Russia’s first news channel to broadcast in Arabic, “Rusiya al-Yaum”, has been launched in Moscow. It began its service on Friday today at 0300 UTC. The channel, set up by Russian news agency Ria-Novosti, will transmit daily via satellite 20 hours a day, from 0300-2300 UTC. Around 500 people have been employed, including about a hundred journalists from Arabic-speaking countries.
Its Editor-in-Chief, Evgeny Sidorov, says they aim to present up-to-date information on all parts of Russian life, focusing on the country’s relations with the Middle East. “We’re going to inform our audience, that we potentially estimate to be around 300-350 million people, about what’s life in Russia like, about all the main events happening in Russia,” explained Mr Sidorov.
“We’re going to cover not only political events but also economy, sports and culture. Apart from news, our programme includes many other items - talk shows, weekly analytical programmes, special reports and documentaries. We hope all this will allow our audience to learn more about our country and to present Russia’s position on many important issues to Arabic viewers all over the world,” says the Editor-in-Chief.
(Source: Russia Today/R Netherlands Media Network Weblog)