Belarus

My guest tonight on APR notebook is Jimmy Wales. He's from Huntsville, and he created Wikipedia. No, I'm not kidding. Okay, raise your hand if you've ever been to this online encyclopedia. If your hand didn't go up, it's okay, but it's a fair bet you're in the minority. Published reports put the number of people who visit Wikipedia, the one in English and the 300 other foreign language editions in the billions every month. That's billions with a B.

This story isn’t part of Alabama Public Radio’s investigative series on the newly redrawn Congressional seat in District 2—But it could provide an interesting perspective—from the view from the former Soviet nation of Belarus.

The Alabama Public Radio newsroom addressed a delegation of expatriate journalists from the former Soviet nation of Belarus. The topic was APR’s national award-winning investigative journalism and how that type of reporting works in the United States.

Next week marks 35 years since the Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster. The 1986 explosion in the Soviet nation of Ukraine sent radioactive fallout drifting north over the neighboring country of Belarus. That’s where families in Alabama stepped in. During the years 1999 and 2000, over 200 Belarusian children were flown to the state for medical treatment and a chance to get away from the shadow of Chernobyl. APR and the University of Alabama's Center for Public Television collaborated on this coverage. "Children of Chernobyl" may have occured 20 years ago, but the story is still unfolding.