LONDON - A man who provided protection for the former chief executive of News International has been charged in relation to Britain's wide-ranging phone-hacking investigation. Scotland Yard said Friday that David Johnson, 47, allegedly conspired with Rebekah Brooks and five others in July 2011 to conceal computers and other items from officers investigating allegations of phone hacking and corruption at British tabloids. Johnson is charged with conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. He will appear at London's Westminster Magistrates' Court on May 8.

Rupert Murdoch's News Corp has reached a settlement with US shareholders over the media conglomerate's handling of the phone-hacking scandal in Britain that forced the closure of one of its top titles. Shareholders argued the media giant failed in its obligation to defend their interests during the scandal, which forced Australian-born Murdoch to shut down the News of the World tabloid weekly after 168 years.

Republican People's Party (CHP) deputy Ilhan Cihaner has confessed to having ordered the wiretapping of phone conversations of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and several other politicians and journalists during his term in office as a chief public prosecutor. Cihaner resigned from that post in 2011 and was elected a deputy for the CHP in the general elections of June 12 of the same year. The Yeni Safak daily reported on Thursday that Cihaner spoke to a parliamentary commission set up to investigate illegal wiretapping in the country following a request from Yeni Safak jour

By Andrew Osborn LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's main political parties agreed to create a new system to regulate the news media on Monday, hoping to end an era when tabloid newspapers trawled through people's mobile phone messages to dredge up salacious stories. Public outrage over phone hacking, which went beyond celebrities to include victims of crime and abducted children, pushed the government to act, but it said it had done so in a way that still protected press freedom.