& çâÌæÚUæð´ ·¤è ¥ôÚU Îð¹Ùæ ÁæÚUè ÚU¹ð´ ¥ÍæüÌ ¥ÂÙð ÜÿØ ÂÚU ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´Ð ãæÚU Ù ×æÙð´, €UØô´ç·¤ ·¤æ× ·¤ÚUÙð âð ¥æÂ·¤ô ©gðàØ ·¤è Âýæç# ãôÌè ãñ ¥õÚU ÁèßÙ ·¤æ ¹æÜèÂÙ ÎêÚU ãôÌæ ãñÐ ÖÜð ãè ÁèßÙ ×ð´ ç·¤ÌÙè Öè ·¤çÆÙæ§ü €UØô´ Ù ¥æ°, çÁ™ææâæ ¥õÚU ©ˆâæã ÕÙæ° ÚU¹ð´Ð ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´, ÜÿØ ã×ðàææ ¥æÂ·Ô¤ Âæâ ãôÌð ãñ´ çÁ‹ãð´ ÂæÙð ·Ô¤ çÜ° ÂýØæâ ¥æÂ ·¤Öè Öè àæéM¤ ·¤ÚU â·¤Ìð ãñ´Ð

Under-fire BBC holds crisis talks

Blair basks in victory, repeats call for apology

AGENCIES, London
The BBC, lambasted in the Hutton report over its Iraq reporting, faced the worst crisis in its 82-year history yesterday, with its governor gone and more senior heads on the execution block.
Governors of the British broadcaster, lauded around the world for its gold-standard reporting, held an emergency meeting to review the damage to its reputation.
The mood at BBC headquarters was a mixture of gloom and defiance after Lord Hutton's damning critique of its conduct in the affair of David Kelly, an expert on Iraqi weapons who killed himself last July.
Chairman Gavyn Davies resigned on Wednesday evening, the first time a top BBC executive has fallen on his sword in a long history of disputes with the government. Greg Dyke, the BBC director general, followed suit yesterday.
But more resignations could be on the way, including reporter Andrew Gilligan, whose report on allegedly "sexed up" evidence of Iraqi weapons triggered the dispute with Tony Blair's government last May.
Kelly killed himself after being unmasked as Gilligan's source.
At stake is the BBC's reputation for objective investigative journalism and its history of selfgovernance, Reuters says.
The publicly funded broadcaster, which has always fiercely defended its independence from government, is in danger of falling under the oversight of communications regulator Ofcom.
The BBC's charter -- the rules governing its operation -- expires in 2006 and is currently being studied by parliament.
"Lord Hutton's conclusions will be taken into account as part of the charter review," said Tessa Jowell, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport.
BBC employees were seething, as the governors, led by vice chairman Richard Ryder, held their crisis
meeting.
"What really pisses us off is that one journalist works on a story for three weeks, gets some of it wrong, and is slated for it," said one source at the Today programme, where Gilligan's contentious report aired.
"The intelligence services, though, who maybe get a billion pounds of funding every year, come up with a dossier that is used as a justification for going to war, which frankly could have been written by an eight-year-old, and get not a word of criticism."
Defenders of the BBC accused Hutton of ignoring the thrust of Gilligan's story, which they said was largely correct: that Blair's government oversold the case for war in Iraq in its September 2002 dossier.
The Independent newspaper ran a nearly blank front page with one word in bold print: "Whitewash?" BLAIR IN CLEAR
A relieved Blair basked in victory and was set to make a major domestic policy speech after his surprising, near-total vindication.
Hutton absolved the prime minister and his government of any serious wrongdoing in the death of David Kelly and said a BBC allegation the government deliberately doctored intelligence to justify war in Iraq was unfounded and wrong.
Many were amazed at the extent to which Blair escaped censure from Hutton in a report that had the potential to sink him had he been directly blamed for outing Kelly.
One newspaper splashed a picture of a grinning Blair on its front page with a halo over him and the headline "Saint Tony".
Blair yesterday repeated his demand for a full BBC apology, as he simultaneously tried to move nation's attention on to domestic public services in the wake of the Hutton report.
Following a cabinet discussion of the report this morning, the prime minister's official spokesman told the lobby: "We still want an apology.