WASHINGTON, December 23, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – The United States has suspended an Arabic-language lifestyle magazine aimed at improving its image in the Arab and Muslim worlds.

Hi, a monthly launched in July 2003 after the US invasion of Iraq, was suspended "to assess whether the magazine is meeting its objective effectively," said a State Department statement cited by Agence France Presse (AFP).

"The purpose of this review will be to develop quantitative data on how broadly Hi magazine is reaching its intended audience," added the statement.

The magazine, which had been distributing 55,000 copies in 18 countries, although 95 percent were given way for free, was intended as a "window on American culture" targeting Arabs between 18 and 35 years old.

Hi eschewed political content for puff pieces on subjects ranging from Internet dating to rock climbing, yoga and sand-boarding.

Published by a private Washington-based company with US Department backing, the monthly was part of a general US public relations campaign to improve its badly battered image in the Arab and Muslim world.

The US effort also featured the creation of the Sawa radio station and AlHurra television, both funded by the US Congress.

US officials said Karen Hughes, Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy, ordered the review after her latest tours in some Arab and Muslim countries.

"She wanted to step back, take a look and see if we were actually effective in reaching our intended audience with this particular vehicle, Hi magazine," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.

"Part of what she wants to do is see if we are actually being effective in getting our message across to the intended audience."

Asked when the magazine might resume publication, McCormack said "there's not a projected restart date at this point."

Hughes, a close confidante and image-shaper of President George W. Bush, was recently tasked with polishing the badly smeared US image in the Arab and Muslim worlds.

She has no previous experience in foreign diplomacy other than accompanying Bush abroad during trips in the first years of his presidency.

Despite suspension of the magazine's printed edition, its Web site, posted in Arabic and English, will remain active, McCormak said.

A December edition of the online version features stories on Bush's home state of Texas, AIDS, special visual effects and an interview with a chef in a suburban Washington restaurant.

The magazine, as other US public relations tools, had been severely criticized by many Arab dailies and media men.

"Many critics think the magazine is too naive to be anything other than an exercise in brainwashing," Egypt's Al-Ahram Weekly wrote shortly after Hi hit the Arab streets.

Rami G. Khouri, executive editor of Lebanon's The Daily Star, last year called the magazine and other US-funded media outlets in the Arab world "entertaining, expensive, and irrelevant".

"Where do they get this stuff from? Why do they keep insulting us like this?" he wrote.

The US-based journal Middle East Report was equally downbeat in a September 2003 review.

"In its present form, Hi suggests to its target readership that the US administration has no substantive reply to sincere questions about US policy, nor even to adult questions about US society and culture," it said.