Murdoch facing showdown with Sun employees

Rupert Murdoch will face hostile and angry employees when he arrives in Britain this week, seeking to face down a growing rebellion within his newspaper business and end the talk that his flagship Sun could close following a string of arrests.

Those close to the media mogul expect the 80-year-old to show far more composure and calculation when he addresses journalists on a hostile newsroom floor, compared with his conduct last July, when he suddenly shut the News of the World paper in the face of public revulsion over phone hacking.

"No one can imagine quite the pressure he was under in July," said one person familiar with the situation. "The pace of it was incredible, it was very emotional and traumatic. This is very different."

Unlike in July, readers and, most important, advertisers have shown little reaction to news over the last two weeks that nine senior employees have been arrested and questioned overpayments made to police and other officials.

Politicians, who spectacularly turned on Murdoch following the admission that his journalists hacked into the phones of murder victims and Britain's war dead, have also held back in the knowledge that calling for the closure of the biggest selling newspaper would be a dangerous move.

But despite the different scenario, Murdoch is still under huge pressure. The FBI and other US government agencies have stepped up their hunt for signs of illegality at a US-based company. A case brought under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act could result in fines of millions of dollars.

He is also under fire from within, having opened an internal investigation that resulted in the latest arrests and led to talk among frightened and angry employees of a witch hunt.

And he has few options as bankers say no company would want to buy The Sun or his Times newspapers until they have been thoroughly investigated. For so long one of the most powerful men in Britain, Murdoch is now effectively powerless to act.