Gozel Nuralievaya, occupying the posts of vice-premier of the Turkmenistan government, Minister of Culture and Information and also editor-in-chief of the only Russian-speaking newspaper Neutral Turkmenistan, will henceforth take on the following duty: at the cabinet meeting last Tuesday Niyazov charged her to carefully select new staff for a fourth satellite television channel on national TV, which will be broadcast in the six most widespread languages of the world. “Whichever country the satellite flies over, they will be able to watch our television, and in the relevant language”, so Niyazov.

For this purpose the president ordered the Turkmenistan Foreign Ministry and the National Institute of world languages to be enlisted in the new television project. In total the fourth channel will employ some 120 persons. According to the project of the “Father of all Turkmen” (Turkmenbashi), viewers in different countries can learn the truth about Turkmenistan and the grandiose transformations in the country.

The founding of the new TV station has cost 12 million dollars: this in a country where employees throughout the land often go months without receiving their pay.

For Ms. Nuralievaya one can only feel pity: in Turkmenistan there have not been any journalists capable of making interesting television programmes for a long time. Such specialists are no longer educated, as the faculty at the local university has long been closed. The present three channels Altin Asir (Golden Age), Miras (Heritage) and Yashlik (Youth) are simply copies of each other. They show nothing other than songs dedicated to Turkmenbashi and his parents, as well as dances and round table discussions of the President’s literary works. The viewer ratings of these channels are so low that they are almost unwatched: the viewers preferring Russian channels available via satellite. The low ratings result in Turkmenbashi regularly replacing the heads of the TV channels, but without the desired result. What the new Turkmen TV channel will beam out 24 hours a day remains to all a mystery.