Paris - The press freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders Wednesday strongly criticized the Algerian government's decision to ban three French publications in the run-up to Thursday's election.

"This censorship is disgraceful," the group said in a statement about the repression of the current issues of the weeklies L'Express, Marianne and Le Journal du Dimanche.

The ban "constitutes a denial of press freedom and therefore a denial of democracy," the organization said.

Washington  - Newspapers on Monday published the first photographs of the flag draped casket of a killed member of the military being returned to the United States since a ban on the images went into effect in 1991.

A military honour guard was seen carrying the casket of Air Force Staff Sergeant Phillip Myers off an airplane at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware late Sunday. He was killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan on Saturday.

New York  - The Sun-Times Media Group Inc, owner of the Chicago Sun Times and more than 50 other US newspapers, filed for bankruptcy protection Tuesday as it became the latest casualty of the advertising slump that is wreaking havoc throughout the newspaper industry.

The company said it would continue to operate as usual as it tries to stabilize its operations, though it said it was ordering all non- union employees to take a week of unpaid leave in April or May. The company listed assets of 479 million dollars and debts of 801 million dollars.

New York - The two most prestigious newspapers in the United States both announced job cuts Thursday in a dramatic sign of how the recession and the rise of the internet is eroding the newspaper industry.

The New York Times said it was eliminating 100 positions and lowering the salaries of all non-union employees by 5 per cent for the rest of the year, due to sharply declining revenues. All the job cuts are administrative, but the company warned that it would be forced to eliminate newsroom positions if the union did not agree to similar pay cuts.

Munich  - A German court on Wednesday partially lifted a ban on a British publisher giving out reprints of old Nazi newspapers.

The restriction was imposed by the state of Bavaria, which argued it had copyright over the newspapers.

The district court in Munich ruled that Peter McGee's popular history series Zeitungszeugen could include reprints dating to the end of 1938 but not later.

Earlier this year, police confiscated thousands of copies of Zeitungszeugen that contained republished facsimiles of Nazi-era papers.

Amman  - The trial of prominent Jordanian columnist Khaled Mahadin who has been charged with "slandering" the lower house of Parliament got under way on Thursday, according to judicial sources.

The chamber's Permanent Bureau last week filed a lawsuit against Mahadin, accusing him of defaming the House of Representatives in a recent online newspaper article.

Mahadin, 63, denied the charge, saying that he had "only criticized the house's performance." The case was adjourned to March 30.