ওয়াশিংটন বাংলা রেডিও Washington Bangla Radio USA

He said it was his decision to hire Coulson and "I take responsibility."

"Of course I regret, and I am extremely sorry, about the furore it has caused," he said.

Cameron returned London early from an African visit to face the questioning by the lawmakers and on Wednesday he had to answer on his choice of Any Coulson as his (former) director of communication.

 Cameron said Andy Coulson has denied any involvement in the phone hacking by the paper he used to edit. 
 
Ed Miliband, the leader of the Labour Opposition, said Cameron's position had been compromised by his link with Coulson, who is one of those at the heart of the scandal despite denying his role.

"Why doesn't he do more than give a half apology?"  Miliband said.

"The country has the right to expect that the prime minister would have made every effort to know the facts about Mr Coulson, to protect himself and his office," Miliband said.

"This can't be put down to gross ignorance. It was a deliberate attempt to hide from the facts on Mr Coulson," Miliband said.

On Tuesday, News Corporation boss Rupert Murdoch was hit with shaving foam pie by a protester as the media baron whose business empire is tainted by a phone-hacking scandal testified before the British lawmakers in what he said was the "most humble day of my life'.

Murdoch was attacked by one Johnnie Marbles, or Jonathan May-Bowles, whose Twitter account says he is an "Activist, comedian, father figure and all-round nonsense."

Murdoch's wife Wendi Deng defended her husband as she leapt to her feet and fought off the attack by intercepting the pie and throwing it back at Johnnie who was dragged away by the cops then.

Some pie, however, got sprinkled on the dark suit of Murdoch, reports said.

The attacker had tweeted before the attack: "It is a far better thing that I do now than I have ever done before"

On Tuesday Murdoch was questioned by British lawmakers over the voicemail hacking scandal at one of his newspapers. He said it was "the most humble day of my life" but refused to accept responsibility for the entire episode.

The media baron, whose empire has been rocked in the last few weeks after it became public how journalists at his company-owned News of the World paper snooped around voicemails of British citizens for reports, instead blamed the fiasco on his colleagues who ran the day-to-day operations.

The scandal, which has spurred huge outrage in Britain from citizens and political leaders, has already triggered the resignations of top administrative officials and News Corp. execs.

On Tuesday, Rupert Murdoch, son James and their former executive Rebekah Brooks faced the House of Commons of the British Parliament about what they knew and how they have dealt with the crisis.

James, chief executive of News Corp's Europe and Asia operations, said, "I would like to say just how sorry I am and how sorry we are to particularly the victims of illegal voice mail interceptions and to their families."

"These actions do not live up to the standards that our company aspires to everywhere around the world.

"It is our determination to put things right, to make sure these things do not happen again and to be the company that I know we have always aspired to be,” he added.

Rupert Murdoch appeared to distance himself from the scandal as he asserted that the paper News of the World, which was shut down last week, was “less than 1 percent” of his company and claimed that he had been misled about the extent of phone hacking.

"I was absolutely shocked, appalled and ashamed when I heard about the Milly Dowler case only two weeks ago," he said, mentioning the murdered teenager whose account had been hacked by News of the World employees.

Earlier, the whistleblower reporter, Sean Hoare, who had allegedly exposed how News of the World extensively used and encouraged phone hacking was found dead in his residence at Hertforshire on Monday.

Police had reportedly described his death as unexplained but not suspicious, media reports said.