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Washington, D.C., Oct. 26, 2001 -- The Voice of America (VOA) will increase its broadcasts in Uzbek by 15 minutes starting on Sunday, Oct. 28.  The additional block will expand VOA's Uzbek schedule to 30 minutes daily from 1500 to 1530 UTC (10:00 TO 10:30 a.m. Washington time).  Another 30 minutes of broadcast time from 1230 to 1300 UTC will be added in the near future.  Uzbek is spoken in Uzbekistan and in parts of northern Afghanistan.

"The Voice of America recognizes the importance of Uzbekistan to events in the region," said William Royce of VOA's South and Central Asia Division.  "We want the Uzbek people to receive reliable, accurate news and information on events in the world and in neighboring Afghanistan, along with clear statements of U.S. Government policies and actions in the war against terrorism." 

VOA is committed to providing up-to-the-minute news to Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the surrounding region.   Following the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, VOA  sent two fulll-time correspondents to Islamabad, Pakistan, to cover events in that country, and  VOA also moved two reporters into northern Afghanistan.  A two-person television team from VOA is in Islamabad to provide TV coverage of events in that country and the region.   VOA's correspondents in the United States and other parts of the world have continued to report on the campaign against terrorism.

Since the Sept. 11 attacks, VOA has twice expanded its broadcasts into Afghanistan.  Dari and Pashto--the two principal languages spoken in Afghanistan--are now on the air two hours and fifteen minutes a day and will soon be expanded to three hours each.  VOA has also expanded broadcasts in Arabic to the Middle East, Farsi to Iran, and Urdu to Pakistan.

The Voice of America is a multi-media international broadcasting service funded by the U.S. Government.  Using radio, television, and the Internet, VOA broadcasts over 900 hours of news and information programming a week to a worldwide audience of 91 million.

For additional information, please contact the Office of External Affairs at (202) 619-2538 or send email to pubaff@voa.gov.