Khalil Minavi (L), director of the government-run Bakhtar News Agency (BNA), attends a meeting at his office in Kabul, capital of Afghanistan, on Dec. 24, 2018. Despite development, the only government-run BNA is still lacking enough qualified staff, sophisticated equipment and other required resources, thus expects its Chinese counterpart to help, BNA Director Khalil Minavi said to Xinhua. (Xinhua/Rahmat Alizadah)
by Farid Behbud
KABUL, Dec. 23 (Xinhua) -- Despite development, the only government-run Bakhtar News Agency (BNA) is still lacking enough qualified staff, sophisticated equipment and other required resources, thus expects its Chinese counterpart to help, BNA Director Khalil Minavi said to Xinhua.
Established in 1939 by the Government Press Department, the BNA is a major source of news for all media in the war-stricken country, collecting domestic and international news and providing information to other media outlets, Minavi told Xinhua during a recent interview.
However, the Kabul-based agency, now only has 250 staff in all of its offices across the capital and 34 provinces of the country, and its English news service was not added until 1992 in order to keep foreign diplomats informed of Afghan events, he added.
"Insufficient professional staff, a failure in online coverage for remote provincial districts, a lack of modern materials, technology and transportation are among the challenges the agency is now facing," said the director, who has led the agency for 25 years.
Built more than 50 years ago, the BNA archive accommodating presidential decrees and orders and documents from the Afghanistan Supreme Court, is experiencing worsening conditions and will be lost, if not digitalized.
"Nearly 750 negative photos kept in the archive are at the brink of being lost," said Minavi with regret. He asked if China's official Xinhua News Agency could cooperate in the digitalization of the data.
Minavi expressed pleasure, however, over the news-sharing Memorandum of Understanding to be signed between BNA and Xinhua, in the near future.
Exchanging photos and news, launching training workshops for Afghan journalists and holding conferences and seminars for Afghan journalists in China, as well as Afghanistan hosting Chinese journalists, would help bilateral relations and certainly benefit the two agencies, he said.
"Other countries had additional conditions to do something with Afghanistan, but, China has cooperated with our country in various areas, including education, security, rehabilitation and reconstruction, to name but a few, with no such thing," he said.
Commenting about the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Minavi said :"Today for people all over the world, especially in Asia, it has become clear that the project is very real indeed and has brought tranquility to the residents of the region and created employment opportunities for many people and further connected the people to each other."
"Bringing this vision to fruition with the building of highways, pipelines and railroads, and links from central Asia to Europe, will be a world-conquering feat," he said.
"His Excellency Chinese President Xi Jinping, by reviving an ancient and historical road, will bring prosperity and tranquility to the people of the world under his BRI vision. And along with many global citizens and countries, Afghanis welcome this great project," said Minavi.
"We hope for increased connectivity of people and the improvement of their lives as a direct result of this outstanding initiative," he added.
