AMMAN: Jordan’s largest daily, the government-owned Al Rai, and its sister newspaper suspended publication yesterday after staff held a one-day strike in protest at state “interference”. “Al Rai and Jordan Times did not publish today after employees at the Jordan Press Foundation, which publishes the two dailies, observed a one-day strike on Monday,” Al Rai said on its website.
The unprecedented strike “came in protest at government interference and procrastination in implementing a 2011 labour agreement” on salaries, it said.
The Jordan Times, in a separate statement, said the action was taken after the appointment of a new board of directors headed by former interior minister Mazen Saket, described by the strikers as an “enemy of press freedoms”.
The employees of the papers, which were launched in the 1970s, also criticised Prime Minister Abdullah Nsur.
Workers “have started a boycott of the news of the prime minister and his government, citing the negative responses they have received from the government” to their demands, the English-language daily said.
ADDIS ABABA: Three Ethiopians have been killed in Saudi Arabia when violence broke out between police and illegal immigrants preparing to return home, Ethiopian officials said yesterday.
Each year, large numbers of Ethiopians move to the Middle East looking for jobs, often as domestic workers. Saudi Arabia is among the preferred destinations.
“The act of killing innocent civilians is uncalled for, we condemn that,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Dina Mufti told reporters, saying he had been informed of the death of three Ethiopian citizens.
“We have asked also for an investigation into the killings,” he said, adding that Addis Ababa had dispatched a team to Saudi Arabia to take care of Ethiopians there, and either register them or bring them home.AFP
