2024-07-22 20:41:10
The director general of the Bulgarian Telegraph Agency (BTA) Kiril Valchev and the director of the national news agency of Kyrgyzstan KABAR Mederbek Shermetaliev signed a cooperation agreement. This happened during the Second Global Media Forum held from Saturday to today in Shusha, Azerbaijan, in which the two directors participated as guests of the Azerbaijani national news agency AZERTAJ, writes BTA.
“The regular exchange of news between the national news agencies of Bulgaria and Kyrgyzstan will allow a better acquaintance between Bulgarians and Kyrgyz, who are among the most foreign workers in Bulgaria, most often seasonally in hotels and restaurants, in agriculture, construction, trade”, Valchev said after the signing.
According to the data of the Employment Agency (EA), provided to BTA, in the last 5 years, AZ has given positive opinions (registered short-term employment) to 5,284 citizens of Kyrgyzstan, who are in second place in the number of granted permits after the citizens of Turkey. And in the first half of 2024, AZ provided positive opinions (registered short-term employment) to 3,694 citizens of Kyrgyzstan, who are in third place in the number of granted permits after citizens of Turkey and Uzbekistan. Individuals are mostly employed as seasonal and manufacturing workers. AZ specifies that on 01.06.2021, after the entry into force of amendments and additions to the Law on Foreigners in the Republic of Bulgaria and the Law on Labor Migration and Labor Mobility, the provision of information regarding permitted access to the labor market of citizens of third countries is in the competences of the Directorate “Migration” at the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
According to the general director of BTA, more information about Bulgaria in Kyrgyzstan will be useful both for Kyrgyz citizens who come to work in our country, and for students who want to study higher education in Bulgarian universities. He recalled that between the International University “Ala-Too” in the capital of Kyrgyzstan, Bishkek, and the “Angel Kanchev” University of Ruse, there is a signed cooperation agreement, and under the “Erasmus+” program for mobility with countries outside the European Union, teachers and students also come from Kyrgyzstan , and on May 15, 2023, the rector of the University of Ruse, Academician Hristo Beloev, officially received his diploma for awarding the title Doctor Honorissis Causa of the University of Bishkek.
“More information about Kyrgyzstan in Bulgaria will be useful for Bulgarian employers and teachers to better orient themselves to the modern context in the country and the culture of the people where their employees and students come from,” Valchev said.
The new treaty signed today provides for each party to receive the other party’s full range of news feeds in English, with both parties having the right to use that information in their news services.
In addition, each of the two agencies will provide the other each day with one important news item from their country with English text and a photo for the other agency to publish on its distribution channels for free reading by all visitors to the respective sites with explicit reference to the source.
The contract also provides for the possibility of exchange of experience and professional visits of journalists and other media professionals from the two news agencies.
The contract is effective from the date of its signing and will be automatically renewed indefinitely every year.
Valchev invited the 38-year-old lawyer by education and former TV presenter Mederbek Shermetaliev, who was appointed by President Sadir Zhaparov as the director of KABAR from April 2022, to visit Bulgaria. He gratefully accepted the opportunity to familiarize himself with the work of BTA. The former general director of BTA, Maxim Minchev, visited Kyrgyzstan in 2004 as part of the visit of Bulgarian Foreign Minister Solomon Passy in his capacity as chairman of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), and Kiril Valchev also participated in the group of journalists.
This is the first contract between BTA and KABAR, as the talks between Valchev and Shermetaliev about its signing began a year ago during the first edition of the Global Media Forum in Shusha, Azerbaijan.
Shermetaliev told Valchev that about 100 employees work at KABAR. The agency has correspondents in all seven regions of Kyrgyzstan, and abroad in Kazakhstan, Russia and Uzbekistan, and plans to send to China and Korea.
According to information from the “Reference” department of BTA, the national information agency of Kyrgyzstan was established on January 28, 1937 as the Kyrgyz Telegraph Agency (KirTAG), renamed in 1992 to the State Information Agency KYRGYZKABAR, and in 1995 to the Kyrgyz National Agency for Telecommunications and Information (KABAR).
Since December 22, 2001, it bears its current name. The headquarters of the agency is in Bishkek. Its website has been operating since 1998 in Kyrgyz, Russian and English. Since 2008, it has also been published in Turkish, and since 2017 in Arabic and Chinese. In 2002, the agency established a television studio, where daily video news is produced in four languages for the agency’s website and for television companies. The studio also produces a weekly overview-analytical TV show “Tiyanak”, and since 2017 a weekly show “Sanjira” about the roots of the Kyrgyz tribes, which is broadcast on regional TV channels.
Kyrgyzstan is a country in Central Asia with an area of 199,951 square kilometers and a population of 6,172,101, of which 1,105,000 live in the capital, Bishkek. Almost 30 percent of the inhabitants are under 14 years old (for comparison in Bulgaria it is 13 percent), and the average age of the population is 28 years (in Bulgaria it is over 45 years old). The country was the first country from the Organization of Independent States (OSI) to become a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO) on 21 December 1998.
Bulgaria recognized the independence of Kyrgyzstan on January 15, 1992, diplomatic relations were established on May 20 of the same year, but the two countries have not opened embassies to date. Bilateral relations are built on the basis of the Agreement on friendly relations and cooperation between Bulgaria and Kyrgyzstan dated November 13, 1994.
The contract between BTA and KABAR was signed during the second edition of the Global Media Forum in Shusha, Azerbaijan, attended by more than 150 foreign guests from about 50 countries, including news agencies from about 30 countries, 3 international organizations and 82 media institutions. The forum on “Unmasking False Narratives: Countering Disinformation” featured four panel sessions on assessing the impact and scope of disinformation; policies and initiatives to build a more resilient society against misinformation; the impact of artificial intelligence on reality, media and misinformation and the promotion of media literacy; climate movements and the media.
The forum began on Saturday with a three-hour press conference by the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, after which Valchev spoke briefly with him.
At the end of the forum, the CEO of the upcoming UN Climate Summit (COP29) in Azerbaijan in November, Elnur Soltanov, Deputy Minister of Energy of Azerbaijan, presented the preparations for the event, which will be held under the motto “Solidarity for a Green World “.
Tomorrow the general director of BTA has an invitation to visit the headquarters in Baku of the Azerbaijani news agency AZERTAJ and to meet with the chairman of its board Vugar Aliyev.
After 2021, when the National Assembly made the news of BTA freely accessible, the national news agency of Bulgaria arranged with new contracts with the global agencies from which it buys information, an opportunity for all Bulgarian media to republish their news translated into Bulgarian free of charge.
And after the contract signed today, the Bulgarian media can now use free of charge news from 43 national agencies from 4 continents (Europe, Asia, America and Africa), with which BTA concluded similar cooperation agreements, including with the national news agencies of all countries neighboring Bulgaria and with 22 European agencies that are members of the European Alliance of News Agencies (EANA). BTA has such contracts for free daily exchange of news with the national news agencies of Austria, Azerbaijan, Albania, Algeria, Argentina, Armenia, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Vietnam, Ghana, Greece, Israel, India, Iran, Spain, Italy, Yemen , Cambodia, Kyrgyzstan, Cyprus, Kosovo, Ivory Coast, Latvia, Liberia, Lebanon, Moldova, Mongolia, Nigeria, Netherlands, United Arab Emirates, Poland, Republic of North Macedonia, Portugal, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Slovakia, Serbia , Turkey, Ukraine, the Philippines, Croatia and Montenegro.