DUSHANBE, January 9, Asia-Plus — The first issue of a new Dushanbe weekly, AiF-Dushanbe (Arguments and Facts — Dushanbe), was brought out today, Sharif Hamdampour, director general of the Oila holding, announced at a news conference in Dushanbe on January 9.
The weekly is published under the brand of international known Russian newspaper AiF (Arguments and Facts).
According to Hamdampour, at first, a 32-page newspaper will have a circulation of a 3,000 with further increase in the circulation up to a 20,000. “Eight pages of the weekly will contain materials about Tajikistan; of them three and half pages will consist of TV programs bill and the remaining pages will contain information about events taking place in the country,” the Oil holding head said.
The price of the newspaper, which plans to be distributed across the country, is 0.70 somoni per one issue. “The first edition is planned to cover Sughd, Khatlon and Gorno Badakhshan,” said Hamdampour, “This country will cover the entire country of Tajikistan.”
According to him, the weekly is dedicated to promote further development of journalism in Tajikistan and improve access to the socially significant information in the country.
For his part, Sergey Kalinin, deputy head of Russia’s AiF office for regional development, expressed hope that publication of the new weekly will lead to reduction in prices of newspapers in the republic and thereby will promote increase in number of readers in Tajikistan.
“We recommends that regional publications of AiF should follow model of Russia’s AiF, that is the first part of the newspaper should contain, as a rule, analytical, political and economic materials and the second part should consist of materials about culture and health issues and so forth,” AiF official said.
