World Newspaper Cong called off, World Editors Forum postponed

Both the events were scheduled to to be held in Beirut from June 7 to 10. "It is with immense disappointment that we are forced to call off our events in Beirut, but it was simply not possible to go ahead without the commitment of our Lebanese colleagues, who were responsible for security and other significant infrastructural and service expenses," a release from WAN-IFRA said on Tuesday quoting its President Gavin O'Reilly.

The Lebanese newspaper An-Nahar has informed WAN-IFRA that it is unable to provide the agreed funds to host the meet in the wake of the 2009 financial, economic and political crisis in the region. Expenses incurred in hosting the meet were estimated at 1.6 million Euros and could not be covered by registration fees alone, the release said.

The 17th World Editors Forum would now be held in Hamburg, Germany, from October 6 to 8 in conjunction with IFRA Expo from October 4 to 6, it said. WAN-IFRA is the Paris (France) and Darmstadt (Germany) based global organisation of the world newspapers and news publishers with subsidiaries in India, Singapore, France and Sweden. The forum represents more than 18,000 publications, 15,000 online sites and over 3,000 companies in more than 120 countries.