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VOA begins special Zimbabwe broadcasts
Washington Foreign Press Center Announcement, Washington, D.C.
January 28, 2003

The Voice of America (VOA) yesterday launched a new, five-day-a-week, half-hour English-language program for Zimbabwe called Studio 7.

The new program provides listeners with accurate, balanced world and U.S. news and information along with reports from Zimbabwe and the region. Health reports on subjects such as AIDS, polio, and child nutrition will be regular features.

The new program, which can be heard on shortwave and medium wave (AM) from 7:30 to 8:00 p.m. Zimbabwe time and on demand on the Internet at www.voanews.com/EnglishtoAfrica, provides listeners with accurate, balanced world and U.S. news and information along with reports from Zimbabwe and the region. Health reports on subjects such as AIDS, polio, and child nutrition will be regular features.

"Our new programming will be for all Zimbabweans," said VOA Director David Jackson. "We'll offer news and information about issues that matter to them and to their lives. Free, credible and unbiased information is sorely needed in Zimbabwe to counteract the government repression of media there."

The VOA Zimbabwe Broadcasting Project, which will eventually expand to one hour every day with programming in English, Shona, and Ndebele, is funded by a grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

VOA has hired a group of journalists specifically for the project, including Ray Choto, one of Zimbabwe's best known print journalists. Mr. Choto, formerly the principal reporter for the Standard newspaper in Harare, was arrested in 1999 for allegedly violating Zimbabwe's Law and Order Act, which prohibited journalists from writing and publishing information "likely to cause alarm and despondency among members of the public."

VOA, which first went on the air in February 24, 1942, is a multimedia broadcasting service funded by the U.S. government. VOA broadcasts more than 1,000 hours of news, information, educational, and cultural programming every week to a worldwide audience of 94 million people. Programs are produced in English and 52 other languages.

For more information, please contact the Office of External Affairs:

(202) 401-7000, or email pubaff@ibb.gov

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