Britain approved a new system of regulating its press, a move newspapers said was draconian and threatened freedom of speech but which former victims of press excess described as long overdue.
The wife of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has begun legal action over the alleged interception of her private phone messages, her lawyer said on Wednesday, making her the latest public figure to be drawn into a hacking scandal that has shaken the country's media.
More than 800 people have had their telephones illegally hacked by the now-defunct News of the World tabloid, British police investigating the alleged practice said on Saturday.
The final edition of the paper engulfed in a phone hacking scandal was published today as Rupert Murdoch headed to London to try to save the bigger prize of his takeover of the British broadcaster BSkyB.
This Sunday's edition of London’s The News of the World will be its last, News International chairman James Murdoch has said, after days of increasingly damaging allegations against the paper.