By Michael Holden LONDON (Reuters) - A Labour MP has accepted "very substantial" damages from The Sun newspaper after the tabloid admitted its employees accessed private information from her stolen mobile phone three years ago, London's High Court heard on Monday. Siobhain McDonagh later said she was paid 50,000 pounds damages by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. following revelations Sun reporters had been accessing text messages on her mobile phone taken from her car in southwest London in October 2010

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard Monday opened the way for "sensible" changes to proposed press reforms, after media proprietors attacked them as "draconian" and an "attack on free speech". The reforms, which will include a new public interest test for major mergers and stronger self-regulation requirements for the print media, arose from Britain's phone-hacking scandal. They provoked a fierce backlash from media groups including Rupert Murdoch's News Limited with one of its tabloids likening Communications Minister Stephen Conroy to Joseph Stalin and other dictators.

(Reuters) - Dow Jones & Co said it found no sign of impropriety at its China operations, after the Wall Street Journal reported that a whistleblower had accused Journal employees of bribing Chinese officials for information. The U.S. Department of Justice had asked Dow Jones to investigate the matter, as part of a wider probe into the 2011 British phone hacking scandal at its parent company, Rupert Murdoch's News Corp <NWSA.O>.

The former editor of Britain's Daily Mirror tabloid was questioned by police on Friday over suspected phone hacking, media reported. The development comes a day after four journalists from the Mirror Group, including another editor, were arrested on suspicion of illegally accessing voicemail messages. London's Metropolitan Police said on Friday they had interviewed a 51-year-old man, named by media as former Mirror editor Richard Wallace.