EurAsia.net reports that plans to eliminate the Voice of America’s Uzbek language service are likely to be shelved due to opposition in both houses of the US Congress. The House of Representatives and the Senate have recommended “sufficient funding to fully restore the reductions proposed in the fiscal year 2008″ and “continuing broadcasting which the administration proposed for language service reduction,” including Uzbek.
In June, the House Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs recommended a budget allocation of $194 million to the Voice of America — $22.5 million more than the station’s 2007 budget and $15.7 million more than the 2008 request from the Board of Broadcasting Governors (BBG) who manages VOA and RFE/RL. In July, the Senate’s Subcommittee for State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs recommended a budget of $187 million for VOA, some $8.7 million more than the 2008 request from the BBG.
A joint House-Senate conference will address the existing $7 million discrepancy in the two proposed budgets, and come up with a unified spending bill. According to a spokeswoman for the Senate Committee on Appropriations, “the conference committee should definitely happen before Christmas. We can’t say exactly when, but the sooner the better. Senator [Robert] Byrd, [a West Virginia Democrat and the committee’s chairman], is anxious to get the bill through.”
(R Netherlands Media Network Weblog)