`Time' magazine returns next week

`Time' magazine returns next week

JAKARTA (JP): The U.S. publication Time magazine will reach
its readers in Indonesia again next week after being absent for
the past three weeks, the magazine's local distributor announced
yesterday.

Iwan Wijaya, general manager of PT Gunung Agung, the
magazine's sole distributor for the country said that Time's
distribution had been halted because of problems with the
publisher's representative in Hong Kong.

"Now everything has been settled and subscribers should
receive their magazine again on Monday," Iwan told The Jakarta
Post by phone.

He said the absence of the Time's July 11, July 18 and July 25
editions had nothing to do with the contents as some had
speculated.

"It's purely a business matter," he said, emphasizing that the
publisher's representatives and his office had conducted intense
negotiations to resolve the problem.

Subscribers in Indonesia will not receive the three missing
editions, and instead they will receive three additional editions
at the end of the subscription, Iwan said.

Regarding the July 11 edition, which reportedly carried an
article on Indonesia about street protests against the closure of
Detik, Tempo and Editor magazines, Iwan said
the distributor knew nothing about this.

The edition was never sent by Time's printing company in
Singapore, he said. "How can we know about the contents when the
edition was never sent to us."

Even the Ministry of Information, from which the distributor
often receive directives, did not obtain a copy of that edition.

Time magazine has a circulation of around 12,000 copies in
Indonesia with PT Gunung Agung serving as the distributor since
the late 1970s. (par)