In a new travel series which began on Monday 29 June, Euronews is sending its viewers Postcards from Kazakhstan.
Famous landmarks and hidden treasures of the Central Asian country are the focus of this colourful weekly programme presented and produced by Seamus Kearney.
Located between Russia and China, and straddling part of the Caspian Sea, Kazakhstan has a rich cultural heritage and history.
Snapshots highlight some of the best attractions, from modern architecture in the capital Astana to historic sites along the ancient Silk Road.
The five episodes of Postcards from Kazakhstan feature the following five tourist sites:
The Bayterek Tower in Astana
Episode 1: Monday 29 June at 18:45 CET
The new series begins in the capital of Kazakhstan, with a monument that has become emblematic of the city. Construction of the Bayterek Tower began in 1997, the year the capital was moved from Almaty to Astana.
The Mausoleum of Khoja Ahmed Yasawi in Turkistan
Episode 2: Monday 6 July at 18:45 CET
We visit the south of Kazakhstan and the ancient Silk Road city of Turkistan. Here the spectacular mausoleum dominates the landscape, attracting tens of thousands of Muslim pilgrims from far and wide.
The Medeu & Shymbulak mountain resorts near Almaty
Episode 3: Monday 13 at 18:45 CET
The third postcard comes from Almaty, the former capital of Kazakhstan. A nearby mountain valley provides breathtaking scenery, but it’s also popular for year-round leisure activities for locals and holidaymakers.
The Aisha Bibi mausoleum inTaraz
Episode 4: Monday 20 at 18:45 CET
Taraz is one of the most ancient cities in Kazakhstan, where historic sites are being restored. One of them is the beautiful Aisha Bibi mausoleum, which dates back to between the 11th and 12th centuries.
Monument to the founders of the Kazakh Khanate in Astana
Episode 5: Monday 27 at 18:45 CET
For the end of the series of Postcards from Kazakhstan we return to the capital, where people are this year marking the 550th anniversary of the Kazakh statehood. To get a feel for the history, there’s no better place to go than a monument to its founders.
Postcards from Kazakhstan
Five 1’30”- programmes starting on Monday 29th June at 18:45 CET
Before joining Euronews in 2003, Seamus Kearney worked as a journalist and producer for various media organisations including the BBC, Radio France International and Radio New Zealand.He recently presented and produced the Euronews programme Right On, which examined European justice and citizens’ rights issues.
Seamus has also produced Urban Visions,Focus, Life and Postcards programmes from various countries, including Russia, the US, South Korea, Brazil, Singapore, Macedonia and Ukraine, and continues to report on international and European affairs.
About Euronews
Euronews, the most-watched news channel in Europe, is an independent and multi-platform media hub. Euronews covers news worldwide, offering a unique perspective on events through factual analysis. Six hundred journalists, from more than 30 countries, report round-the-clock in 13 editions (Arabic, English, Persian, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Turkish and Ukrainian). Established in 1993 in Lyon, France, the channel is received by 420 million homes in 156 countries, and offers a complete range of products: websites, smart TV, radio, on-board technology (for cars), and portable technology (mobile apps, smartwatch).
In 2015 Euronews will launch Africanews, the first pan-African multilingual news channel.
Australia’s public broadcaster, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) and one of Asia’s leading media companies, MediaCorp, have signed a partnership agreement between their international platforms.
The agreement was signed in Singapore on 26 June 2015 and sees both companies exploring opportunities for future programme and content exchange and co-production between its various platforms on television, radio and online. The cooperation includes providing news talent for live crosses and the exchange of news footage between Australia Plus TV and the partnership is applicable to regional broadcaster Channel NewsAsia and MediaCorp’s other language channels as well as radio stations. The journalism is also applicable to the whole array of media properties that both companies own, from traditional free-to-air platforms to digital entities.
In an increasingly interconnected and digital world, media organisations have to constantly seek partnerships and evolve to provide the best content for their audiences. Having a rich and diverse source of content is one way to ensure continued relevancy and access to news whenever it happens in the world.
CEO of ABC International, Ms Lynley Marshall, said: “Channel News Asia sets a benchmark for quality international broadcasting across Asia. As we extend and enrich our content and services to audiences across the region, we are delighted to have reached an agreement that will enable both companies to leverage our respective knowledge, content and platforms.”
MediaCorp’s Head of News and Premier, Ms Debra Soon, added, “With pressure on news organisations to stay relevant, report faster, expand our digital offerings and meet our competitors head on, media organisations, need to find ways to work together without compromising our business objectives or standards. We look forward to working with ABC to explore how we can do so.”
Channel NewsAsia, an English language Asian TV news channel, was established by MediaCorp in 1999 and is now viewed in 26 territories across Asia. ABC International manages the digital and social media brand Australia Plus, including AustraliaPlus.cn, as well as the 24/7 subscription television service Australia Plus TV which is available in 40 countries across the Asia Pacific region.
SPORT, ALONG WITH STRENGTHENING THE VIDEO OFFERING, IS A STRATEGIC EDITORIAL PRIORITY FOR AFP. WITH THE 2016 SUMMER OLYMPICS APPROACHING AND THE RYDER CUP TO BE HELD IN FRANCE IN 2018, AFP AND THE FRENCH GOLF FEDERATION HAVE FORMED A PARTNERSHIP TO OFFER MORE CONTENT.
Under the agreement, AFP will provide the Federation with text, photo and data for its website. The Federation will in return provide videos of top French golfers playing on the elite European tour.
The partnership will allow the French Golf Federation to achieve one of its main objectives of raising the media profile of the game and its top players. It will continue until the Ryder Cup, which in 2018 will be held in France for the first time — on the Albatros course at the Golf National in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines. For more than a century, the Ryder Cup has pitted the best players from Europe and the United States against one another every two years.
Sport is one of the Agency’s strategic priorities. The sports service has almost 150 journalists worldwide working in six languages: French, English, Spanish, Arabic Portuguese and German (via its subsidiary SID). It covers golf and all of world football, the Olympic sports, motor sport (Formula One, rallies and MotoGP), rugby, NBA and cricket. It also provides complete multimedia coverage of major events such as the Summer and Winter Olympic Games, the FIFA World Cup and the Euro Football Championship.
Intelsat S.A. (NYSE: I), the world’s leading provider of satellite services, today announced that it has entered into a commercial agreement with OneWeb, the venture planning to build, deploy and operate a low earth orbit (“LEO”) Ku-band satellite constellation. Under the agreement, Intelsat will partner with OneWeb to use OneWeb’s LEO platform, once established, to complement Intelsat’s geostationary orbit (“GEO”) satellite services, resulting in the first and only fully global, pole-to-pole high throughput satellite system.
Complementing their commercial agreement, Intelsat announced that it will make a minority share investment of $25 million in OneWeb. The companies will also collaborate to develop hybrid LEO/GEO end-user access terminals, furthering Intelsat’s vision to lower the cost and accessibility of satellite-based broadband and unlock new markets for satellite broadband.
“As the world’s first and largest provider of commercial satellite services, Intelsat believes that the opportunity for space-based communications is at a new inflection point, especially as broadband connectivity has become an essential input to economic growth for individuals, businesses and communities,” said Intelsat CEO, Stephen Spengler. “In this context, we are accessing new technologies and leveraging sector innovations to the benefit of our customers and our network.
“Through this partnership with OneWeb, we will further differentiate our own GEO infrastructure, including our next generation Intelsat EpicNG® high performance satellites that will begin to launch in the first quarter of 2016,” Spengler continued. “By complementing our GEO services with LEO services, we will be able to provide connectivity over the Earth’s poles and in urban canyons, coverage that is important for certain mobility applications, including automotive services. In collaborating on Ku-band access hardware, we will develop technologies with additional scale that will simplify access, reduce costs and open new addressable markets.”
“Intelsat’s endorsement of our technology and solution is key to driving our venture to the next phase of development. Our mission is to enable affordable Internet access for everyone,” said Greg Wyler, CEO and Founder of OneWeb. “While the primary goal is to bridge the digital divide for rural areas, we recognize the potential for a seamless Ku-band infrastructure to support other applications as well. The OneWeb and Intelsat alliance allows each company to leverage the strength of the other. We believe that access to Intelsat’s global service and technology footprint, and collaboration on solutions which combine the benefits of LEO and GEO, will advance our mission.”
Pursuant to the commercial agreement with Intelsat, OneWeb will develop its platform to provide seamless network interoperability with Intelsat’s global EpicNG GEO infrastructure and service offerings. This will enable OneWeb to coordinate the provision of services over the equatorial regions, where GEO services have spectral priority, overcoming a major operational hurdle to LEO platforms.
The agreement will also include a firm service commitment from Intelsat for OneWeb services upon commencement of operations, which is currently estimated for 2019. Intelsat’s service commitment is in exchange for exclusivity granted to Intelsat for distributing OneWeb’s services within the aeronautical and maritime sector verticals, and for certain U.S. government and oil and gas customer applications. The agreement also includes granting to Intelsat certain exclusive distribution rights for connected car and rail customer applications.
Industry consultant NSR forecasts over $7 billion of incremental revenue industry-wide through 2024 from demand for satellite-based broadband connectivity services for aircraft, ships, connected devices, cars and remote villages. These applications are currently, or planned to be, served by Intelsat’s global fleet of approximately 50 C-band and Ku-band GEO satellites.
By combining GEO and LEO capabilities, Intelsat will be able to address specific requirements within the above applications. For example, the combination will allow Intelsat to extend its broadband mobility offerings to the polar cap regions, important to some aeronautical and maritime routes. In addition, Intelsat will be able to complement highly efficient GEO broadcast capabilities with the high elevation angle solutions of LEO services for situations where GEO signals might be blocked, such as in mobility applications in cityscapes. This would result in unmatched ubiquity for enabling software downloads to vehicles for the automotive industry. Development of mass market end-user hardware will further Intelsat’s strategy to deliver high performance, cost effective and simple access for customers, growing satellite’s share in the global telecommunications infrastructure.
When fully deployed, OneWeb’s initial constellation of more than 600 LEO satellites will be the largest satellite constellation in orbit, providing approximately 10 terabits per second of low-latency, high-speed broadband to consumers around the globe.
WASHINGTON — RFE/RL’s Persian language service was lauded in New York this week as Radio Farda journalist Roya Karimi Majd’s special report “Tradition of the Blade” won a gold award, and Kambiz Hosseini’s weekly show “Five in the Afternoon” took home a silver award at the 2015 New York Festivals International Radio Program Awards.
“Tradition of the Blade” a program about female genital mutilation in Iran that Karimi Majd called “one of the hardest and most painful reports that I have produced in more than 20 years of working on women’s issues,” was recognized in the Information/Documentary Magazine Format category. Hosseini’s program, which is a joint production with the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran and airs on Radio Farda’s satellite stream, was entered in the Entertainment/Best Regularly Scheduled Comedy Program category.
Although broadcast on Radio Farda, these stories are officially banned in Iran.
RFE/RL Editor-in-Chief Nenad Pejic congratulated Karimi Majd and Hosseini on their award.
“They have produced excellent content that has earned the admiration of their audiences in Iran and their peers in the radio community,” said Pejic. “Roya’s report sensitively and powerfully exposes a taboo subject, while Kambiz’s work uses satire to help Iranians make sense of their often senseless circumstances.”
Radio Farda journalism has been recognized at previous New York Festivals, which honor excellence in radio programming and promotions from stations, networks, and producers around the globe. Last year, Radio Farda journalist Mahtab Vahidi Rad was a finalist in the category Best Special Report, while in 2013 journalist Vahid Pourostad won a silver award for his radio documentary, Solitary Confinement, and satirist Farshid Manafi, who won two awards at the New York Festivals in 2011, was a finalist in 2013 for his signature satire program, Pas Farda.
The 2015 New York Festivals radio awards program recognized programming from 32 countries. The honors were presented at a gala dinner in the city on June 22.
RFE/RL’s Radio Farda, produced in and broadcast from Prague, is a leading source of uncensored information in Iran. In May 2015, Radio Farda’s website was visited more than 20 million times, nearly 40 million pages were viewed, and its streaming audio feed was used more than 20 million times. Despite the government’s ban on listening, the need for a proxy, and deliberately slow Internet speeds to deter users, half of all traffic originates from within Iran.
As Deutsche Welle launched its new English-language TV news channel in June 2015, Director General Peter Limbourg talked with the AIB’s CEO Simon Spanswick about the challenges involved in international broadcasting, the competition in global media and more.
