The former deputy editor of the Rupert Murdoch-owned British tabloid The Sun is being charged with authorising payments to public officials in return for information, prosecutors said on Wednesday. Geoff Webster was arrested a year ago as part of Operation Elveden, the police investigation into illegal payments to public officials set up after the phone-hacking scandal. Webster will be charged with two offences of conspiring to commit misconduct in public office, a statement from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said.

Britain's newspapers on Tuesday railed against a new system of press regulation agreed by political leaders, which the biggest media groups have warned raises "deeply contentious issues". Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron, his Liberal Democrat deputy Nick Clegg and opposition Labour leader Ed Miliband all signed up on Monday to a tough new watchdog underpinned by law. They say it will rein in the kind of misdeeds exposed by the phone-hacking scandal at Rupert Murdoch's News of the World tabloid without curbing press freedom.

Britain's newspapers vowed to closely scrutinise a deal struck on Monday by the main political parties for a tough new press regulator, which they warned threatens 318 years of press freedom. MPs insisted the agreement would rein in the kind of misdeeds exposed by the News of the World phone-hacking scandal, without curbing press freedom, but the newspapers said the government had "crossed the Rubicon".

British politicians said Monday they had reached a deal on a tough new system of newspaper self-regulation to rein in the excesses of the press revealed in the News of the World phone-hacking scandal. Political leaders said the deal, finally struck at 2:30 am after months of negotiations, addressed the abuses laid bare in last year's Leveson Inquiry while protecting freedom of the press.