“What happened in Syria is a catastrophe,” said one of the guests in the first episode of talk show “Rabia Al-Shabab” – a coproduction from DW and Voice of Lebanon (VOL). It might just have set the tone for the entire series, which celebrated its premier on January 17. “Just like in our television talk shows, we are using radio to create a dialogue between young people in Germany and the Arab world,” said Rainer Sollich, head of the Arabic editorial team at DW.

The radio coproduction will be aired every Tuesday on VOL’s  FM frequencies in Lebanon and in neighboring Syria. “We expect controversy and are looking for continued debate on our Arabic Facebook fan page,” said Sollich. Khaldoun Zeineddine from VOL and Yasser Abumuailek from DW hosted the first show, which highlighted the teamwork between the teams in Bonn and Beirut.

 

DW Akademie, Deutsche Welle’s international center for media development, media consulting and journalism training, is organizing in cooperation with UNESCO, a “Train-the-Trainer Course” for 12 young lecturers from eight African journalism education institutions. The course is taking place now in East London, South Africa and will run until January 27, and is being hosted by Walter Sisulu University.

Journalism Educators from Namibia, Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe will share their experiences of teaching journalism with a focus on community media. The aim is for training methods to become more interactive, participative and practice-oriented, thus allowing students to apply newly acquired skills and knowledge directly. The group will also concentrate on community media, which can play an important role in development in Africa.

This training is the first of three courses due to take place in Africa within the framework of a UNESCO/DW Akademie joint initiative to strengthen 20 selected African universities´ capacities to offer high quality journalism education programs for aspiring and working journalists. DW Akademie has put a focus on Africa for 2012.

DW Akademie has been conducting a variety of media development projects to reinforce free and independent media, particularly in developing and transition countries since 1965. Their team of experts advise broadcasting executives, train young, up-and-coming journalists and provide professional coaching to media engineers. Every year around 3,000 individuals take part in DW Akadmie’s training and workshop programs.

DW and Palestine Public Broadcasting Commission (PBC) signed an agreement of cooperation on Thursday, September 15. Samah Khader, General Director of International Relations, and Mahmoud Mizher, General Director of Administration and Finance, were on hand at DW’s headquarters in Bonn to clarify the details. PBC TV will now be including several DW programs in its line-up, including in good shape, In Focus, Kick off! and Kick off! Countdown, as well as selected episodes of euromaxx. PBC’s radio station will also begin broadcasting some of DW’s radio programming covering topics like science and technology.

This partnership will increase DW’s presence in the Middle East. PBC TV is available in Palestine, but also in several neighboring countries due to its inclusion in the Arabsat and Nilesat networks. Palestine Radio is available in Palestine, Israel, Jordan and parts of Egypt.

Why are people starving in Ethiopia? That is exactly the question that the head of DW’s Amharic editorial team, Ludger Schadomsky and VJ reporter Bastian Hartig wanted to find out as they set out for Africa. The two are reporting from what is being called the worst hunger catastrophe in the last 60 years. The two DW reporters spent time in Dolo Ado on the border to Somalia, face to face with some of the 120,000 refugees that are there waiting for food. You can listen to one of their features here.

Starting August 15, Ariana will begin broadcasting Deutsche Welle’s Dari programming in 33 of the 34 provinces in the country. Radio Ariana is one of the most successful stations in Afghanistan and they have picked up DW’s programming for local primetime slots. DW has worked with Ariana in the past – the FM station has been broadcasting the Learning by Ear and DW worked with them on a series about reconstruction in Afghanistan.