default against both of these defendants. Times Newspapers Limited declined to apologise and ultimately damages were assessed by the Deputy Registrar at K20,000, being K10,000 compensatory and K10,000 exemplary damages. The appeal against this assessment to the Supreme Court was dismissed. Zambia Publishing Company Limited published a retraction and apology and settled for K10,000. At some time or other the plaintiff also issued a writ against Mr Liyoka but no further step has been taken. In October, 1972, plaintiff issued a writ against the appellant in respect of the publication on the radio and television. He had been in correspondence with the Government's legal advisers for some considerable time before the issue of the writ but all he had received from them was a statement that they were taking instructions. No defence wan issued to this writ and plaintiff obtained judgment by default. I may interpose to say that as no defence was entered one may assume against the appellant that no defence was possible. The matter then went for assessment of damages before a judge and the learned judge assessed damages at K30,000, being K10,000 compensatory and K20,000 exemplary damages. It is this assessment which is the subject of this appeal. In making the assessment the learned judge referred to the fact that the plaintiff had already received K30,000. He pointed out that the damage caused by the various media overlapped. Accepting the difficulties of assessing the damages he made an estimate that the total compensatory damages caused by the publications by the newspapers, the radio and the television would amount to K30,000. As the plaintiff had already received K20,000 damages for the damage caused by the newspaper reports, he gave