U.S. soldier arrested with bomb-making materials (Reuters)

SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) – A U.S. Army soldier was arrested after police found him in a motel room near Fort Hood, Texas, with possible "bomb-making materials," authorities said on Thursday.

FBI Special Agent Eric Vasys said the soldier, who was absent without leave from Fort Campbell, Kentucky, was being held in a jail in the city of Killeen, Texas near Fort Hood, on an unrelated child pornography charge.

He was identified as Naser Jason Abdo, 21, originally from the Dallas area. He disappeared from Fort Campbell over the July 4 weekend, Fort Campbell base spokesman Bob Jenkins said. The FBI initially gave his name as Jason Abdo Nassar.

"Whatever threat Mr. (Abdo) posed yesterday or up until yesterday has been eliminated and mitigated, and there was nothing to indicate he was acting with anyone else," said FBI agent Vasys, who is based in San Antonio.

He did not elaborate on the apparent threat, or what charges Abdo might face. Vasys said he had no knowledge of any other arrests of soldiers.

A spokesman for Fort Hood said there had been no incidents on the base and the security alert at the facility had not been raised.

Abdo was arrested on Wednesday after a "concerned citizen" reported that he had firearms and smokeless gunpowder in his motel room in Killeen, Vasys said.

"A search of his motel room revealed that he had some components which could be considered bomb-making materials," Vasys said.

A press conference on the arrest was scheduled for 2 p.m. central time at the Killeen, Texas police department.

Abdo could be charged as early as Thursday in federal court, Vasys said.

In June, the U.S. military approved Abdo as a conscientious objector to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but that status was put on hold after he was charged with child pornography in Kentucky.

Abdo applied for conscientious objector status in 2010 after he decided Islamic standards would prohibit his service in the U.S. Army in any war, military officials said.

Fort Hood was the scene of a shooting rampage that killed 13 people and wounded 32 others on November 5, 2009. U.S. Army psychiatrist Major Nidal Malik Hasan was charged in the shootings and is expected to face a court martial in March, 2012.

(Additional reporting by Tim Ghianni in Nashville and Chris Baltimore in Houston; Writing by Karen Brooks; Editing by Greg McCune and Jackie Frank)

View the original article here

Scotland Yard: We've arrested LulzSec spokesman (AP)

By RAPHAEL G. SATTER, Associated Press Raphael G. Satter, Associated Press – 23?mins?ago

LONDON – Scotland Yard's cybercrime unit has arrested a teenager it suspects of working as the spokesman for the Lulz Security hacking collective, officials said Wednesday.

The Metropolitan Police's Central e-Crime Unit arrested a 19-year-old at an address in Scotland's remote Shetland Islands, the force said in a statement. His name wasn't released, but police said he was believed to be "Topiary," one of LulzSec's most prominent members.

LulzSec burst onto the hacking scene several months ago with attacks on Fox News and the U.S. Public Broadcasting Service — which it defaced by posting a bogus story claiming that the late rapper Tupac Shakur had been discovered alive in New Zealand.

The group was a spin-off of Anonymous, an amorphous collection of Internet enthusiasts, pranksters and online activists whose targets have included the Church of Scientology, the music industry, and financial companies including Visa and MasterCard.

Topiary was linked to both groups, serving as the on-again, off-again media liaison for the publicity-hungry hackers.

In his only known television interview, on the "David Pakman Show" earlier this year, Topiary phoned in via Skype to feud with Shirley Phelps-Roper of the Westboro Baptist Church, a Kansas-based group notorious for picketing the funerals of slain American soldiers.

Anonymous vandalized the church's website live over the course of the interview.

In conversations with The Associated Press, Topiary said he controlled LulzSec's Twitter feed, which garnered some 300,000 followers over the course of its six-week-long Internet rampage.

LulzSec has claimed responsibility for breaches at pornography websites, gaming companies, and law enforcement organizations. It's also claimed credit for harassing seemingly random targets including an obscure New Jersey-based magnet manufacturer.

One its most spectacular hacks was against Sony Pictures Entertainment. The group posted the usernames, passwords, email addresses and phone numbers of tens of thousands of people, many of whom had given Sony their information for sweepstakes draws. Another stinging series of breaches last month targeted Arizona's police force in protest against its contentious immigration law. Officers had to scramble to change their numbers because their phones were being jammed with calls.

Shortly thereafter the group abruptly announced it was disbanding, although Topiary said at the time that the group wasn't bowing to police pressure.

"We're not quitting because we're afraid of law enforcement," he said in a Skype call. "The press are getting bored of us, and we're getting bored of us."

Attempts to reach Topiary since then have been unsuccessful, although his group recently re-emerged from retirement, defacing The Sun newspaper's website with a fake story claiming that media tycoon Rupert Murdoch had died. In one of its last messages, LulzSec said it was working with unnamed media outlets on a WikiLeaks-style release of emails it claimed to have stolen from the tabloid.

Topiary's once-plentiful Twitter feed was practically wiped clean Wednesday. The only remaining post, from nearly a week ago, read: "You cannot arrest an idea."

The latest arrest is one of an increasing number claimed by law enforcement in Britain and the United States in connection to their investigations into Anonymous and its offshoots. Last week, the FBI, British and Dutch officials carried out 21 arrests, many of them related to the group's attacks on Internet payment provider PayPal Inc., which has been targeted over its refusal to process donations to WikiLeaks.

Last month another 19-year-old, Ryan Cleary, was charged with attacks on Britain's Serious Organized Crime Agency and various U.K.-based music sites. Although at least one of the attacks he was charged with seemed linked to LulzSec, Topiary claimed at the time that Cleary was at most only tangentially involved with the group.

Scotland Yard said Wednesday it was also searching a residential address in Lincolnshire, in central England, and interviewing an unnamed 17-year-old in connection with the investigation. The second teen has not been arrested.

View the original article here

Brooks arrested in hacking scandal (Reuters)

LONDON (Reuters) – Rebekah Brooks, the former head of Rupert Murdoch's UK newspaper business, was arrested on Sunday in the latest twist of a phone-hacking scandal that has tainted British police and politicians and shaken the tycoon's global media empire.

Several sources familiar with the situation said Brooks, 43, was being questioned as part of an investigation into allegations of illegal voicemail interception and police bribery at the News of the World tabloid she once edited.

Brooks quit as head of News International, the British unit of Murdoch's News Corp, on Friday, but has denied she knew of the alleged hacking of thousands of phones, including that of a murdered schoolgirl.

The revelations have shocked the public and raised concerns not only about unethical media practices but about the influence Murdoch has wielded over successive British leaders and allegations of cozy relationships between some of his journalists and the police.

With politicians from Australia to the United States demanding to know if similar abuses occurred elsewhere in Murdoch's global media business, the 80-year-old has been forced on the defensive and the position of his son James as heir-apparent has been called into question.

In Britain, Prime Minister David Cameron has come under fire for his friendship with Brooks and for employing another former News of the World editor, Andy Coulson, as his press secretary even after Coulson had quit the paper in 2007 following the jailing of a reporter for phone-hacking.

"The waters are very definitely lapping around the Murdochs' own ankles," Chris Bryant, a member of parliament for Britain's opposition Labor Party who has campaigned for years against press malpractice, told Reuters.

Tim Bale, politics professor at the University of Sussex, told Reuters: "I think this was pretty uncomfortable for Cameron already and it will get more uncomfortable now over the next week.

"It brings the whole thing closer to him. If one believes all the talk of a Chipping Norton set, it reinforces this impression of a cozy elite at the top of the media/political complex," he added, referring to a town in Cameron's affluent countryside constituency where Brooks also has a home.

Brooks and Rupert and James Murdoch are due to be questioned in Britain's parliament on Tuesday, including over reports that News International misled parliament during earlier hearings.

But Brooks' spokesman said her arrest may cast doubt on whether she could appear before politicians.

"I think there will clearly be some discussions between her lawyers and the select committee on whether it is still sensible for her to appear," David Wilson told Reuters, adding she was "shocked" by the arrest.

"Anything that will be said at the select committee hearing could have implications for the police inquiry."

Adrian Sanders, a Liberal Democrat politician who sits on the parliamentary media committee, questioned the timing of the arrest and said he hoped it would not scuttle the hearing.

"If this is designed to take the spotlight off the police, at the same time as in a sense giving a shield to Rebekah Brooks, that's a very serious matter indeed," he told BBC television news.

TOUGHNESS AND CHARM

The flame-haired Brooks became the focus of widespread anger over the phone-hacking scandal but was initially protected by Murdoch, who guided her rise through the male-dominated world of UK tabloid journalism to become editor of the News of the World in 2000 and the Sun's first female editor in 2003.

Flying into London a week ago to take charge of the crisis, Murdoch appeared before journalists with his arm around her. Asked what was his first priority, he gestured at her and replied: "This one."

Known for her networking skills, Brooks rose quickly through the ranks of tabloid journalists, combining a tough demeanor that could intimidate hardened 'hacks' with an ability to charm largely male editors.

But her initial refusal to quit, and a faltering speech she delivered when she closed the News of the World and ended the careers of dozens of colleagues, prompted some journalists to say she was out of touch.

The News of the World, which published its final edition a week ago, is alleged to have hacked up to 4,000 phones including that of murdered 13-year-old Milly Dowler, sparking a furor that forced Murdoch to close the paper and drop a $12 billion plan to buy all of highly profitable broadcaster BSkyB.

Murdoch, who some media commentators say at first misjudged the strength of public anger, published apologies in several British newspapers at the weekend.

He lost another loyal executive on Friday when Les Hinton, another former head of his UK newspaper business, resigned as chief executive of Murdoch's Dow Jones & Co which publishes The Wall Street Journal.

"There are no excuses and should be no place to hide ... We will continue to cooperate fully and actively with the Metropolitan Police Service," News International said in an announcement on Sunday.

Leading British politicians renewed calls for greater media plurality and press regulation -- a direct threat to Murdoch's empire, which includes The Sun, The Times and Sunday Times broadsheets, and 39 percent of BSkyB.

The Sunday Telegraph reported that members of the board of BSkyB, where James Murdoch serves as chairman, are due to meet in a special session on July 28 to discuss his future.

If James were to be felled by the scandal, British media speculated that his sister Elisabeth could secure the eventual succession to their father.

The scandal has also embroiled Britain's police, who are accused of being too close to News Corp, of accepting cash from the now defunct News of the World and other newspapers, and of not doing enough to investigate the phone-hacking allegations that surfaced as far as back as 2005.

In 2003 Brooks admitted that the News of the World had made payments to police in the past but could not remember any specific examples.

(Additional reporting by Keith Weir and Georgina Prodhan, Writing by Elizabeth Piper, Editing by Mark Trevelyan)

View the original article here

Rebekah Brooks arrested as Murdoch woes grow (AFP)

LONDON (AFP) – British police on Sunday arrested Rupert Murdoch's former lieutenant Rebekah Brooks, in a new blow for the media mogul but one that could allow his protege to dodge questioning by lawmakers.

Her arrest on corruption and hacking allegations, just two days after she quit as head of Murdoch's British newspaper wing, piled on the pressure as the Labour opposition called for the break-up of Murdoch's British empire.

But it also raised questions about why Scotland Yard, already under fire for its handling of the investigation, made her arrest when it did even though it could jeopardise her appearance before a parliamentary committee on Tuesday.

"Rebekah had a prearranged appointment with police which she attended of her own volition. She was arrested on arrival by police," her spokesman David Wilson told AFP.

Wilson added: "At the moment today's events do somewhat change potentially her ability to attend the hearing. There will be discussions between her lawyers and the select committee over the next 24 to 36 hours."

"The fact that she has been arrested clearly has implications and so it is by no means a certainty that she will be able to attend, despite wishing to," he added.

He said the arrangement was made on Friday "at the police request."

Scotland Yard would only confirm that a 43-year-old woman had been arrested "in connection with allegations of corruption and phone hacking" at the News of the World tabloid, which Brooks once edited and which shut down last week.

It said in a statement that she "was arrested by appointment at a London police station by officers" and was in custody.

Brooks, 43, is the 10th person and most senior Murdoch aide to be arrested so far over the scandal, which exploded earlier this month amid claims that under her watch the News of the World hacked the phone of a murdered girl.

The flame-haired Brooks is due to appear alongside Murdoch and his son James, the chairman of News International, before the British parliament's media committee on Tuesday to answer questions about the growing scandal.

At a previous hearing in 2003 she admitted the paper had made payments to police.

Committee chairman John Whittingdale was quoted by Sky News as saying that he now did not know if she would attend, as questioning Brooks could in theory interfere with the police investigation.

A lawyer for Dowler's family was quoted as saying the timing "stinks."

Opposition Labour leader Ed Miliband called for his British media interests to be dismantled.

"I think he has too much power over British public life," Miliband told the Observer newspaper, citing his ownership of the The Sun, Times and The Sunday Times newspapers as well as a 39 percent share in pay-TV giant BSkyB.

Abandoning his earlier defiance, Murdoch placed ads in most of Britain's Sunday newspapers for a second day, this time entitled "Putting right what's gone wrong" and promising to fully cooperate with police.

Murdoch closed the News of the World one week ago but the move failed to stem the scandal, which is threatening the interests of the Australian-born magnate's News Corporation all around the world.

In recent days his bid for control of the rest of BSkyB collapsed while Brooks's departure on Friday was followed hours later by that of Dow Jones chief Les Hinton.

The Murdoch empire's links to the police and politicians also came under fresh scrutiny on Sunday.

Scotland Yard revealed that Commissioner Paul Stephenson met its executives and editors 18 times socially between 2006 and 2010. The force has faced criticism for botching the initial investigation into the News of the World.

Stephenson was linked to former News of the World deputy editor Neil Wallis in reports Sunday which said the police chief accepted a five-week stay earlier this year at a luxury health spa where Wallis worked as a PR consultant.

The force is already facing questions about why it hired Wallis as an advisor two months after he quit the tabloid. Wallis was arrested last week.

A police spokesman strongly denied any wrongdoing.

Prime Minister David Cameron meanwhile faced questions about his decision to invite his former media chief Andy Coulson, another ex-News of the World editor, to his country residence in March, two months after Coulson quit Downing Street.

Coulson was arrested and bailed by police earlier this month.

The hacking scandal is also being investigated by the FBI in the United States.

View the original article here

Over 1,400 arrested, tear gas fired in Malaysia protest (Reuters)

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) – Malaysian police fired repeated rounds of tear gas and detained over 1,400 people in the capital on Saturday as thousands of activists evaded roadblocks and barbed wire to hold a street protest against Prime Minister Najib Razak's government.

At least a dozen people were hurt in the demonstration for electoral reform in downtown Kuala Lumpur. There were no reports of serious injuries but some analysts said the police action was excessive and would dent Najib's image.

"We are not criminals, we are just asking for free and fair elections," opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim's daughter, Nurul Izzah Anwar, told reporters after her father was knocked down and hurt in a melee when he and his supporters were tear gassed.

"Many innocent people were injured. We condemn this act of cruelty by UMNO and Barisan Nasional," she said, referring to Najib's party and the ruling coalition.

Street protests are rare in this Southeast Asian nation, but foreign investors are worried that any groundswell of anti-government sentiment could delay economic reforms seen as essential to draw investment.

If he is put under popular pressure, Najib may reconsider plans for a snap election and hold back on reforms such as cutting fuel subsidies or unwinding an affirmative action program for the country's Malay majority.

Polls are not due until 2013 but analysts have said Najib could seek an early mandate after economic growth accelerated to a 10-year high in 2010.

"From Najib's perspective, holding elections anytime soon would be a mistake because of the damage that has been done today," said Bridget Welsh, Malaysia specialist at Singapore Management University.

"The fact that such a large crowd turned up despite a crackdown shows that voter anger is deep and this is going to push a lot of people who are in the middle toward the opposition."

Reuters witnesses saw tear gas shells lobbed repeatedly at groups of protesters in downtown Kuala Lumpur as the crowds chanted "Long Live the People" and "Reformasi, reformasi," the Malay word for reform.

Several people were seen bleeding after the tear gas was fired, but police gave no details of any injuries. Crowds around the city's main bus station were also sprayed with water cannon.

Malaysia's inspector-general of police, Ismail Omar, said 1,401 people were taken into custody, but many will be released after questioning. At least three senior opposition leaders were among those detained, other officials said.

"We have made our point that we want free and fair elections," said Chan Mei Yin, a 32-year old accountant who joined the protest.

"The police are just showing that they are brutal to Malaysians. I will not vote for this government."

NOT THAILAND

While Malaysia is far from being divided by political strife like its northern neighbor Thailand, the opposition has been steadily growing more vocal.

Tens of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets at a November 2007 rally, which analysts said galvanized support for the opposition ahead of record gains in a 2008 general election.

Analysts said the turnout of protesters on Saturday was more than 10,000, around the same as in 2007. Police, however, put the number at 5,000-6,000, while protest organizers claimed 50,000 attended.

"Malaysian civil society is showing the government that intimidation will not work," said Ooi Kee Beng, a political analyst at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies of Singapore.

"We're seeing a lack of will on the part of the government to try to negotiate and to defuse the situation. It's all going to look very bad outside Malaysia."

After Malaysia's constitutional monarch tried to defuse the situation, the government initially offered Bersih (Clean), the group that called the protest, the use of a stadium to hold its demonstration.

But it baulked at allowing the group to use the main stadium in downtown Kuala Lumpur, at which point Bersih said it would defy the ban.

From midnight, police locked down the central shopping district of the city of 1.6 million people, setting up roadblocks and barring taxis and buses from the area. Suburban trains, however, continued to operate and other areas of the city were not affected.

Bersih has vowed to bring together tens of thousands of supporters to the protest but it fell short. Still, some analysts said the government faced a problem.

"Just looking at the crowd there were many 'first timers', young people from the Facebook generation who just wanted to have a peaceful life," said Ibrahim Suffian, director of the independent opinion polling outfit Merdeka Center.

"This is trouble for Najib as it will polarize traditionally non-political segments of society like the young even further away from him."

Najib took power in 2009, and inherited a divided ruling coalition which had been weakened by historic losses in the 2008 polls. He has promised to restructure government and economy and introduced an inclusive brand of politics aimed at uniting the country's different races.

Najib's approval ratings have risen from 45 percent to 69 percent in February, according to independent polling outfit Merdeka Center. But analysts said recent ethnic and religious differences have undermined his popularity.

(Additional reporting by Angie Teo and Damir Sagolj; Writing by Liau Y-Sing; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Sugita Katyal)

View the original article here

Steelers' Hines Ward arrested on DUI charge in Ga. (AP)

DECATUR, Ga. – Pittsburgh Steelers star wide receiver Hines Ward was arrested early Saturday in Georgia on a drunken driving charge, sheriff's officials said.

The former Super Bowl MVP and reigning "Dancing With the Stars" champ was booked into the DeKalb County jail just outside Atlanta at 3:41 a.m. and charged with driving under the influence. He was released on $1,300 bond.

The sheriff's office said it had turned over paperwork to the courts and couldn't release any further information about the player's arrest.

A Steelers spokesman did not immediately respond to a message, and it was not immediately clear if Ward had an attorney.

Since being drafted in the third round out of Georgia in 1998, the 35-year-old Ward has been a four-time Pro Bowl selection and won two Super Bowls.

Dancing with professional partner Kym Johnson, Ward in May became the second professional football player to win the "Dancing" crown after Emmitt Smith won in 2006. He bested actresses Kirstie Alley and Chelsea Kane to become the season 12 champion of the TV celebrity dance competition.

View the original article here

British PM's ex-aide arrested over tabloid scandal (AFP)

LONDON (AFP) – Police arrested David Cameron's ex-media chief and a former royal reporter over Britain's tabloid phone hacking row Friday as the prime minister promised urgent inquiries into the spiralling scandal.

Cameron looked rattled during the toughest press conference of his year in power, but he defended his decision to hire Andy Coulson, the former editor of Rupert Murdoch's News of the World tabloid, which is to shut this weekend.

He admitted the scandal went to the heart of the British establishment, saying: "The truth is, we have all been in this together -- the press, politicians and leaders of all parties, and yes, that includes me."

Cameron said he gave Coulson a "second chance" after he quit the News of the World in 2007 when two people were jailed over hacking. Coulson then resigned from Cameron's Downing Street office in January, citing pressure over the claims.

"The decision to hire him was mine and mine alone, and I take full responsibility for it," Cameron said, adding however that Coulson "became a friend and is a friend".

Murdoch caused astonishment on Thursday when he killed off the 168-year-old News of the World, Britain's biggest selling Sunday paper, amid claims that it hacked the voicemails of a murdered girl and the families of dead soldiers.

Cameron announced that he would set up a public inquiry led by a judge into the furore around the paper, as well as a second inquiry into the way in which the British press is regulated.

"These are the questions that need answering: Why did the first police investigation fail so abysmally? What exactly was going on at the News of the World? And what was going on at other newspapers?" he said.

Minutes after the prime minister spoke, London's Metropolitan Police arrested the 43-year-old Coulson by appointment at a South London police station "in connection with allegations of corruption and phone hacking".

The corruption allegations refer to alleged improper payments to police officers by the paper when Coulson was editor of Britain's biggest-selling Sunday newspaper from 2003 to 2007.

He remained in custody late Friday.

Police said they had also on Friday re-arrested Clive Goodman, the News of the World's former royal editor, one of the two men who was jailed in 2007 for hacking the voicemails of Princes William and Harry.

Goodman, 53, was apprehended at his house in Surrey, south of London, on corruption charges.

Police said they had also raided the offices of another British tabloid, the Daily Star Sunday, where Goodman had worked as a freelance reporter over the past year.

In a statement, the paper said officers had requested computer material linked to Goodman "to cross-check it with his activities in his News of the World role", adding that there was no suggestion he had acted improperly at the Daily Star Sunday.

The shock closure of the News of the World was widely seen as a way to quell the scandal and save the bid by his News Corp. for control of the satellite broadcaster BSkyB, on which the British government is due to decide.

Shares in BSkyB plunged 3.94 percent to 780.5 pence in late morning deals Friday, topping the fallers board on the FTSE 100 index.

It was also seen as a way of protecting Rebekah Brooks, the embattled head of Murdoch's British newspaper wing, News International, who was editor of the News of the World from 2000 to 2003, when some of the allegations also date from.

Cameron said of reports she had offered her resignation: "In this situation, I would have taken it."

Brooks however told the 200 sacked staff at the News of the World office on Friday that she felt "betrayed" and that she would try to find them jobs across the company, Sky News reported.

The last edition of the unashamedly sensationalist tabloid will be on Sunday, ending a long history of publishing sex scandals but also hard-hitting investigations including into recent Pakistani cricket match-fixing claims.

British newspapers on Friday mourned the passing of their scandal-hit comrade.

The Daily Mail ran with the headline "The Paper that Died of Shame", and bemoaned the "downfall of a fine British institution" while The Daily Telegraph opted for "Goodbye, cruel World".

Murdoch will reportedly replace it with a Sunday edition of The Sun, his daily tabloid, which is Britain's biggest selling newspaper.

View the original article here

Ex-Cameron aide arrested in UK hacking scandal (AP)

By JILL LAWLESS and ROBERT BARR, Associated Press Jill Lawless And Robert Barr, Associated Press – 56?mins?ago

LONDON – Prime Minister David Cameron's former communications chief and an ex-royal reporter were arrested Friday in a phone hacking and police corruption scandal that has already toppled a major tabloid and rattled the cozy relationship between British politicians and the powerful Murdoch media empire.

The 168-year-old muckraking tabloid News of the World was shut down Thursday after being engulfed by allegations its journalists paid police for information and hacked into the phone messages of celebrities, young murder victims and even the grieving families of dead soldiers. Its last publication day is Sunday.

The hacking revelations horrified both ordinary Britons and advertisers, who pulled their ads en masse. News International, the British arm of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., killed the paper in hopes of saving its 12 billion pound ($19 billion) deal to take over satellite broadcaster British Sky Broadcasting. But the British government on Friday signaled the deal would be delayed as a result of the crisis.

"Given the events of recent days, this will take some time," Cameron said.

A billion pounds ($1.6 billion) was wiped off the value of BSkyB Friday, with shares closing down 7.6 percent in London as investors recoiled at the bad news.

"The pressure on the stock has really been driven by a sense News Corp. is not taking in the severity of its political issues and the embarrassment they are causing the prime minister," said industry analyst Claire Enders.

British broadcast regulator OFCOM — which has a duty to ensure media owners are "fit and proper" — said it was "monitoring the situation closely."

The police investigation into the phone hacking drew uncomfortably close to the prime minister Friday with the arrest of Andy Coulson, Cameron's once-powerful communications chief and a former editor of News of the World.

Coulson, 43, was arrested Friday morning on suspicion of corruption and "conspiring to intercept communications."

Police also arrested Clive Goodman, the former News of the World royal editor who served a jail term in 2007 for hacking into the phones of royal aides. This time the arrest was on suspicion of making illegal payoffs to police for scoops.

Detectives searched Coulson's house in London and Goodman's home south of the city Friday, as well as the newsroom of a second tabloid, the Daily Star Sunday. That paper is owned by Richard Desmond's Northern & Shell media conglomerate, and Goodman has done work for the paper since his release from jail.

The Daily Star Sunday said detectives spent two hours at its offices and took away a disc containing a record of Goodman's computer activity. The paper said there was "no suggestion whatsoever" that Goodman acted improperly during his shifts at the Star.

Allegations of phone hacking by the News of the World first surfaced more than five years ago, but the original police investigation — which saw Goodman and another man jailed — has now been criticized as incomplete and compromised by new bribery allegations.

The Metropolitan Police reopened the hacking inquiry earlier this year, and say they are looking at the names of over 4,000 people as possible victims.

Cameron, realizing that the crisis was knocking at his 10 Downing St. door, moved quickly to distance himself from it. Like predecessors including Labour Prime Ministers Gordon Brown and Tony Blair, Cameron courted the powerful Murdoch empire, whose endorsement is considered capable of swinging elections.

And he's not the first prime minister to hire a former journalist as his top communications aide — Blair's powerful aide Alastair Campbell also had a tabloid background.

On Friday, Cameron acknowledged that British politicians and the press had become too close and promised investigations into both the tabloid's actions and future media regulation.

"The truth is, we've all been in this together," Cameron told reporters at a hastily arranged news conference. "Party leaders were so keen to win the support of newspapers that we turned a blind eye to the need to sort this issue. The people in power knew things weren't right but they didn't do enough quickly enough."

Coulson quit as editor of News of the World after Goodman and private investigator Glenn Mulcaire were jailed in 2007 for hacking into the phones of royal aides. Coulson maintained he knew nothing of the hacking, and was hired soon after as Cameron's director of communications, but resigned in January as it became clear the hacking at the tabloid had been widespread.

Opposition Labour Party leader Ed Miliband had urged Cameron to apologize for "the appalling error of judgment he made in hiring Andy Coulson." Cameron refused, saying Friday that Coulson remained a friend, but clearly moved a further step away from his former aide.

"(Coulson) gave me assurances," Cameron said. "He said he had resigned because of what had happened, but he didn't know the hacking had taken place."

"I took a conscious choice to give someone who had screwed up a second chance," Cameron said. "He worked for me, he worked for me well, but actually he decided in the end the second chance wouldn't work, he had to resign all over again for the first offense."

Cameron said press self-regulation by the Press Complaints Commission had failed and a new body, independent of the media and the government, was needed to properly enforce standards.

Cameron suggested his friend Rebekah Brooks, editor of the News of the World at the Time of the worst hacking allegations, should have resigned as chief executive of News International.

Many observers expressed astonishment that 43-year-old Brooks was keeping her job while the paper's 200 staff were laid off. Enders said the Murdoch group has shown, "an almost maniacal desire to protect Ms. Brooks at all costs."

Brooks met her staff Friday and confirmed she was staying.

Cameron also said there were questions to be answered by James Murdoch, the heir-apparent to his father's media empire.

"I want everyone to be clear: Everything that has happened is going to be investigated," Cameron said.

He said a judge will be appointed to lead a thorough investigation of what went wrong at the News of the World, including alleged bribery of police officers, and a second inquiry to find a new way of regulating the press.

Bets on Ladbrokes that Cameron would be the next Cabinet member to leave the British government were briefly suspended Friday after a flurry of wagers triggered an automatic halt. The bet was put back up, however, at the same price, 33 to 1.

The scandal exploded this week after it was reported that the News of the World had hacked the mobile phone of 13-year-old murder victim Milly Dowler in 2002 while her family and police were desperately searching for her. News of the World operatives reportedly deleted some messages from the phone's voicemail, giving the girl's parents false hope that she was still alive.

That ignited public outrage far beyond any previous reaction to press intrusion into the lives of politicians and celebrities, which the paper has acknowledged and for which it has paid compensation to some prominent victims, including actress Sienna Miller.

Dozens of companies pulled their advertising from the paper this week, fearing they would be tainted by association. James Murdoch then announced Thursday that this Sunday's edition of the tabloid would be its last and all revenue from it will go to "good causes."

News International has not said whether it will put another paper into the Sunday market that has been dominated for decades by News of the World. But according to online records, an unnamed U.K. individual this week bought the rights to the domain name "sunonsunday.co.uk."

The British government gave its qualified approval in June to Murdoch's News Corp. purchasing the 61 percent of British Sky Broadcasting that it doesn't already own, on the condition it spins off news channel Sky News as a separate company.

But Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt said Friday there had been a huge number of responses to a public consultation on the takeover, said to exceed 100,000 submissions, and that will delay the approval process.

Despite the public outcry, many analysts think Britain will still sanction the takeover but delay it until at least September.

BSkyB's shares closed down 7.6 percent at 750 pence ($12).

Shares in the Nasdaq-listed News Corp., which owns 39 percent of BSkyB, were down 3.5 percent at $16.82 around midday in New York.

___

Danica Kirka and Raphael G. Satter contributed to this report.

View the original article here

As ex-spokesman arrested, Cameron vows press shake-up (Reuters)

LONDON (Reuters) – Police arrested David Cameron's former spokesman on Friday over the scandal that has shut down Rupert Murdoch's News of the World, forcing the prime minister to defend his judgment while promising sweeping new rules for the British press.

As Cameron fielded hostile questions over why he hired Andy Coulson after he resigned from editing the paper in 2007 -- despite knowing that one of his journalists had been jailed for hacking into voicemails in search of scoops -- Coulson was being arrested by police on suspicion of conspiring in the practice.

Cameron said he took "full responsibility" for his decision to appoint Coulson, who quit Downing Street in January when police relaunched inquiries. But the premier rebuffed criticism and strove to spread the blame for an affair that has generated public outrage against the press, politicians and police.

"Murder victims, terrorist victims, families who have lost loved ones in war..." he said: "That these people could have had their phones hacked into in order to generate stories for a newspaper is simply disgusting."

So widespread was the rot, Cameron told an emergency news conference after Murdoch shut down his best-selling Sunday paper, that only a completely new system of media regulation and a full public inquiry into what went wrong over a decade at News of the World and beyond would meet public demand.

"This scandal is not just about some journalists on one newspaper," Cameron said. "It's not even just about the press. It's also about the police. And, yes, it's also about how politics works and politicians too."

In a sign of spreading fallout, police investigating allegations of phone hacking raided another tabloid, the Daily Star.

PRESS BARONS' GRIP

While defending himself for hiring Coulson, Cameron said politicians of all parties had been in thrall to press barons for decades and he indicated a new willingness to challenge the Murdoch empire by withholding overt endorsement of News Corp's bid for broadcaster BSkyB.

Shares in the pay-TV chain fell nearly 5 percent after the media ministry said it would take events at the News of the World into account before giving its approval to the takeover.

Cameron also criticized his friend and neighbor Rebekah Brooks, Coulson's predecessor as editor and now a top executive and confidante of Murdoch. She should have resigned herself, he said, after closing down the newspaper at a cost of 200 jobs.

Staff involved in putting together the final edition of the 168-year-old title, which is Britain's biggest-selling Sunday paper, said Brooks had said she would address them at 4 p.m. (1500 GMT). Having been publicly repudiated by both Cameron and Labor leader Ed Miliband, the 43-year-old Brooks, dubbed a consummate "networker," has seen her value to Murdoch reduced.

Miliband, and Cameron's Liberal Democrat deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, offered broadly similar prescriptions for addressing what many Britons believe is a tabloid press out of control in its readiness to invade other people's privacy.

But media and civil liberties groups will resist efforts to impose regulation they believe would curb free speech or thwart scrutiny of corruption and hypocrisy.

PRIME MINISTER'S JUDGMENT

Cameron, who worked in public relations before being elected, faced the stiffest questioning over his association with Coulson, 43. He was hired to bring a feel for what grass-roots electors wanted to hear to the wealthy Cameron and his privately-educated fellow Conservative leaders.

"Very bad things had happened at the News of the World. He had resigned. I gave him a second chance," Cameron said of hiring Coulson in 2007. "I wasn't given any specific sort of actionable information about Andy Coulson."

Critics pointed out that many British journalists doubted Coulson's assertions that he, as News of the World editor, had known nothing of the hacking of phones used by aides to Prince William -- for which royal correspondent Clive Goodman and a private detective were jailed in 2007.

"I thought we had a prime minister today who showed he doesn't get it. He doesn't get it over BSkyB," said Miliband, who wants the Murdoch takeover of the pay-TV group blocked.

"He also doesn't get it on Andy Coulson ... He's got to come clean and he has got to apologize."

Coulson's former colleague Goodman, the former royal correspondent, was re-arrested on Friday, a police source said, to answer questions about alleged payments to police officers.

Alan Rusbridger, editor of the left-leaning Guardian which has campaigned to expose more of the scandal, told Reuters Cameron could be faulted: "I just wonder what vetting process was done. I think it shows extremely poor judgment."

Nonetheless, with probably nearly four years until a general election, the damage to Cameron may well be limited.

MURDOCH UNDER PRESSURE

Murdoch, the 80-year-old Australian-born billionaire, ordered that Sunday's News of the World should be the last after 168 years as he battles to prevent the scandal fueling political opposition to his $22-billion takeover bid for BSkyB -- a company that makes 100 times the profit of the newspaper.

Cameron's government has already given its informal blessing to the deal, despite concern especially on the left that it would give Murdoch's U.S.-listed News Corp too much power.

But at Friday's news conference, the prime minister refrained from any endorsement of the BSkyB bid, and stressed that "proper legal processes" would "take some time." Murdoch already has a 39 percent stake in the company.

Brooks has denied knowing that journalists on the paper were hacking the voicemails of possibly thousands of people.

But she has become the focus of anger among the 200 News of the World staff sacked with little ceremony on Thursday.

There was "seething anger" and "pure hatred" directed toward her, one reporter said: "We think they're closing down a whole newspaper just to protect one woman's job."

Cameron said he had heard that Brooks offered her resignation. "I would have taken it," he said.

At the east London plant of News International, the News Corp arm that also owns top selling daily the Sun as well as London's broadsheet times, journalists were working on the last edition of the News of the World. "As you might expect, it is very subdued," said political editor Ian Kirby.

"There's a pride and a professionalism and the paper has to look good ... It will be a News of the World to remember.

"There is naturally a lot of frustration at the paper being closed down, frustration that we're being made to pay the price for what other people have done in the past."

Fellow journalists saluted the end of a venerable, muckraking title: "Hacked To Death" headlined Murdoch's own Times newspaper in London. "Paper That Died Of Shame" was the verdict of the Daily Mail, a rival tabloid.

PRESS REGULATION

Both Cameron and Miliband have concluded that a system under which newspaper publishers largely supervise their own code of conduct must be tightened. Cameron said an independent panel could start work within months -- much sooner than the public inquiry which must wait for the end of the police case -- and that it must be free to draft its own proposals.

While ensuring a free press, he said, "It should be truly ... independent of the press, so the public will know that newspapers will never again be solely responsible for policing themselves."

The police also face tough questions over why an initial investigation into phone hacking was closed after Goodman was jailed in 2007. Detectives are also now looking into payments, in the tens of thousands of pounds, by journalists to police.

A police source said Coulson had been arrested on suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications and of corruption.

Cameron, trying to strike a balance between accepting his own share of responsibility and sharing out blame to his opponents said: "It's no good ... just criticizing the police.

"Because party leaders were so keen to win the support of newspapers ... we turned a blind eye to the need to sort this issue, get on top of the bad practices."

Emphasizing that he saw it as an issue of which Labor, in power with the endorsement of some of the Murdoch press for 13 years, should not make electoral capital, Cameron likened it to a recent scandal over parliamentary expenses, which tarnished the image of politicians across the party spectrum.

POLICE INVESTIGATIONS

Several other journalists have been arrested in recent weeks as police pursue inquiries, much of them based on the files of the investigator jailed with Goodman four years ago.

Police say the files contain some 4,000 names -- a revelation which vindicated complaints by celebrities and politicians who campaigned for police to reopen investigations in the face of apparent reluctance from senior officers and from Cameron and his Labor predecessors Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

The scandal took on devastating proportions for Murdoch this week with the leak of an allegation that a News of the World investigator had, in 2002 when Brooks was editor, not only listened in to cellphone voicemails left for missing 13-year-old Milly Dowler but deleted some to make room for more.

The schoolgirl was found murdered six months later, but her killer was only convicted last month, ensuring public memories of the notorious case were still vivid and raw.

As more allegations were published, including that the phones of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan may have been hacked, the tabloid hemorrhaged advertising, alienated readers and turned an aging asset into a growing threat to Murdoch's ambitions for BSkyB.

Many analysts, however, expect the gap in the shrinking but still lucrative Sunday market to be short-lived; the Internet domain name sunonsunday.co.uk was registered on Tuesday, according to domain names service Who.is. That makes sense if the News of the World is to be replaced by its daily sister paper the Sun publishing on a seventh day.

Last month, Brooks prepared the ground for seven-day working across News International's four titles, and appointed two new managing editors, one with responsibility for the tabloids and one for the broadsheets. Other publishers have also tried to cut costs by merging Sunday and daily operations.

(Additional reporting by Georgina Prodhan, Kate Holton, Mike Collett-White and Stefano Ambrogi; Writing by Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Philippa Fletcher)

View the original article here