Facilitate citizen discourse
VOA Ukrainian Service Highlights Elections
VOA's Ukrainian Service provided extensive coverage of the country’s presidential campaign and the first round of voting, which took place Jan. 17. Highlights include an election-day interview with Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL), co-chair of the Helsinki Commission, as he visited polling stations in Kyiv. Hastings provided a preliminary assessment about the democratic nature of the campaign and apparent lack of significant voting violations.

On election weekend, VOA gave reports for several major affiliates and hosted a 15-minute election roundtable featuring political experts and commentators. Coverage included the State Department’s positive assessment of the election process as evidence of Ukraine’s democratic progress. The story was picked up by Ukrayinska Pravda, one of Ukraine’s top Web sites. Online coverage was also available in Russian including interviews with a variety of experts and election observers.

VOA Covers Niger Coup

Using radio, television and SMS, Voice of America (VOA) is keeping French and Hausa-speaking audiences in Africa up-to-date with the latest information on the Feb. 19 coup in Niger.

"Yesterday, I felt as if I were in Niger thanks to the multiple SMS messages I received," said a resident of the Democratic Republic of Congo in an e-mail to VOA.

Within 24 hours of the coup, more than 800 people signed up for text messages in French. VOA Hausa released hourly SMS updates to its nearly 60,000 subscribers.

Issoufou Mamane, a Hausa-speaking VOA reporter in Niamey, was live with on-air reports from the ground shortly after the coup when Nigerien soldiers attacked the presidential palace, seizing President Mamadou Tandja.

Tandja, who had been criticized since he changed the country's constitution last year to allow himself to remain in power, was reportedly being held in a military barracks outside the capital. In Niamey, Niger's capital, VOA French-to-Africa reporter Ousman Toudou reported on developments as they unfolded. VOA’s radio and television programming featured supporters and opponents of the coup, Western analysts and listeners who called the live programs.

Violence in Nigeria’s Plateau State Focus of VOA Hausa Programming
The Hausa Service gave extensive coverage to the mid-Jan. violence between Muslims and Christians in Plateau State, Nigeria. More than 300 are reported dead, millions of dollars worth of property was damaged and thousands of people are without a home. In addition to coverage from the city of Jos, the epicenter of the violence, and other parts of Nigeria, VOA interviewed political leaders, analysts, community and religious leaders on the reasons for the violence and efforts toward reconciliation, along with call-in programs for listeners to discuss ways to promote harmony between the two communities.