Renewed vigilance by the Home Affairs Ministry to check foreign media has resulted in long delays to the distribution of several international news magazines.

Several issues of Time, Newsweek and The Economist have been delayed pending approval for distribution since last month.

According to an official with distributor Magazine Services, several issues of Time and Newsweek were delayed up to more than a month before being given the green light, while four issues of The Economist have been withheld consecutively since March 30.

The March 30 issue of The Economist carried an article entitled Doom and gloom for Daims boys which alleged that the government of Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad was cracking down on several protgs of former finance minister Daim Zainuddin after falling out with the latter.

The troubled businessmen named in the article were former Renong chief executive officer Halim Saad and the former CEO of Malaysia Airlines, Tajudin Ramli.

Three subsequent editions of the magazine did not appear to have any specific articles on Malaysia but contained substantial coverage on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Prolonged delays

Magazine Services also said the March 11 and April 8 issues of both Newsweek and Time were released for distribution only on April 17.

However, the two latest issues of the magazines are still held up at the Home Affairs Ministry.

When asked if there were any reasons for the holdups, Magazines Services did not elaborate, but said the ministry had been checking all types of foreign publications.

The delays in distribution of foreign magazines prolonged after the ministry took offence to several articles published by Time and Newsweek in February linking Malaysia to the Sept 11 terrorist attacks in the United States, among other controversial issues. The issues on Malaysias terrorist connections were banned.

In January, The Far Eastern Economic Review also evoked the ire of censors after it published a snippet suggesting that Mahathir may have met secretly with his nemesis, former deputy premier Anwar Ibrahim, to broker a peace deal.