Time editor-at-large and CNN host Fareed Zakaria has been suspended by both the magazine and the network for lifting several paragraphs by another writer for his use in a recent Time column.

The international columnist and television anchor immediately apologised, saying he had made a 'terrible mistake,' adding that 'it is a serious lapse and one that is entirely my fault.'

In a separate statement, Time spokesman Ali Zelenko said the magazine accepts Zakaria's apology, but would suspend his column for one month, 'pending further review.'

Shortly afterward, CNN said it had removed from the network's website a blog post that 'included similar unattributed excerpts,' and has taken Zakaria off air indefinitely.

Several sections of Zakaria's August 20 column titled 'The Case for Gun Control' appeared to have been taken from an article published April by Harvard University History professor Jill Lepore in The New Yorker magazine, reports The Telegraph.

One paragraph began: "Adam Winkler, a professor of constitutional law at UCLA, documents the actual history in 'Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America.' Guns were regulated in the US from the earliest years of the Republic."

A corresponding passage in Lenore's New Yorker essay, titled 'Battleground America,' begins: "As Adam Winkler, a constitutional law scholar at UCLA, demonstrates in a remarkably nuanced new book, 'Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America,' firearms have been regulated in the United States from the start."

The similarities were spotted by reporters and when confronted Mr Zakaria released a statement: 'Media reporters have pointed out that paragraphs in my Time column this week bear close similarities to paragraphs in Jill Lepore's essay in the April 23 issue of The New Yorker. They are right. I made a terrible mistake. It is a serious lapse and one that is entirely my fault. I apologize unreservedly to her, to my editors at Time, and to my readers'.

The plagiarism claims have invoked the debate of journalistic ethics once again. Not long ago, Jonah Lehrer, a young science writer, resigned from the New Yorker after it was revealed he had fabricated quotes attributed to Bob Dylan.