Zimbabwe: Judge 'fast-tracks' Daily News bid

Zimbabwe's chief justice, Godfrey Chidyausiku, has "fast-tracked" an application by the state's media watchdog for the independent Daily News to be shut down until the courts hear a comprehensive appeal over the legality of official press controls, lawyers said. Gugulethu Moyo, legal adviser to Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe which owns the Daily News, said Chidyausiku, widely seen as a government supporter, had decided to hear an "urgent application" from the government-appointed Media and Information Commission in his chambers. The commission is asking Chidyausiku to bar the Daily News from publishing until the court hears the commission's appeal against a high court ruling in October that dissolved the commission on the grounds that it was "biased" and "improperly constituted."