Newsprint price shrinks daily

DILI, East Timor: The monetary crisis and the resulting soaring price of newsprint has forced the local Suara Timor Timur daily to suspend publication temporarily.

The daily will not appear from Jan. 27 until Feb. 2, when it will change the regularity of its publication.

General Manager Salvador JX Soares said yesterday the newspaper would reappear on five days a week instead of six days a week.

He said the paper's management had also decided to temporarily lay off its 51 employees starting Jan. 27.

It will call back 34 employees for the day it resumes publication.

However, Soares said, the daily had promised to summon back all employees if the economic situation improves by April.

He said the daily would reappear with eight pages, in a tabloid format, at Rp 700 per copy. The paper's circulation is 2,500. The population of East Timor is 3,457,000 while Dili's population is some 99,000. (33)