Two Arabic dailies cease operations

Two Arabic-language Gulf dailies, Kuwait's Awan and Bahrain's Al Waqt, announced yesterday they are closing down due to economic difficulties.

Awan's editor Mohammed Al Rumeihi said in a front-page article that the newspaper is closing due to "extremely harsh economic reasons", without elaborating. The daily, which published its last edition yesterday, is closing after 30 months of publication.

Kuwait, which will still have 14 Arabic and three English-language newspapers, besides dozens of other publications, saw another daily close more than a year ago due to the impact of the global financial crisis. Assawt was being financed by Investment Dar, a Kuwaiti Islamic investment firm that was severely affected by the downturn.

In Bahrain, Al Waqt daily attributed its closure to the fact that it was unable to increase its income, or "find a strategic partner or… buyer". "It seems that no one in this country wants a national, independent and professional newspaper to continue," the newspaper said in a statement.

The publication, which released its first issue in March 2006, will close today, leaving Bahrain with six Arabic and two English-language newspapers.

From the beginning, Al Waqt suffered financial difficulties, which were later aggravated by the financial crisis that impacted an already-limited advertising market in the small country. In 2007, the paper won the Arab Journalism Award for political investigative reports.

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