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The Nine Circles of Hell! – all the news that gives you fits in print – for Tuesday, July 5, 2011, including a bonus link on Greece-Israel relations, and one extra on each of the Pakistan and Murdoch allegation stories, are:

Horn of Africa in “pre-famine” due to war on terror, extreme weather

So what’s behind rumors Gaddafi is willing to step down?

French Gaza flotilla ship on way as others stopped in Greece

Obama administration makes another claim about Pakistan’s spy agency

Did Indian health minister call homosexuality a “disease”?

45% of Fukushima kids experience thyroid exposure to radiation

UN says it’ll cost us a couple trillion a year for forty years to go green

US companies doing well as economy staggers

Did Murdoch-owned newspaper interfere with missing girl investigation?

Horn of Africa in “pre-famine” due to war on terror, extreme weather
Guardian
(7/4/11)

Drought in east Africa the result of climate change and conflict

Past This is Hell! guest Felicity Lawrence writes …

Prolonged drought in the Horn of Africa is the immediate cause of the severe food crisis already affecting around 10 million people in parts of Kenya, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Somalia. Rains have failed over two seasons, with a strong La Niña event having a dramatic impact across the east coast of Africa. Now this year’s wet season has officially ended, there is little prospect of rain or relief before September.

How far the current conditions, classified by the UN as “pre-famine” – one step down from “catastrophe” – can be attributed to climate change is not clear. The last intergovernment panel on climate change report suggested that the Horn of Africa would get wetter with climate change, while more recent academic research has concluded that global warming will increase drought in the region. However, according to aid agencies, the weather has become more erratic and extreme in recent years. The same area suffered a drought in 2006 as well as flash floods.

The structural causes of the crisis go deeper. The Horn of Africa has long been one of the most conflict-riven areas of the world and a focus of geopolitical struggles from the days of the British empire, through the cold war, to today’s the “war on terror”.

Its strategic position at the opening to the Red Sea and its oil and mineral interests have attracted foreign powers for over 150 years, as (past This is Hell! guest) Alex de Waal, programme director at the Social Science Research Council, points out …

The World Food Programme has been feeding 4.3million people in Ethiopia, but had to reduce rations in March as funding ran out – in Kenya, it and the Kenyan government are giving food aid to 2.4 million people.

So what’s behind rumors Gaddafi is willing to step down?
Reuters
(7/5/11)

Libya denies Russia report Gaddafi seeking way out

Muammar Gaddafi is sounding out the possibility of handing over power, a Russian newspaper said on Tuesday, but the Libyan government denied it was in talks about the veteran leader stepping down.

Five months into a conflict that has embroiled NATO and become the bloodiest of the “Arab Spring” uprisings, there has been a flurry of reports about talks on Gaddafi ending his 41 years in power in exchange for security guarantees.

Russia’s respected Kommersant newspaper based its story on a high-level source in Moscow. But the report was denied in Tripoli, and Italy said it believed talk of a deal was a ruse by Gaddafi’s administration to sew confusion.

“Information about negotiations about Gaddafi stepping down or seeking a safe refuge inside or outside the country is simply untrue,” Libyan government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim told Reuters.

“Gaddafi is not negotiable, this is our position of principle, and the future of Libya will be decided by Libyans. Gaddafi is an historical symbol, and Libyans will die to defend him,” said Ibrahim …

Even with the talk of a peace deal, fighting between government forces and rebels continued, with rebels taking some the heaviest shelling of recent weeks.

A Reuters reporter in Misrata, 200 km (130 miles) east of Tripoli, said rebel positions in the Dafniya district on the city’s western outskirts came under heavy artillery fire on Tuesday.

The bodies of rebel fighters were brought in to Misrata’s al-Hekma hospital and a hospital source said the death toll from the shelling had risen to 11 with 42 fighters wounded.

Many of them were in critical condition, and some would need to have limbs amputated, staff at the hospital said.

That came a day after Gaddafi’s forces ambushed rebels south of Misrata, killing six and injuring 22, said Abdelsalam, a rebel spokesman in Misrata

The rebels said again they would not compromise on letting Gaddafi remain in the country as a free man …

Some analysts say that Gaddafi is starting to contemplate an exit plan as shortages of cash and fuel, the NATO bombing campaign and rebel military pressure shorten the odds on him being able to hold on to power.

But Western diplomats caution it is in Gaddafi’s interest to send out conflicting signals about possible deals, in the hope of sowing confusion among the rebels and the fragile Western alliance trying to push him out.

Kommersant newspaper reported Western powers, including France, were receptive to a deal with Gaddafi if he agrees to step down …

The report came a day after Russia hosted South African President Jacob Zuma — who has tried to broker a peace deal for Libya — and NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen for talks which focused on Libya.

After his return from Russia, Zuma’s office issued a statement saying he had asked NATO to persuade the rebel National Transitional Council to come to the negotiating table.

Russia accused France on Thursday of committing a “crude violation” of a U.N. weapons embargo by arming Libyan rebels, while Washington said it was acting legally, creating a new diplomatic dispute over the Western air war.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said supplying arms was a “crude violation” of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1970, which imposed a comprehensive arms embargo in February …

On Monday, the Libyan government had said it held talks in Italy, Norway and Egypt with senior figures in the opposition about finding a peaceful way out of the conflict.

But the Italian government denied any talks had taken place on its soil and expressed skepticism that Gaddafi’s administration was sincere about talks.

French Gaza flotilla ship on way as others stopped in Greece
Al Jazeera
(7/5/11)

French flotilla boat sets sail for Gaza

A French boat has set sail for Gaza from Corsica in the latest attempt by activists to deliver aid to the Palestinian territory, according to a journalist aboard the vessel.

The Dignite al Karama, which left the western Mediterranean island overnight is, thus far, the only boat in a flotilla organised by pro-Palestinian activists to successfully sail for Gaza, with most confined to ports in Greece.

The vessel’s passengers include Olivier Besancenot, head of the New Left Party in France, French politician and member of the European Parliament Nicole Kiil-Nilsen, and other well-known French personalities.

“We are about 20 minutes from international waters, and when we arrive there, the organisers on the boat will decide what their next move is,” Quentin Girard, a journalist with the French newspaper Liberation, told Al Jazeera from aboard the boat.

Girard said that the activists on the boat want to go to Gaza, but are waiting to decide if they will go once the boat arrives in international waters.

“I think they will go if the international committee for the flotilla encourages them to go,” Girard said.

Meanwhile, the captain of a US ship, who was arrested by Greek authorities, was released on Tuesday and all charges against him dropped, Al Jazeera’s Jamal Elshayyal reported from Athens.

“He has not been fined for anything, and he is a free man. This after Greek authorities arrested him or detained him late on Friday as he tried to bring his ship out and take the passengers to Gaza,” Elshayyal said.

The Audacity of Hope, also part of the so-called ‘Freedom Flotilla’, set sail on Friday from the Greek port of Perama and was towed back to shore by the Greek coast guard.

“Many viewed that the case today would be indicative of how likely it would be that this flotilla would actually set sail altogether,” Elshayyal said. “And it seems that there is reason for optimism on the part of the participants, since now their captain has been set free.”

Greece’s coast guard said on Saturday that the captain of The Audacity of Hope faced charges of trying to leave port without permission and of endangering the lives of the boat’s passengers.

The US boat is one of nine vessels carrying several hundred activists attempting to deliver aid to Gaza.

Some of the passengers on the US ship have remained on board in solidarity with the jailed captain.

On June 24, an anonymous complaint was filed against the ship’s “seaworthiness”. The Israel Law Centre (Shurat HaDin), took responsibility for the complaint in the Israeli media.

Alejandro Fierro, an activist aboard a Spanish boat, Guernica, that is currently in port in Crete, told Al Jazeera that activists from his boat remained fully committed to going to Gaza.

“We have a few people on the boat now, and they will remain on the boat, in Crete, until they can go to Gaza,” Fierro said, “Some people are going back to Spain, but we are going to continue to keep our boat in Crete, and keep people on the boat, until we can sail to Gaza.”

Some of the members of the Spanish boat are currently occupying the Spanish embassy in Athens, and have hung a Palestinian flag from the balcony of the embassy …

On Monday, a Canadian boat, the Tahrir, was forced to return to harbour in Crete after an attempt to reach international waters was thwarted by the coast guard, according to onboard activists.

The Tahrir sailed 15 minutes out of harbour before it was intercepted, activists told Al Jazeera.

The coast guard ship pursued the Tahrir, using water cannons and eventually boarding the ship.

Ehab Lotayef, spokesperson and coordinator for the Canadian boat, told Al Jazeera from Montreal that the two kayakers and a Canadian-Jewish activist, Sandra Rush, whose name was on the boat papers, were being held.

• The Christian Science Monitor offers an explanation for the new Greco-Israeli friendship in, “Israel’s new friend: Why Greece is thwarting Gaza flotilla.” The Monitor gives us a wonderful little chestnut. Greece asked Israel about ‘obtaining tear gas to rein in protesters at home’:
  The shift in Israeli-Greek relations began within months after an Israeli raid on the Mavi Marmara left nine Turkish activists dead, including one with dual American citizenship. While Turkey kept its ambassador to Israel at home in protest, Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou paid a visit to Israel – the first in 18 years. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quickly followed up with a visit to Greece.
  That marked something of a break with Mr. Papandreou’s father, Andreas, who as prime minister cultivated close ties with the Palestine Liberation Organization and its leader Yasser Arafat.
  “There’s been intensive investment in ties with Greece since Israeli Turkey ties declined – especially in military ties,’’ says Alon Liel, a former Israeli diplomat who was once posted Turkey.
  Mr. Liel said that Israel has offered Greece military supply deals with generous financing terms.
  “Greece is a very vulnerable country now, with needs…. They need everything at the moment.’’
  Still, Greece’s help no substitute for Turkey’s heft.
  The flotilla controversy comes as world attention is fixed on Athens, which last week passed austerity measures to comply with an international debt relief program to avoid defaulting on its sovereign debt.
  On Thursday, Mr. Netanyahu thanked European leaders for discouraging the flotilla, and mentioned by name Papandreou – who then asked for help in obtaining tear gas to rein in protesters at home.
  In the coming days, Netanyahu is scheduled to visit Balkan states, which Israel has also tried to court in the wake of the falling out with Turkey.
  The warmth in ties with Greece is one factor that has spurred recent talks between Israel and Turkey aimed at a reconciliation over the flotilla blow-up last year, analysts say.
  Two weeks before Greece’s flotilla clampdown, Turkish government officials also discouraged Turkish activists from participating. Turkish and Israeli negotiators are also reportedly finalizing the details of a United Nations report on the flotilla, which is expected to include words of regret – if not apology – and some sort of compensation for Turkey.
  Amid the Arab Spring, both Turkey and Israel have an interest in minimizing tensions in their relationship. With Syria in turmoil next door, Turkey has absorbed more than 12,000 refugees in recent weeks. And while Israel’s budding alliance with Greece is paying dividends this week, Athens’ weight is no substitute for Ankara’s regional heft.
  “Turkey was always perceived as a strategic ally, vital ally,” said a Western diplomat based in Jerusalem. “Greece certainly cannot replace Turkey. It’s bankrupt, with a smaller population, not as respected in Europe, its military is much smaller. But in the absence of Turkey, having warm relations with Greece is useful, and we are seeing that now.”

Obama administration makes another claim about Pakistan’s spy agency
The New York Times
(7/4/11)

Pakistan’s Spies Tied to Slaying of a Journalist

Obama administration officials believe that Pakistan’s powerful spy agency ordered the killing of a Pakistani journalist who had written scathing reports about the infiltration of militants in the country’s military, according to American officials.

New classified intelligence obtained before the May 29 disappearance of the journalist, (past This is Hell! guest) Saleem Shahzad, 40, from the capital, Islamabad, and after the discovery of his mortally wounded body, showed that senior officials of the spy agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, directed the attack on him in an effort to silence criticism, two senior administration officials said.

The intelligence, which several administration officials said they believed was reliable and conclusive, showed that the actions of the ISI, as it is known, were “barbaric and unacceptable,” one of the officials said. They would not disclose further details about the intelligence.

But the disclosure of the information in itself could further aggravate the badly fractured relationship between the United States and Pakistan, which worsened significantly with the American commando raid two months ago that killed Osama bin Laden in a Pakistan safehouse and deeply embarrassed the Pakistani government, military and intelligence hierarchy. Obama administration officials will deliberate in the coming days how to present the information about Mr. Shahzad to the Pakistani government, an administration official said.

The disclosure of the intelligence was made in answer to questions about the possibility of its existence, and was reluctantly confirmed by the two officials. “There is a lot of high-level concern about the murder; no one is too busy not to look at this,” said one.

A third senior American official said there was enough other intelligence and indicators immediately after Mr. Shahzad’s death for the Americans to conclude that the ISI had ordered him killed.

“Every indication is that this was a deliberate, targeted killing that was most likely meant to send shock waves through Pakistan’s journalist community and civil society,” said the official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the delicate nature of the information.

A spokesman for the Pakistan intelligence agency said in Islamabad on Monday night that “I am not commenting on this.” George Little, a spokesman for the Central Intelligence Agency, declined to comment.

In a statement the day after Mr. Shahzad’s waterlogged body was retrieved from a canal 60 miles from Islamabad, the ISI publicly denied accusations in the Pakistani news media that it had been responsible, calling them “totally unfounded.”

The ISI said the journalist’s death was “unfortunate and tragic,” and should not be “used to target and malign the country’s security agency.”

The killing of Mr. Shahzad, a contributor to the Web site Asia Times Online, aroused an immediate furor in the freewheeling news media in Pakistan.

Mr. Shahzad was the 37th journalist killed in Pakistan since the 9/11 attacks, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Pakistan’s civilian government, under pressure from the media, established a commission headed by a Supreme Court justice to investigate Mr. Shahzad’s death. The findings are scheduled to be released early next month …

Mr. Shahzad, who wrote articles over the last several years that illuminated the relationship between the militants and the military, was abducted from the capital three days after publication of his article that said Al Qaeda was responsible for an audacious 16-hour commando attack on Pakistan’s main naval base in Karachi on May 22.

The attack was a reprisal for the navy’s arresting up to 10 naval personnel who had belonged to a Qaeda cell, Mr. Shahzad said.

The article, published by Asia Times Online, detailed how the attackers were guided by maps and logistical information provided from personnel inside the base.

Particularly embarrassing for the military, Mr. Shahzad described negotiations before the raid between the navy and a Qaeda representative, Abdul Samad Mansoor. The navy refused to release the detainees, Mr. Shahzad wrote. The Pakistani military maintains that it does not negotiate with militants.

Mr. Shahzad prided himself on staying out of the mainstream press, preferring, he wrote in a preface to his recently published book, “Inside Al Qaeda and the Taliban,” to challenge the “conventional wisdom.”

He had submitted articles to Asia Times Online, which claims 150,000 readers, since 2001, when he was a reporter in Karachi uncovering corruption in the public utility, the editor of the Web site, Tony Allison, said.

He broke into the limelight two years ago with an interview with Ilyas Kashmiri, a highly trained Pakistani militant allied to Al Qaeda. Mr. Kashmiri is believed to have been killed in a drone attack in early June.

According to associates, Mr. Shahzad cultivated contacts inside the military and the intelligence agency and members of militant groups, some from his student days in Jamaat Islami, a religious political party.

Some of his stories were threaded with embellishments. Soon after the Bin Laden raid, Mr. Shahzad wrote that Gen. David H. Petraeus visited the chief of the Pakistani Army, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, and informed him, an account the White House strongly disputes. Pakistani journalists questioned the authenticity of some of Mr. Shahzad’s reporting: whether those doubts arose from professional jealousy or were well founded was never clear.

• We’ve never had Glenn Greenwald on This is Hell! despite numerous email exchanges (one or two is a number, right?) Hell, Glenn doesn’t even respond any more. It’s like he’s Matt Taibbi big. Anyway, Greenwald makes a real good point in his Salon.com column, “Major new leak investigation needed into Pakistan revelations.” That reminds us … time to send Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi annoying interview requests:
  As is well-documented, the Obama administration has been conducting an unprecedentedly aggressive war to ferret out and punish those who leak classified information without authorization. None of those cases, however, involves any documented or even potential harm to U.S. national security; instead, they resulted in the exposure of corruption, deceit, waste and illegality on the part of political officials, and were made by relatively mid-level or even low-level government functionaries.
  Here, by contrast, we have two high-placed Obama officials leaking classified information without authorization in a way that could truly damage U.S. relations with a vital country (and the NYT article notes that the leaks were made by “several” Obama officials generally). To underscore what a serious breach this is, the Pakistani government — in response to the unauthorized disclosures — publicly accused the Obama administration of being “part of” an “international conspiracy” to “malign” Pakistan’s security forces.
  If any leak warrants a criminal investigation, it’s one from high-level officials deliberately jeopardizing the nation’s relationship with such a strategically important ally. Will there be a Grand Jury convened to uncover the identity of the two high-level unauthorized leakers, or are such investigations only for low-level officials who disclose information to the citizenry that embarrasses the U.S. Government by exposing serious wrongdoing on the part of its officials? Is the Obama war on whistleblowers devoted, as his defenders insist, to safeguarding the sanctity of vital national security secrets, or is it a campaign of intimidation to deter the exposure of high-level wrongdoing? The administration’s response to truly serious leaks committed by its own high level officials provides the answer to those questions.

Did Indian health minister call homosexuality a “disease”?
BBC News
(7/5/11)

Row after India minister calls homosexuality a disease

India’s health minister has sparked a furious row over comments in which he described homosexuality as a “disease”.

Ghulam Nabi Azad told a conference on HIV/Aids that gay sex was “unnatural”. Later he said he had been misquoted.

One leading Aids campaigner said the minister was “living on another planet”.

Gay sex was decriminalised in the country in a landmark judgement in 2009 but anti-homosexual discrimination remains widespread.

Mr Azad told the meeting in Delhi on Monday that homosexuality “is a disease which has come from other countries”.

“Even though it is unnatural, it exists in our country and is now fast-spreading, making it tough to detect,” he said.

He said men having sex with other men “should not happen, but does”.

He also said that “though it is easy to find women sex workers and educate them on sex, it is a challenge to identify men having sex with men”…

In a news conference called on Tuesday evening, Mr Azad said his quotes had been taken out of context and that when he spoke of disease, he was talking about HIV/Aids and not homosexuality.

“Some people have played with the words. I have been quoted out of context,” he said.

“My reference was to HIV as a disease. As health minister, I know [male homosexual sex] is not a disease” …

The 2009 court ruling overturned a 148-year-old colonial law which described a same-sex relationship as an “unnatural offence”.

45% of Fukushima kids experience thyroid exposure to radiation
The Mainichi Daily News
(7/5/11)

45% of kids in Fukushima survey had thyroid exposure to radiation

Around 45 percent of children in Fukushima Prefecture surveyed by the local and central governments in late March experienced thyroid exposure to radiation, although in all cases in trace amounts that did not warrant further examination, officials of the Nuclear Safety Commission said Tuesday …

Separately, a survey of soil at four locations in the city of Fukushima on June 26 found that all samples were contaminated with radioactive cesium, measuring 16,000 to 46,000 becquerels per kilogram and exceeding the legal limit of 10,000 becquerels per kg, citizens groups involved said Tuesday.

The city, about 60 kilometers northwest of the crippled plant, does not fall within the 20-km no-entry zone or nearby evacuation areas.

One location registered as much as 931,000 becquerels per square meter, surpassing the 555,000 becquerels per sq meter limit for compulsory resettlement in the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident. Samples from the other three locations measured between 326,000 and 384,000 becquerels per sq meter …

Babies and young children are at highest risk of developing thyroid cancer after exposure to radioactive iodine released into the atmosphere in nuclear accidents. In the case of Chernobyl, most victims who developed the cancer in following years had been babies or young children living in the affected regions at the time of the accident.

UN says it’ll cost us a couple trillion a year for forty years to go green
Agence France Presse
(7/5/11)

World needs $1.9tn a year for green technology: UN

The world needs $1.9 trillion in green technology investments a year, with over half of that sum necessary for developing countries,” the UN said Tuesday.

“Over the next 40 years, $1.9 trillion (1.31 trillion euros) per year will be needed for incremental investments in green technologies,” the UN Economic and Social Affairs body said in its annual survey.

“At least one-half, or $1.1 trillion per year, of the required investments will need to be made in developing countries to meet their rapidly increasing food and energy demands through the application of green technologies,” it added.

At the moment, “external financing currently available for green technology investments in developing countries is far from sufficient to meet the challenge,” it assessed.

Over the last two years, climate change funds managed by World Bank disbursed about $20 billion, a fraction of the sum necessary for developing countries to build up clean energy technologies, sustainable farming techniques and technologies that help cut non-biodegradable waste production.

Even though states agreed during a 2009 Copenhagen summit to spend $30 billion over 2010 to 2012 and $100 billion a year by 2020 in transfers to developing countries, these sums have not been realised.

They would also fall short of the actual investment required.

“The survey estimates that developing countries will require a little over $1 trillion a year in incremental green investment,” said the report.

“While a large proportion of the incremental investment would ultimately be financed from developing countries’ public and private resources, international financing will be indispensable, particularly in the early years, in jump-starting green investment and financing the adoption of external technologies,” it added.

US companies doing well as economy staggers
The Wall Street Journal
(7/5/11)

Profits Thrive in Weak Recovery

(If you don’t get the full article by clicking on the clever headline we’ve written, just search the headline – in quotes – to find the complete text.)

While the U.S. economy staggers through one of its slowest recoveries since the Great Depression, American companies are poised to report strong earnings for the second quarter—exposing a dichotomy between corporate performance and the overall health of the economy.

Two years after the official end of the recession, a range of indicators show that the economic recovery has been the worst, or one of the worst, since the government began tracking such data after World War II: Unemployment is too high, bank lending necessary to spur spending is too low, home prices are depressed while household expectations for financial well-being are near record low levels. Many economists predict the sluggish rebound may continue for years.

Against this backdrop, many U.S. companies are expecting to report surprisingly robust profits when second-quarter earnings are announced later this month. Combined earnings of companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index are projected to rise 13.6% from a year ago for the second quarter, according to an analysis of Wall Street forecasts by Brown Brothers Harriman …

But some dark clouds are already on the horizon: Profit growth is expected to slow during the rest of 2011 as raw material prices rise, the housing market stays weak and worries about the economy persist. Retail and other consumer-oriented companies are likely to continue feeling the pinch as Americans pay down debt and remain reluctant to spend.

Did Murdoch-owned newspaper interfere with missing girl investigation?
Guardian
(7/4/11)

Missing Milly Dowler’s voicemail was hacked by News of the World

The News of the World illegally targeted the missing schoolgirl Milly Dowler and her family in March 2002, interfering with police inquiries into her disappearance, an investigation by the Guardian has established.

Scotland Yard is investigating the episode, which is likely to put new pressure on the then editor of the paper, Rebekah Brooks, now Rupert Murdoch’s chief executive in the UK; and the then deputy editor, Andy Coulson, who resigned in January as the prime minister’s media adviser.

The Dowlers’ family lawyer, Mark Lewis, this afternoon issued a statement describing the News of the World’s activities as “heinous” and “despicable”. He said this afternoon the Dowler family was now pursuing a damages claim against the News of the World.

Milly Dowler disappeared at the age of 13 on her way home in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, on 21 March 2002.

Detectives from Scotland Yard’s new inquiry into the phone hacking, Operation Weeting, are believed to have found evidence of the targeting of the Dowlers in a collection of 11,000 pages of notes kept by Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator jailed for phone hacking on behalf of the News of the World.

In the last four weeks the Met officers have approached Surrey police and taken formal statements from some of those involved in the original inquiry, who were concerned about how News of the World journalists intercepted – and deleted – the voicemail messages of Milly Dowler.

The messages were deleted by journalists in the first few days after Milly’s disappearance in order to free up space for more messages. As a result friends and relatives of Milly concluded wrongly that she might still be alive. Police feared evidence may have been destroyed.

The Guardian investigation has shown that, within a very short time of Milly vanishing, News of the World journalists reacted by engaging in what was standard practice in their newsroom: they hired private investigators to get them a story.

Their first step was simple, albeit illegal. Paperwork seen by the Guardian reveals that they paid a Hampshire private investigator, Steve Whittamore, to obtain home addresses and, where necessary, ex-directory phone numbers for any families called Dowler in the Walton area. The three addresses Whittamore found could be obtained lawfully on the electoral register. The two ex-directory numbers, however, were “blagged” illegally from British Telecom’s confidential records by one of Whittamore’s associates, John Gunning, who works from a base in Wiltshire. One of the ex-directory numbers was attributed by Whittamore to Milly’s family home.

Then, with the help of its own full-time private investigator, Glenn Mulcaire, the News of the World started illegally intercepting mobile phone messages. Scotland Yard is now investigating evidence that the paper hacked directly into the voicemail of the missing girl’s own phone. As her friends and parents called and left messages imploring Milly to get in touch with them, the News of the World was listening and recording their every private word.

But the journalists at the News of the World then encountered a problem. Milly’s voicemail box filled up and would accept no more messages. Apparently thirsty for more information from more voicemails, the paper intervened – and deleted the messages that had been left in the first few days after her disappearance. According to one source, this had a devastating effect: when her friends and family called again and discovered that her voicemail had been cleared, they concluded that this must have been done by Milly herself and, therefore, that she must still be alive. But she was not. The interference created false hope and extra agony for those who were misled by it.

The Dowler family then granted an exclusive interview to the News of the World in which they talked about their hope, quite unaware that it had been falsely kindled by the newspaper’s own intervention. Sally Dowler told the paper: “If Milly walked through the door, I don’t think we’d be able to speak. We’d just weep tears of joy and give her a great big hug.”

The deletion of the messages also caused difficulties for the police by confusing the picture when they had few leads to pursue. It also potentially destroyed valuable evidence.

According to one senior source familiar with the Surrey police investigation: “It can happen with abduction murders that the perpetrator will leave messages, asking the missing person to get in touch, as part of their efforts at concealment. We need those messages as evidence. Anybody who destroys that evidence is seriously interfering with the course of a police investigation.”

The paper made little effort to conceal the hacking from its readers. On 14 April 2002 it published a story about a woman allegedly pretending to be Milly Dowler who had applied for a job with a recruitment agency: “It is thought the hoaxer even gave the agency Milly’s real mobile number … the agency used the number to contact Milly when a job vacancy arose and left a message on her voicemail … it was on March 27, six days after Milly went missing, that the employment agency appears to have phoned her mobile.”

The newspaper also made no effort to conceal its activity from Surrey police. After it had hacked the message from the recruitment agency on Milly’s phone, the paper informed police about it.

It was Surrey detectives who established that the call was not intended for Milly Dowler. At the time, Surrey police suspected that phones belonging to detectives and to Milly’s parents also were being targeted.

One of those who was involved in the original inquiry said: “We’d arrange landline calls. We didn’t trust our mobiles.”

However, they took no action against the News of the World, partly because their main focus was to find the missing schoolgirl and partly because this was only one example of tabloid misbehaviour. As one source close to the inquiry put it: “There was a hell of a lot of dirty stuff going on.” Two earlier Yard inquiries had failed to investigate the relevant notes in Mulcaire’s logs …

The News of the World’s parent company News International, part of Murdoch’s media empire, said: “We have been co-operating fully with Operation Weeting since our voluntary disclosure in January restarted the investigation into illegal voicemail interception. This particular case is clearly a development of great concern and we will be conducting our own inquiry as a result. We will obviously co-operate fully with any police request on this should we be asked.”

• The Reuters story delivers exactly what you’d expect in, “Who’s Who in scandal at heart of Murdoch empire.”