Bowing to pressure from all directions due to the phone hacking scandal in the UK, News corporation has withdrawn it's bid for BSkyB to purchase the 60% of the Group it doesn't already own.

The UK Government were very close to ordering them to abandon this bid anyway, reflecting wide spread disgust at the news gathering methods used by a News Corporation publication that has resulted in the unexpected closure of the News of the World newspaper last week. This was an effort to stave off contagion to the rest of the group that has clearly not worked.

If angering the UK Government directly isn't enough, the US Government are also concerned that the phone hacking tactic has crossed the atlantic, potentially involving UK victims of the 9/11 atrocity and this is currently under investigation also.