DUBAI, January 22, 2009 (ZAWYA DOW JONES)- The Beirut-based newspaper The Daily Star, the region's oldest English language daily, has stopped publishing after a Lebanese court declared it was bankrupt, Jamil Mroue, the paper’s owner told ZAWYA DOW JONES on Wednesday.

Zawya reported that The Star was in dispute with Standard Chartered Plc over a $1.7 million debt.

Mroue said he is offering a 40% stake in the paper in order to pay off the loan and turn around the bankruptcy ruling. The new stake would be taken from Mroue's existing 80 percent ownership in the paper.

Mroue has approached wealthy individuals and media groups in the region and is waiting for an offer.

The Daily Star’s owner Mroue blames the economic and political upheaval in Lebanon in the last few years as a cause for the paper’s debt, citing the drastic reduction in advertising sales as a clear indication of the economic downturn.

Mroue told ZAWYA that he is appealing the court’s ruling, which he expects “any day now.”

Reporters at the paper told ZAWYA that Lebanese police shut down the newspaper's offices in the middle of the workday on Wednesday January 21.

The paper has been temporarily shut down three times since it was founded in 1952.

(Source: Zawya Dow Jones/Maria Abi-Habib, Dow Jones Copyright (c) 2009 Dow Jones & Co.)