Despite significant investment and ambitious plans, the paper struggled to gain a substantial readership and was ultimately forced to shut down after only five months in circulation.
[3] Maxwell admitted defeat on 25 July 1987 an hour after paying undisclosed damages to Associated Newspapers for accusing it of lying about the Evening Standard's circulation figures.
[4] His paper was “selling less than 100,000 copies, when minimum sales targets were 200,000 by this time", Reuters reported Maxwell as commenting.
[4] The paper exposed a scandal relating to war crimes in Sri Lanka when it revealed and confirmed the presence of British mercenaries of the secret KMS unit working with Sri Lankan troops, and the subsequent termination of this following the discovery of atrocities committed against the Tamil population.
The KMS mercenaries walked out after complaining that the Sri Lankan Special Task Force "was running out of control and was indiscriminately killing and torturing Tamil civilians".