| Washington D.C., July 28, 2000--Beginning Monday, July 31, 2000, the
Voice of America will begin broadcasts in three languages to the former
Indonesian province of East Timor. East Timor is currently under
UN administration after violent clashes between the province’s citizens
and Indonesian forces last year after East Timor voted for independence.
The situation in East Timor remains unsettled, and VOA broadcasts will
fill a need among the area’s residents for accurate and credible information
and news coverage. Programs will be broadcast in English, Portuguese
and Bahasa Indonesian seven days a week.
Listeners will be able to tune into the new VOA broadcasts on the affiliate
station Radio Falintil FM in East Timor’s capital, Dili. Many East
Timorese already listen to VOA programming via short wave radios, and the
partnership with Radio Falantil FM will make the programming more accessible
to a greater portion of the population.
Radio Falantil FM will carry a total of two hours, fifteen minutes daily
of VOA programs. Beginning at 8 a.m. local time, listeners will hear
the latest news in English followed by a VOA Special English broadcast
at 8:30 a.m. (VOA’s Special English programming uses a vocabulary of 1500
words and a slower pace of speaking to assist beginning English-speakers).
At 9:00 a.m., a targeted 30-minute Portuguese-language program will focus
on local news and events. English-language lessons will also be part of
the program. During the weekends, the programming will draw from
material currently used by VOA’s Portuguese-to-Africa broadcasts, such
as Ask Dr. Soares and Magazine Cultural, along with a segment of letters
from listeners. From 9:30 to 10:00 a.m. listeners will hear VOA News
Now, featuring world, regional, and US news, economic/business and sports
reports and features in English.
VOA’s Indonesian service will also launch new programming to East Timor
on July 31 and with 15-minute daily segments on Radio Falintil at 10 p.m.
local time. The program in Bahasa Indonesian will consist of
a news segment focused on international, regional and national news and
current events reports followed by an English-teaching block.
The Voice of America broadcasts news and information
in 53 languages to an estimated audience of 91 million regular listeners.
Contact: Kate Davis
(202) 619-2538 |
