Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) delivers radio, television, and Internet content to unfree or newly free countries in Eastern and Southeastern Europe, Russia, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and the Middle East.

Audiences depend on RFE/RL to provide coherent, objective news and in-depth analysis of events in their countries, their regions and the world that are not available from, or are underreported by, domestic media. RFE/RL broadcasts more than 1,000 hours of programming a week from its operations center in Prague, Czech Republic, and 19 bureaus in its broadcast region.

Its corporate headquarters are located in Washington, D.C. In October 2006, RFE/RL broke ground for a new, state-of-the-art broadcast center in Prague, scheduled for completion in 2008.

RECENT HIGHLIGHTS:

• A would-be suicide bomber from western Afghanistan telephoned Radio Free Afghanistan's Kabul bureau on January 9 to thank the station for saving his life.
  He said he was offered $10,000 and given equipment to carry out an attack but changed his mind after listening to programs on suicide bombing aired by Radio Free Afghanistan.
• On March 25, the Belarus Service preempted its regular schedule to air live reports from the year's largest opposition protest in Minsk. In addition, the Service asked listeners to help describe what was happening, and the audience responded by sending in more than 200 photos of the rally. Although the Service's web site was blocked in Belarus until after the protests had ended, the number of visitors to the site tripled, and its content was widely reproduced by other Belarusian sites.
• The Russian Service broadcast live coverage of an April 14 opposition rally in Moscow that turned violent when police intervened and arrested more than 100 participants. Russian domestic media gave only limited coverage of these events.
• In June, RFE/RL published a special report on "Iraqi Insurgent Media: The Virtual Network Behind the Global Message" by analysts Daniel Kimmage and Kathleen Ridolfo. The report was well received by media in the U.S. and internationally, and its authors briefed U.S. and foreign officials on the report's findings.
• When on November 8 the Georgian government declared a state of emergency and banned all independent media broadcasts, RFE/RL responded by securing shortwave and cross-border medium wave frequencies to maintain news programming into Georgia. In addition, RFE/RL reconfigured its Georgian-language web site, implemented an email alert system, and used cellphone-based Short Message Service (SMS) alerts to keep its audience in Georgia informed of breaking news.
• Radio Farda increased the total amount of daily news and information programming to Iran to 8.5 hours—more than any other Persian-language international broadcaster.
• RFE/RL's emphasis on reporting domestic issues regularly draws the ire of repressive governments and terrorist groups. Two Radio Free Iraq correspondents were slain in Iraq in 2007; a third was kidnapped for nearly two weeks before being released. A similar situation involved the kidnapping and release of a correspondent for Radio Free Afghanistan. A Prague-based Radio Farda correspondent was held for eight months against her will in Iran, where the government had seized her passport. A freelance correspondent for RFE/RL's Azerbaijani Service was jailed on trumped-up libel charges because of his reporting on corruption and human rights violations in the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhchivan.
• The work of RFE/RL in some of the world's most dangerous places for journalism was highlighted in reports that appeared in the most renowned English-language media in the U.S. and internationally, including CNN, NPR, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Moscow Times and the International Herald Tribune.