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OTHER
MEDIA NEWS
I. Russia: ORT
launches international digital satellite TV channel.
From 27th September 1999 Russian Public Television
[ORT] will be available to all Russian-speaking viewers
in Europe. The new channel, ORT-International, will
feature in the digital TV package offered to the European
viewer by the Norwegian Telenor company.
ORT-International
will be broadcast in digital from the Norwegian Thor-3
satellite. This satellite, at 1 degree west, covers an
area stretching from the east coast of Britain to Moscow
and from Scandinavia to Turkey. People living in central
and eastern Europe will be the first viewers of
ORT’s international version. In the long term it
will cover Israel, the whole of Europe and Australia.
ORT-International
will be of particular interest to Russian-speaking
foreigners, the Russian diaspora and compatriots abroad.
Hotels will be equipped with satellite dishes to pick up
the channel, and the digital standard will ensure
high-quality reception. It will also squeeze out pirate
showings of ORT programmes.
ORT-International’s
broadcasting schedule consists of Russian Public
Television programmes and archive broadcasts that have
been transmitted on the first TV channel [ORTV1] at
various times. ORT-International viewers will see both
ORT premieres (“S legkim parom,”
“Protsess” [Trial] “Vremya i my”
[Time and us] and so on) and the long-loved
“Vzglyad” [View], “Pole chudes”
[Field of wonders] and “Tema” [Theme],
“Chtoby pomnili” [Lest we forget] and
“Zhenskiye istorii” [Women’s stories] and
the old favourites “Kabachok 13 stulyev” [Inn
of the 13 chairs], “Vokrug smekha” [Around the
laughter], “Vstrechi v kontsertnoy studii
‘Ostankino’” [Meetings in the Ostankino
concert studio] and other programmes. The founders of the
channel want it to interest people of all ages.
The
cinema will be represented by contemporary Russian films
(“Brat” [Brother] , “Vremya tantsora”
[The dancer’s time], “Vsye budet khorosho”
[Everything will be fine], “Vozvrashcheniye
bronenostsa” [Return of the iron-clad],
“Osobennosti nationalnoy rybalki” [The special
features of the nation’s fishing] and others), the
best films of the Soviet era and films produced by the
national [i.e. non-Russian] studios and the serials
“Semnadsat mgnoveniy vesny” [Seventeen moments
of spring] and “Mesto vstrechi izmenit nelzya”
[The meeting place cannot be changed], “Bolshaya
peremena” [The big break] and others.
ORT-International
will relay all ORT news bulletins in real time. For
example, the “Vremya” programme [screened at
2100 Moscow time, 1700 gmt] will be seen at 1900 Central
European Time [1700 gmt].
ORT-International’s
formal opening ceremony will take place on 29th-30th
September at the international “Video and
Audio” exhibition in St Petersburg. (Russian Public
TV web site, Moscow, 28 September 1999)
II. Iran:
New agency to cover university news.
The first student news agency—set up to cover
cultural, social, political and scientific news about
universities all over the country—is to begin its
operation on 13th Aban [4th November 1999].
Announcing
this during a visit to Orumiyeh, the head of the
University Jihad [campaign] added: “The planned news
agency will collect all relevant news items about the
activities of universities throughout the country.
University
students will help in the collection and compilation of
news about the universities’ work on social,
economic, cultural and scientific affairs all over the
country. Then all the news gathered will be collected and
edited for publication from a centre in Tehran.”
Ali
Montazeri [head of the University Jihad] said that the
permit to set up this news agency has already been
obtained from the Ministry of Islamic Guidance and
Culture. Now work is in progress to set up a news network
and other infrastructure.
According
to Ali Montazeri, subscribers will be able to receive the
news items published by the news agency directly.
Additionally, according to an agreement with IRNA, the
newly set-up agency will have an independent line for the
general distribution of its news items.
On
recent events at the Tehran University halls of
residence, he said: “In all these matters, the
University Jihad supports the stances of the eminent
leader of the Islamic revolution [Khamene’i] and the
president of the republic [Khatami].”
(‘Abrar’, Tehran, 11 September 1999)
III. Iraqi
authorities promise limited access to satellite TV.
The long-standing Iraqi ban on satellite dishes may
be about to give way to an arrangement in which people
who can afford it are allowed to subscribe to a
government-controlled network of satellite television
channels. The official Iraqi News Agency reported the
decision on October 6, after a meeting of the Iraqi
cabinet chaired by the country’s president, Saddam
Hussein.
The
announcement said only that the Ministry of Culture and
Information would set up and supervise the network. It
did not say which channels would be included, when the
scheme would start, or how Iraq, which has been under UN
trade sanctions since it invaded Kuwait in 1990, expected
to procure the necessary equipment. Iraqis are currently
denied access even to professional journals,
international newspapers, books, writing materials and
computers because the UN Sanctions Committee considers
these items to be “non-essential.”
Violators
of the Iraqi government’s own ban on satellite
dishes face a prison term of six months and a steep fine.
Yet the Iraqi authorities operate their own satellite
channel, launched from Egypt’s Nilesat in July 1998.
The most-watched terrestrial channel in Iraq is Shabab
(Youth) TV, owned by Saddam Hussein’s eldest son,
Udai.
IV. Seychelles:
FEBA to carry Christian programming in Special English.
Programmes in Specialised English begin from FEBA
Seychelles during the first week in November. They are
the first Christian programmes of this type, helping
listeners to develop their English and learn about the
Gospel.
Specialised
English uses a simple vocabulary of 1,500 carefully
chosen words and is spoken at a speed of 90 words per
minute, about half the speed we normally speak. It’s
been an exciting summer seeing the pilot series come
together at FEBA’s Worthing studios, but this is an
international project. David Bast, a member of the team,
explains why he became involved: Hunger for
English—second or third language of 500 million
people!
"I
wanted to move towards some kind of programming that
would capitalise on the desire people have to learn
English,” he says. Once, while travelling in China,
he switched on the TV and discovered a programme teaching
English. “That really started me thinking about this
hunger so many people have. An estimated 500m people
worldwide speak English as a second or third
language.”
Misconception
A
possible problem in developing English programmes for
non-English speakers is the misconception that they could
be imposing Western culture upon listeners. In reality
English has become international, and Christianity is
worldwide. This wrong idea has been minimised by
producing the programmes internationally using
non-western presenters. It is also being explained that
English is not the original language of the Bible.
“We
are trying out lots of different things in this pilot
series,” says series producer Mike Procter,
“like a feature on English sayings such as
‘thorn in the flesh’ or ‘the eleventh
hour’, some of which come from the Bible. There is
straightforward biblical material and some fun things as
well. Increasingly we will be doing humanitarian
features. We have already done one about a water pump for
use in developing countries, operated by people sitting
on a seesaw.”
[Footnote:
The broadcasts now beginning from Seychelles are to the
Middle East. Sister mission FEBC expects to start
broadcasting Specialised English from their international
short wave station in Manila into China around the same
time. Specialised English has a web0 site,
http://www.special.english.net supporting the programmes.
It has a dictionary of Specialised English words,
programme scripts, Real Audio programme excerpts and
other resources.] (FEBA Radio press release, Worthing, 22
September 1999)
V. Palestinian
sources pledge to reopen Ru’ah TV.
The Israeli authorities have barred a Ru’ah
Television delegation from travelling to Gaza to
participate in a ceremony held by the Journalists’
Union there to mark the Palestinian journalists day on
26th September. The union was scheduled to grant a
certificate to Ru’ah television in recognition of
its positive role in support of journalism and
journalists.
It is
worth noting that Ru’ah Television was ranked first
in Bethlehem Governorate in a recently-published media
survey conducted by the Central Statistics Office.
Na’im
al-Tubasi, the president of the Journalists’ Union,
said he had received firm pledges from high-ranking
Palestinian sources to reopen Ru’ah Television,
which has been closed for approximately five months, on
the Palestinian journalists’ day. [According to a
report by the Palestinian newspaper
‘Al-Risalah’ dated 1st July 1999, the station
was closed without an official court order]
Captain
Peter Lerner, the civil administration spokesman in the
West Bank, said that the three people who were denied
entrance to Gaza did not say that they were journalists;
they did not give reasons why they wanted to travel
there; nor did they say that they were to be granted a
certificate of recognition from the Journalists’
Union. He added that the civil administration allows
Palestinian journalists who have official press IDs to
travel freely, and in emergencies it allows journalists
free transit between the West Bank and Gaza.
(‘Al-Quds’ web site, Jerusalem, 27 September
1999)
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