At UN Radio, languages matter
United Nations Radio covers the activities of the UN from its Headquarters in New York and
from around the world. Recognizing that "languages matter!" - the slogan of 2008, the
International Year of Languages - UN Radio produces content in the Organization's six
official languages, Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish, as well as in
Kiswahili and Portuguese.
Providing timely and accurate reporting, its programmes are currently broadcast in 121
countries. UN Radio not only offers news and feature stories but also provides raw audio
materials (UN Audio Library website), from ongoing meetings and events to audio stored in
its archives, all free of charge. Broadcast-quality MP3 files can be downloaded from its web
sites.
UN Radio's Promotion and Distribution Unit recently launched its first ever UN Radio Day to
celebrate the voice of the UN and its agencies in the world and to launch UN Radio Classics,
an online archive of documentary and dramatic programmes.
The special day took place on Tuesday, 29 April in the Secretariat Lobby at Headquarters,
where UN Staff Members were able to listen to UN Radio programmes and meet UN Radio
producers.
UN Radio Day was organized to engage a revived dialogue and to welcome the ideas of UN Staff
on how to spread even further the voice of the UN to the people of the world.
You can visit UN Radio Classics and discover legendary UN addresses from Che Guevara, Yasser
Arafat, Deng Xiaoping, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, John Paul II, Pablo Neruda, and Nikita
Khrushchev, or listen to dramatic programmes starring Audrey Hepburn, Kirk Douglas, Gene
Kelly, and Bing Crosby, among many others.