Moscow, 30 October:
Russia’s state-owned radio station The Voice of Russia [Golos Rossii] has launched radio broadcasts on the FM 88 frequency in Afghanistan.
“Blocks of programmes are broadcast daily from 0900 to 1000 and from 1400 to 1500 local time [0530-0630 gmt and 1030-1130 gmt] in Kabul, Herat and Jalalabad,” the Voice of Russia press service told Interfax on Tuesday [30 October]. “The broadcasts are in Pashto and Dari.”
The spokesperson added: “We offer the [Afghan] audience international news, reports on problems in the region, on Moscow’s relations with the Islamic world, programmes on Russian-Afghan relations, on current events in Russia and the life of the Afghan community in the Russian Federation that exceeds 100,000 people.”
The spokesperson said that “the Voice of Russia hopes to become for Afghan listeners a source of up-to-date, objective information about the situation in contemporary Russia, about its foreign and domestic policy”. [Passage omitted to end]
(Source: Interfax news agency, Moscow, in Russian 0728 gmt 30 Oct 07 via BBC Monitoring/R Netherlands Media Netowk Weblog)