over time, free radical damage may accelerate ageing and contribute to the development of heart disease and other health conditions.

It's through this antioxidant effect that it's thought vitamin C may play a role in protecting heart health.

What the medical professional says

Dr John O'Kelly, chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners in Northern Ireland says: "As GPs we understand why people often look to alternative therapies, especially when they feel that traditional medicine has not improved their condition or is not likely to change the outlook.

All treatments have a placebo effect which means that there can be a small improvement no matter what it is - all medical trials have to show improvement beyond this. Some alternative therapies can be potentially harmful as they are unregulated and can interfere with prescribed medication.

If people are planning to try alternative therapies, they should check with their own family doctor/practice nurse and be guided by them."

Top chemist leading advocate

The Nobel Prize winning physical chemist Linus Pauling detailed his discoveries on the power of Vitamin C in a series of books, starting with Vitamin C and the Common Cold in 1970, followed by Vitamin C, the Common Cold and the Flu (1976), Vitamin C and Cancer (1979), and How to Feel Better and Live Longer (1986).

While the recommended dailyallowance (RDA) for Vitamin C had been established at 40 to 60mg per day — an amount more than sufficient to prevent scurvy — Pauling advocated amounts of 1,000mg or even higher.

Pauling himself is said to have taken 12,000mg per day. He noted that veterinarians recommended far higher doses of Vitamin C for primates than what was recommended for people and determined that humans likely need a minimum of six grams per day — 200 times more than the RDA.

Pauling died of prostate cancer in 1994 at the age of 93. Since then, there’s been an explosion of research into the properties of Vitamin C. Much of the recent scientific literature published on Vitamin C supports his claims.

The Linus Pauling Institute at the University of Oregon has continued his research into how vitamins and other essential micronutrients play a significant role in enhancing human health and preventing chronic diseases — not just deficiencydiseases.

Further information from: http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/about-linus-pauling-institute

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/life/features/im-alive-four-years-after-they-told-me-there-was-no-hope-thanks-to-taking-vitamin-c-now-my-goal-is-to-live-until-i-hit-100-34658441.html

ot report, yet their collective influence on events was huge. And many of the key players have continued, happily, to work for Murdoch. 

 

Rupert Murdoch

 

Tony Blair’s relations with Washington in the run up to war were not always easy. A faction in the White House that include the US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld did not care whether the British took part in the invasion of Iraq or not. Eight days before the invasion, in March 2003, Rumsfeld plunged Blair into despair by announcing at a press conference that the US might start the invasion without the British. That evening, the exhausted Prime Minister had an unexpected phone call, from Rupert Murdoch. The Chilcot report says that Downing Street has no record of this call, implying that the tycoon did not need to go through the Downing Street switchboard. According to the diary kept by Blair’s spin doctor, Alastair Campbell. Murdoch “was pressing on timings, saying how News International would support us etc. Both TB and I felt it was prompted by Washington, and another example of their over crude diplomacy”.

 

Rupert Murdoch has long-standing ties with the US Republican party, which is good for business and suits his right wing prejudice. Fourteen years ago, he was helping prepare public opinion on both sides of the Atlantic for the invasion of Iraq – and even expressed the view that one benefit of the invasion would be cheaper oil. Now, he is a keen backer of Donald Trump. In March, he married the former model, Jerry Hall, his fourth wife. He is 85, she is 60.

 

Rebekah Wade (now Brooks)

 

Appointed editor of The Sun in January 2003, the former editor of the News of the World seemed even keener on the “war on terror” than her spectacularly jingoistic predecessary, David Yelland. The Sun argued that “a swift and successful war that proves to the world just what a deadly menace Saddam has been for years will cement Blair's place in history”. When Liberal Democrats leader Charles Kennedy emerged as a leading opponent of the war, The Sun ran his picture on the front page with a snake in the background, and the caption: “Spot the difference. One is a spineless reptile. The other is a poisonous snake.” Other opponents of the invasion – Jacques Chirac, Robin Cook, Clare Short – were also savagely denounced.

 

Appointed chief executive of News International in 2009, Brooks resigned at the height of the phone-hacking scandal in 2011, but was acquitted in 2014 of any involvement in the scandal (though her ex-lover Andy Coulson was convicted). She was reappointed CEO last September.

 

Robert Thomson

 

The publicity shy Australian former Editor of The Times was said to be closer to Murdoch than any other man. In 2002 and 2003, crucially, he swung The Times behind the war.

 

According to the Chilcot report, John Williams, head of the FCO news department, referred approvingly to The Times’s coverage in a message to Jack Straw’s Private Office (11 March 2003), stating that “the process of preparing media and public opinion for possible action on Iraq is under way”. Thomson’s paper remained enthusiastic once the invasion was underway, and on 10 April 2003 its splash headline declared: “Victory in the 21-day war”

 

Thomson left The Times at the end of 2007 and moved to the US, where, after a spell as editor-in-chief of Dow Jones and managing editor of The Wall Street Journal (both Murdoch-owned), he became chief executive of News Corp in January 2013.

 

Michael Gove  [Gove, Michael]

 

In 2003, Gove was assistant editor of The Times, and so keen for military intervention that Tony Blair was almost a peacenik by comparison. In an article on 3 December 2002, he condemned “that unhappy section of the British Left whose antipathy to Western policy makes them Saddam’s useful idiots” and asked: “Why is it that so many of those whose political creed should be driven by a desire to emancipate those who are suffering choose to object to a course of action which would deliver millions from misery?” Now better known for his passionate, eloquent and unqualified support for another high-risk adventure, Brexit, Gove does not rate a mention in Chilcot. Earlier this week, however, the veteran Tory MP Ken Clarke was caught on camera giving his assessment of Michael Gove, who was then still in the running for the Tory leadership. “With Michael as prime minister we'd go to war with at least three countries at once,” he joked.

 

Sir John Scarlett

 

Few people come out of Chilcot so badly as the then chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, which was heavily criticised, notably for ignoring the possibility that Iraq might not have had any WMDs. “At no stage was the hypothesis that Iraq might not have chemical. Biological or nuclear weapons or programmes identified and examined by the JIC ... Iraq’s statements that it had no weapons or programmes were dismissed as further evidence of a strategy of denial.” Scarlett, who was also responsible for producing the “dodgy dossier”, was later knighted and made the head of MI6. Since leaving that position in 2009, he has found a number of lucrative roles – including one as a director of Times Newspaper Holdings. He has also written columns for The Times.

 

José María Aznar

 

The only European head of government to rival Tony Blair in his anxiety to keep in with Washington was the Spanish Prime Minister. According to the polls, 91 per cent of the Spanish public opposed the war, but Aznar used Spain’s seat on the UN Security Council to support the US. He lost office in an election in 2004. Spain is mentioned seven times in the Chilcot report, always as a firm ally of the US and UK. In 2006, Aznar joined the board of directors of News Corporation.