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[HCDX] Monks plead with Hill for Tibetan radio airtime
Monks plead with Hill for Tibetan radio airtime
http://www.phayul.com/news/article.aspx?id=16428&article=Monks+ple
ad+with+Hill+for+Tibetan+radio+airtime&t=1&c=1
The Politico[Thursday, May 03, 2007 09:40]
By Jean Chemnick
Their flowing red robes stood out in the sea of gray, navy and brown
suits assembled for a recent hearing before the House Appropriations
subcommittee on foreign operations. The seven Tibetan Buddhist
monks went to Capitol Hill to give Congress a simple message: Restore
all funding for Radio Free Asia's Tibetan broadcasts.
Zurkhang Karma, the union representative for Radio Free Asia, said the
subcommittee's leaders expressed support for putting $1.5 million back
into the spending bill for Tibetan broadcasts but made no promises.
The monks' plight reflects an ideological shift within the federal
government's international broadcasting services. In recent years the
Broadcasting Board of Governors, a bipartisan entity that oversees
Radio Free Asia, the Voice of America and other foreign news outlets,
has moved funds away from some of the older programs toward newer
ones aimed at the Middle East, Korea, Somalia and Cuba. It has also
invested more money in television programming, a move that BBG
spokesman Larry Hart said reflected changes in the way people get
news today. For example, radio broadcasts in Cantonese are going to
be discontinued, Hart said, because more people own televisions in
that part of China. The cut would save $680,000 out of a budget of
$668 million.
Reductions in some places are necessary to expand programs in
regions targeted in the war on terror, Hart said. "These are information-
deprived people, and they need accurate and objective news about
what is happening in their country."
The same, however, could be said of Tibet. The windswept region of
Central Asia has been governed by China since 1950. The Dalai Lama,
whom many consider to be Tibet's lawful ruler, lives in exile in India.
The only way he can communicate with his people, Karma said, is
through U.S. radio programs because the media within Tibet is
censored.
The Dalai Lama has enormous clout on Capitol Hill, signified by his
receiving the Congressional Gold Medal in 2006 for contributions to
peace and nonviolence. Karma said he was hopeful that bipartisan
regard for the spiritual leader would make lawmakers restore the
money necessary to keep the broadcast alive. And to make sure the
plea has some secular star power, actor Richard Gere made a pitch in
March to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.
Eleven former Voice of America directors -- five Democrats, five
Republicans, and one appointed by a Republican and then a
Democratic president -- have been lobbying to add $26 million to the
budget to cover the costs of the Tibetan and Cantonese programming,
as well as those in Greek, Russian, Hindi, Serbian and other
languages. Alan L. Heil Jr. spearheads the effort. He said the group
plans to meet with members of both chambers privately in advance of
this spring's appropriations negotiations.
"I've given my life to this organization, and to see it being nibbled away
at and destroyed is very disillusioning," said the former deputy director
of the VOA.
The consortium of ex-directors is particularly concerned about sharp
reductions to English-language broadcasts, which were proposed last
year. The English-language service, which now broadcasts world news
around the world, would be reduced to an African regional service.
"If they broadcast in only one language, it should be English," said
Sanford Ungar, VOA director from 1999 to 2000 who is now president
of Goucher College in Towson, Md. By cutting the premier news service
and investing in programs such as the pop music-heavy Arabic Radio
Sawa, the board was eroding VOA's journalistic reputation. Ungar said
it would lose listenership in foreign think tanks and universities, where
policy is crafted and English is preferred.
Hart disagreed. He said that elites in other countries increasingly get
their English-language news from sources such as the BBC and CNN,
while average citizens have little access to outside broadcasts because
they do not speak English.
http://zlgr.multiply.com (raidio monitoring site plus audio clips )
http://www.worldisround.com/articles/302315/ (Litohoro) 321199/Tinos
http://www.flickr.com/photos/zachgr pictures upload
.
on my main : www.geocities.com/zliangas
-tty-px.html : test of various TTY programs
-ethics.htm : greek ethics , days and institutions
-frape.htm: the greek way of cofee !!!
Zacharias Liangas , Thessaloniki Greece
greekdx @ otenet dot gr ---
Pesawat penerima: ICOM R75 , Lowe HF150 , Degen 1102,1103,108,
Tecsun PL200/550, Chibo c300/c979, Yupi 7000
Antenna: 16m hor, 2x16 m V invert, 1m australian loop
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