Freedom House, RFE/RL will remain engaged with Uzbekistan

27 February 2006

Representatives of Freedom House and RFE/RL, Inc. came together late last week to discuss the major challenges they and other NGOs face in continuing their operations in Uzbekistan. Branka Sesto and Thomas Melia of Freedom House, and Jeffrey Trimble of RFE/RL agreed that their organizations will not abandon their mission to promote democratic reform in Uzbekistan and other countries in Central Asia.

Branka Sesto, Uzbekistan Project Director for Freedom House, said the Uzbek government shut down all of Freedom House’s operations in the country within recent weeks, after a sustained campaign that included bringing a criminal case against the organization for providing Internet access to Uzbek human rights activists. Although Freedom House fought the government’s charges in Uzbek courts, it lost its appeals. Sesto noted that civil society programs Freedom House supported in Uzbekistan included a “civil coalition against torture,” since there is “systematic torture in Uzbekistan” and the government engages widespread human rights violations. She pledged that Freedom House will continue to try to assist the human rights movement of Uzbekistan, since “human rights is not a question of sovereignty, but an achievement of civilization” from which the people of Uzbekistan also deserve to benefit.

Thomas Melia, Deputy Executive Director for Freedom House, said “there is a coordinated campaign” across a number of countries, even continents, to question the “very premises of democracy promotion,” so that what has happened in Uzbekistan should not be viewed as an isolated assault on human and civic rights. Melia said that authoritarian governments are known to correspond with each other and discuss each other’s laws. For example, Melia said, the recent bill on non-governmental organizations (NGOs) passed by the Russian government is part of this campaign to criminalize NGO activities and de-legitimize them in Russian society. In addition, Melia said, the Uzbek government is seeking “to isolate [Uzbek] human rights groups from the international support network,” which includes Freedom House. Melia said that he believes the Uzbek government had “pretended” to support the development of a civic society in the past, but has now stopped.

Jeffrey Trimble, Acting President of RFE/RL, said a feeling of “back to the future” exists today in Uzbekistan and the surrounding region. The Uzbek government, in a letter dated December 12, Trimble said, officially notified RFE/RL that it was not renewing the accreditation of RFE/RL’s Tashkent bureau. He noted that, although RFE/RL’s Uzbek correspondents had been harassed, even beaten, over the last few years, the political climate had “changed dramatically after Andijon.” RFE/RL’s correspondent Nosir Zakirov had received a six month sentence and is still in prison for allegedly insulting an Uzbek government official over the phone, he added. Trimble said RFE/RL will continue to broadcast, despite the loss of access to the country: “We remain determined to work for the people of Uzbekistan.” He agreed with his Freedom House colleagues that it is becoming more difficult for journalists to work in the wider region, citing conditions at RFE/RL’s Moscow bureau, where correspondents working for the Uzbek Service have faced intimidation and physical threats from Russian officials.

SES GLOBAL Africa completes first successful year

27 February 2006

SES ASTRA, an SES GLOBAL company (Euronext Paris and Luxembourg Stock Exchange: SESG), has announced that SES GLOBAL AFRICA has successfully extended its services into the African continent in 2005. By the end of last year, eight out of 41 commercially available transponders into the African continent have contributed to 2005 group revenues, bringing the utilisation to 20 per cent by year-end.

SES operations in Africa comprise 33 transponders utilising the African beam of the ASTRA 4A satellite at the orbital position 37.5° West as well as eight steerable Ku-band transponders on the ASTRA 2B satellite at the orbital position 28.2° East. On these satellites, SES GLOBAL AFRICA successfully concluded contracts with the telecommunications and satellite services providers GS Telecom, Skyvision, DCC Satellite & Network Nigeria, Accelon, Emperion and Unitel Hellas as well as with SES AMERICOM. Along with its partner Industrial Development Cooperation (IDC) of South Africa, SES is shareholder in Accelon which has commenced offering satellite solutions to Western Africa using the ASTRA 2B African capacity.

“We are proud and satisfied that our ASTRA 4A satellite is a tremendous success in its first year of commercial use and that further demand for our offer is strong”, says Alexander Oudendijk, Senior Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer of SES ASTRA. “By closing several important customer contracts, ASTRA 4A has become the satellite of choice for broadband and telecommunication operators across many African countries.”

Commercial operation of ASTRA 4A commenced during June 2005. In the Americas, ASTRA 4A is known as AMC-12. ASTRA 4A has a high-powered C band payload which allows the use of smaller terminals and greater data throughput, making it ideally suited to data, telecommunications and broadcast applications. ASTRA 4A is able to reach Africa, Europe, and North and South America from uplinks located in any of these continents due to its on board frequency switching matrix.

News anchor Teymoor Nabili joins Al Jazeera International

16 February 2006

Al Jazeera International, the 24-hour English-language news and current affairs channel, headquartered in Doha, announced that award winning news anchor Teymoor Nabili has joined the channel. Winner of “Best News Presenter/Anchor” at the Asian TV Awards in 2005, Teymoor has also received awards from the UK Royal Television Society, for coverage of the Utah Olympic bribery scandal, and from the New York Awards, for reporting on economic development in Malaysia.

Teymoor will be the channel’s male news anchor in Kuala Lumpur co-presenting the news with fellow award winning presenter Veronica Pedrosa, formerly of CNN International. Kuala Lumpur is one of Al Jazeera International’s four regional broadcast centres strategically placed across the world in Doha, Kuala Lumpur, London and Washington DC.

Speaking on Teymoor’s appointment from the channel’s Doha headquarters, Director of News Steve Clark said, “Teymoor will be one of our key journalists in bringing news to English speaking viewers around the world. He has a wealth of knowledge on Asia, The Gulf and Europe”

Teymoor brings 17 years of experience to Al Jazeera International: writing, producing, reporting and anchoring in television, radio and print. He joins Al Jazeera International from CNBC Asia in Singapore, where he has been anchor since 2001. Previous roles include news anchor for BBC Television in London, and anchor for European Business News.

AIB Regional Media Leaders Forum, New Delhi

14 February 2006

By 2015, India will have 16 million qualified scientists. That’s more than the entire population of many European countries. The G-8 Summit of the world’s largest economic powers will be a very different group, with China and India expected to be part of the new, enlarged economic forum. Globalisation, sustainable development, technical convergence, public safety and climate change are just some of the issues that will affect us all ever more greatly.

Thousands of issues already affect the effectiveness of the message from traditional broadcasters. As lifestyles change, this industry forum will highlight those organisations that are adapting to change – and are becoming the “media organisations” of the future. They are creating the new social currencies being exchanged through mobile phones, broadcast, broadband, wi-fi, cable and satellite.

New media is no longer “new”. 12 years have passed since the Internet became accessible to the public. Initial results are in. Digital Audio Broadcasting was invented 25 years ago; DVB was developed 12 years ago and DRM is a decade old in 2006. The AIB believes it is time to present an overview of what is hot and what is not.

This one-day Regional Forum for media leaders – which is open by invitation only – will focus on practical case studies. It has been designed to allow the sharing of ideas on relevant trends that are affecting the international media industry and how leading players are reacting. The Forum will take advantage of the location to examine how the Indian media, mobile and IT industries are serving a huge domestic market of citizens and consumers – as well as more than 20 million Indians living abroad. The world’s largest democracy has some surprising insights to share.

From search engines to mobile phones, the AIB Delhi Regional Media Leaders Forum will cover the issues that matter, with reviews and predictions, plus case studies that provide pointers to the way media organisations have embraced the new opportunities and delivered success, in both the public and the commercial sectors. Taking place immediately before the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association’s General Conference, the AIB Forum will be a truly international event, with cross-over attendance from some of the world’s leading broadcasters who are attending the CBA conference.

And recognising the pressures that today’s media executives are under, we’ve scheduled the Forum to allow time for going to the office or having a meeting before the event, and plenty of time left after the event to do business as well.

SPECIAL DELEGATE RATE FOR SOUTH ASIA PARTICIPANTS: INR1,950. Contact Anmol Saxena or Rakhee Sakhuja at anmol.saxena@aib.org.uk, or call +91 (0) 11 416 33483 to take advantage of this special South Asia delegate rate.