| MUMBAI:
The Iraqi government has ordered the closure of the Baghdad office of a Dubai-based
television station. That is because the newscaster wore black mourning clothes
while reporting on the hanging of Saddham Hussein. A spokesman for the interior
ministry was quoted in media reports saying that the Al-Sharqiya station, owned
by a former chief of radio and television for Hussein, had incited violence and
hatred in its coverage and had ignored warnings to stop. Brigadier Abdul-Karim
Khalaf, the spokesman, said that the order was issued after an allegedly false
report by the news channel about the abduction of three Sunni Arab female students
from a university. Reports add that the order
also followed criticism of the tone of Al-Sharqiya's coverage of Saturday's execution,
which struck some as sympathetic to the ousted dictator. In contrast to state-run
television reports that described Saddam as a 'tyrant' and 'criminal,' a newscaster
on Al-Sharqiya - which means '`The Eastern One' - referred to him as 'president'. | 
