BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

Jan 26, 2006

EU announces project to broadcast news to Belarus

The European Commission has announced plans to broadcast independent news for the people of Belarus, even while their president has vowed to fight it with pro-government propaganda.

The EU executive body said on January 26 that it had awarded a EU?2 million (about US$2.4 million) contract to a media consortium that will begin operations in February. The consortium includes broadcasting companies in Germany, Lithuania, Poland and Russia. It will broadcast via satellite from Germany, with programs in Belarusian and Russian.

The purpose of the project is to create a counterbalance to President Alexander Lukashenko's control over state-owned media in Belarus. The idea is to provide independent news coverage of the upcoming presidential elections, currently scheduled for March 19.

But Lukashenko has already promised to use the government-run media to launch "a counter-propaganda offensive," news services reported.

Meanwhile, Deutsche Welle Radio is continuing its one-year, EU?138,000 contract to broadcast via radio and Internet into Belarus. That project, which began November 1, provides 15-minute weekday broadcasts in Russian, plus online pages in Belarusian. The content focuses on issues of democracy and human rights in Europe.

The programs are part of increased EU efforts to support democratic civil society in Belarus.

European Commission: http://tinyurl.com/arnp6. EUobserver.com: http://euobserver.com/9/20776. Deutsche Welle Belarus: http://www.dw-world.de/dw/0,2142,9500,00.html. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty: http://tinyurl.com/79tfv.

Source:

http://www.ijnet.org/FE_Article/newsarticle.asp?UILang=1&CId=304423&CIdLang=1

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