Daily News set to rise from ashes

Daily News set to rise from ashes

FORMER Daily News lawyer Gugulethu Moyo holding a special edition of The Daily News

• Supreme Court clears way for Daily News return

• Daily News ordered to pay £2bln to retrenched workers

• Daily News wins defamation suit against Moyo

• Judge offered farm to shut down Daily News

• Zim judge quits, goes into exile

• Zim jail threat for Daily News journos

• ANZ sues Moyo, Herald

• Moyo 'to fill jails with lying journalists'

• High Court orders police to quit Daily News

• Mugabe undermining judiciary

• Strive Masiyiwa, building of empire

• Police storm Daily News Press

• Judge gives Daily News green light

• Daily News publishes in Nigeria

• Masiyiwa vows to fight to 'last drop'

By Staff Reporter

THE banned Daily News' publishers expressed hope Friday that they could soon resume publication following a "positive" meeting with members of a state-run media body which had ordered the newspaper's closure.

"We are quite optimistic we will be given the licence this time," said Innocent Kurwa, a spokesperson for Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe (ANZ) which published The Daily News and its sister paper The Daily News on Sunday.

"We had a meeting with the Media and Information Commission which in our view was very positive," he told AFP.

Kurwa said the media commission had asked ANZ to furnish information on the company's finances and shareholding and financial projections.

"We are now putting together all the requested information which we have agreed to submit though it's not a legal requirement that an application should be accompanied by such information," Kurwa said.

"Everything seems to suggest that we are going to get the licence. We don't think the MIC would ask us for all that information if they were going to reject our application.

The Daily News, known for its anti-government line, and its sister paper, The Daily News on Sunday, were closed down in September 2003 on charges they violated the country's tough media laws.

On March 14, Zimbabwe's Supreme Court set aside the government commission's refusal to register the two newspapers.

The court however upheld several sections of Zimbabwe's tough media law which have been invoked to ban four independent newspapers, deport several foreign correspondents and arrest scores of journalists.

Zimbabwe's new information minister Tichaona Jokonya said two weeks ago no newspaper would be denied a licence if it meets all registration requirements.
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