Time magazine apologises to Malaysia

Time magazine apologises to Malaysia

Agencies Kuala Lumpur

Time magazine apologized to Malaysia for an issue picturing the nation's flag and Osama bin Laden on the front cover and a tourism promotion for the country on the back, officials said on Wednesday.

But a Time spokeswoman said the magazine had only apologized for running the tourism advertisement in the Feb. 11 issue and not for the cover story.

The international magazine had also angered the government when the same issue carried a cover picture of the Malaysian flag as the backdrop for a pair of crossed automatic rifles.

The apology comes a week after another U.S.-owned news weekly, the Far Eastern Economic Review (FEER), apologized to the Thai government for misunderstandings a story deemed offensive to its monarchy.

Time is published by a unit of New York-based AOL-Time Warner Inc, while FEER is a publication of Dow Jones & Co.

Malaysia delayed the distribution of Time magazine in the country after being angered by its Feb. 11 issue.

The edition's front cover carried an image of bin Laden, the chief suspect of the September 11 attacks on the United States, together with a pair of automatic rifles over the Malaysian flag alongside the headline "Inside Malaysia's Terror Network".

The back cover featured an advertisement promoting tourism in the country.

Officials said Time had made a mockery of the country.

"The incident has ended, The cabinet is satisfied (with the apology)," Malaysia's Culture, Arts and Tourism Minister Abdul Kadir Sheikh Fadzir was quoted as saying by the official Bernama news agency.

He said Malaysia was 'satisfied' with the apology and will not take legal action against the publication.

"We don't want to take action (against Time). They said it was an error of judgment. It seems the decision to put the cover was made at the last moment," he was quoted by the official Bernama news agency as saying.

He added that Andrew Butcher, Time's London-based publisher, had apologized in a letter.

He said Time's Asian editor Karl Taro Greenfeld and regional marketing manager had also met him and Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi on the matter.

"It's alright if someone says it's a mistake and seeks an apology, we accept it," the minister said.

The cover story described Malaysia as a Southeast Asian financial planning center for the al Qaeda terror group run by bin Laden.

"The placement of the ad was a mistake," Azmar Sukandar, the Hong Kong-based public relations manager for Time Asia, told Reuters.

The issue came on the heels of other foreign magazine reports which had painted Malaysia as a safe house for al Qaeda operatives -- a charge Kuala Lumpur strongly denied.

Last month, the government blocked the distribution of three international news magazines, including Time, apparently out of displeasure over their coverage of issues including Islam and terrorism.

At least four issues of Time, Newsweek and the Far Eastern Economic Review had been withheld for "inaccurate and untrue reporting of the situation in Malaysia," said Deputy Home Minister Chor Chee Heung.

The government, however, denied any crackdown on foreign publications, with the home minister's press secretary Rohaizad Abdul Rahim telling AFP the delays in releasing the magazines could be due to many reasons.