The Jordan Army newspaper Al-Aqsa, formerly a weekly, is now being published every day to fill the void left by the disappearance of other papers in the recent civil war. Jordan had two daily papers and two weeklies, in addition to the revolutionary papers El-Fatah and El-Shararah.

Al-Aqsa was originally an amateur newspaper produced solely for reading by the army. But the increased influence of El-Fatah in recent years gave Al-Aqsa a winder readership as the paper with the opposing view. During the recent war, all the mass media suffered. Television ceased to be transmitted. Only radio survived the civil war in running order. Today the television programmes are returning to normal but the former daily newspapers are not being published.

SYNOPSIS: In the office of Al-Aqsa, the Jordan army newspaper, in Amman, the army's former part-time journalists are facing up to the problems of daily journalism. Al-Aqsa has become a daily newspaper. It was originally an amateur paper, solely for army readership; then it became the voice of the Jordan army in support of Kind Hussein.

Now it very limited resources are meeting the challenges of publishing every day and carrying the news that was formerly carried by two Jordan daily papers.

Army compositors, typesetters, printers and machine minders are adding still more skills to their military training as they guide their newspaper through the presses.

In Jordan, Al-Aqsa sells for ten fils a copy. And the army are at present producing 12,000 copies a day. If the other newspapers do not reappear, Al-Aqsa may well become the voice of the present regime in Jordan.

For the time being, Al-Aqsa is the only newspaper on sale in Amman. The distribution of Arabic newspapers from abroad has not yet recovered from the fighting.