Al Jazeera reported yesterday that the editor of the Jordanian newspaper al Ghad, Amad al Hamoud, has been fired by the papers' administrative council in light of the firestorm of controversy surrounding the story about the Jordanians celebrating the suicide bombing in Hilla. As you probably know, the story sparked a diplomatic crisis between Iraq and Jordan. The reporter on the story still faces charges on the grounds of harming relations with a friendly state, as far as I know, and the editor of the section in which it appeared already resigned. Hamoud will be replaced with Ayman al Safadi, who some Jordan-watchers might remember from his Jordan Times days.
Hamoud is a decent fellow and a shame he is being sacked in what seems as still another effort to defuse the Jordan-Iraq crisis. Ayman Safadi is a superb journalist and editor who also had the unenviable task of being the King's spokesman a few years ago (he was very good there too), hopefully he will be allowed to do the job at Al-Ghad without too much interference.
Posted by: Ghurab al-Bain | March 30, 2005 at 08:59 AM
Hamoud is a decent fellow and a shame he is being sacked in what seems as still another effort to defuse the Jordan-Iraq crisis. Ayman Safadi is a superb journalist and editor who also had the unenviable task of being the King's spokesman a few years ago (he was very good there too), hopefully he will be allowed to do the job at Al-Ghad without too much interference.
Posted by: Ghurab al-Bain | March 30, 2005 at 08:59 AM
Jazeera's program "al Mashad al 3iraqi" this weekend had a SCIRI representative on claiming that the king had actually gone and personally given his condolences to the alleged bombers' family. I only caught clips so I don't know if this was ever refuted, but it was stated repeatedly by the SCIRI person. Where did this rumor get started? It seems so obviously wrong, but in an atmosphere like today's it's not hard to see how such things fly.
Posted by: Learnfirst | March 30, 2005 at 09:39 AM