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Berlin - The
German government is funding and helping to produce
daily radio programmes for the upcoming Iraqi
elections, the German Foreign Ministry said Tuesday
in a statement.
A team of 25 young Iraqi reporters has been trained
to produce election stories under a programme by the
Friedrich Ebert Foundation, which has close links to
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's Social
Democratic Party (SPD).
The reporters, based across Iraq, produce radio news
casts that are sent via Internet to Berlin where
they are put together into 30 minute radio packages
by a German-Iraqi team and then sent back to Iraq
via satellite, said the statement.
These news packages have been broadcast since Monday
by Radio Dijila, the Voice of Kurdistan and Kerbala
FM.
Germany has provided 150,000 euros (200,000 dollars)
for the radio programming which will run five days a
week in the run-up to Iraq's planned elections on
January 30.
Chancellor Schroeder was a leading European opponent
of the U.S.-led Iraq war and his government has
refused to send troops to the country.
Nevertheless, Berlin is sending aid to Iraq and
played a leading role in winning a deal last month
to forgive 80 per cent of Iraq's 39 billion dollars
of foreign debt owed to the Paris club of creditor
nations.
Germany is also training Iraqi police and military
officers under a programme being run in the United
Arab Emirates.
UNAMI
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