Audit Bureau of Circulations figures out Thursday did not look good for most newspapers in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, as just one in more than 30 weekly Welsh papers reported a sales increase in the second half of 2007, compared to the same period a year before, the Guardian reported.

In some places in Wales, year-on-year circulation decreased by as much as 18.4 percent.

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A new Sunday Zulu newspaper will hit newsstands across KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa on March 30.

Isolezwe ngeSonto, published by Independent Newspapers KwaZulu-Natal, aims to fill a “gap in the market,” as research has shown most readers there don't read newspapers on Sundays, even though Sunday is the preferred day to read a weekend edition.

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Fairfax Digital is finishing its new Web site, codenamed Kwerky, which will target “free-spending hedonists desperate to have their say,” The Sydney Morning Herald, a Fairfax newspaper, reported this week.

The Web site will be launched within weeks, and aims to bring in an audience Fairfax believes other social networking sites, such as Facebook and MySpace, have overlooked, by publishing off-beat news articles, opinions and reviews on music, entertainment, fashion and sport, and let the users review the reviewers, according to The Herald.

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Google’s Print Ads programme, which sells contextual display spaces in print newspapers, is now working with 750 newspapers, according to a speech by Stephanie Davis, head of publisher development for Print Ads, at the NAA Marketing conference in Orlando.

According to Davis, newspapers and Google are helping each other. However, an article on the Local Onliner pointed out that perhaps newspapers need Google more. “Even if CPC rates may be peaking for Google and display is a much needed growth channel,” according to the article.

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The Netherlands took the lead in European broadband penetration in the third quarter of 2006, with a reach of nearly 65 percent, according to Exane BNP Paribas.

In the Nordic countries of Finland and Sweden, the broadband penetration is also high – with nearly 55 percent and over 45 percent respectively, ranked on the second and the third spot.

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