Training starts for Afghan journalists

Television was banned under the Taleban

By Michael Voss in Kabul

A new training course for Afghan journalists has opened in the capital, Kabul.

The first intake of 20 students are all working journalists, although most have only recently returned to work.

Some 100 journalists will attend training courses

Among them are five Afghan women who were sacked by the Taleban.

When the Taleban came to power in 1996, they banned television and closed all but one radio station.

Only a few newspapers survived and these were little more than propaganda outlets for the regime.

New press law

Earlier this month, the interim government passed a new law guaranteeing freedom of the press.

On Tuesday morning, Afghanistan's minister of Information and Culture, Syed Makhdoom Raheen, officially opened the country's first independent training course.

It is funded by the British government with the training organised by the BBC World Service Trust.

About 100 journalists are expected to attend the series of week-long courses.

Equipment shortage

They will receive intensive training in writing skills, researching and interviewing.

There will also be sessions on journalistic ethics, fairness and conflict reporting.

But training is only one part of the problem for the press in Afghanistan.

Everything from typewriters to printing presses is in short supply, while radio and television stations have almost no equipment at all.

Even telephone communication from one part of the country to another is non-existent.