Time's Up For Sale Of Fiji Paper

Time's Up For Sale Of Fiji Paper

http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/times-up-for-sale-of-fiji-paper-20100826-13t3i.html

By Nicky Park, South Pacific correspondent

SYDNEY (Sydney Morning Herald/AAP/Pacific Media Watch): The deadline for News Ltd to sell or close its local newspaper in Fiji has been reached.

Fiji's self-appointed Prime Minister Commodore Frank Bainimarama has been tightening controls on the media since he overthrew the elected government in a bloodless coup in 2006.

In his latest move announced in June this year, Commodore Bainimarama decreed that the Fiji Times - owned by Rupert Murdoch's Australian arm - must be 90 percent locally owned in three months - a deadline which expired on Thursday.

News Ltd recruited PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC) to handle the sale.

PWC informed the paper's publisher, Anne Fussell, that a number of expressions of interest had been received, the Fiji Times reported earlier this month.

PWC would not give any other details about the parties interested in Fiji's oldest newspaper, or reveal how many there were, but said it would select those which fit the criteria of the sale, the Fiji Times reported.

Fussell was "not giving interviews about that at this point in time", the publisher's office told AAP on Thursday morning.

A spokeswoman for PWC told AAP they didn't make "any comment about client work" and attempts to contact News Ltd were unsuccessful.

Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith condemned the decree as an assault on freedom of speech and said it would deter investment in Fiji.

But Fiji's Permanent Secretary for Information, Sharon Smith-Johns, slammed critics, saying the decree would empower the people of Fiji.

Last year, Commodore Bainimarama sent censors into newsrooms to prevent "negative" stories being reported after sacking the judiciary and voiding the constitution.

ENDS

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