Kremlin TV to air Julian Assange's new show

[January 25, 2012]  MOSCOW (AP) -- Wikileaks founder Julian Assange's new talk show will be broadcast on RT, the Kremlin-funded English-language television station said Wednesday.

Wikileaks had said in a statement Monday that Assange's show would begin airing in March, but there was no word on who would air it or how it would be produced.

RT television stepped forward Wednesday to say it will be broadcasting the show, a series of 10 interviews with what it described as "key political players, thinkers and revolutionaries -- figures who in the author's opinion will be shaping the political agenda of tomorrow."

The names of the guests are still to be disclosed.

The RT statement said Assange is filming the series from the location of his house arrest in Britain. He is currently fighting extradition to Sweden, where he is wanted on sex crimes allegations. United States officials are weighing possible charges linked to the leaks, the biggest disclosures of secret documents in U.S. history.

RT, which also broadcasts in Spanish and Arabic on its cable networks, often takes a critical stance on U.S. policy.

"We're proud to host Julian Assange's new project," editor in chief Margarita Simonyan said in the statement. "RT has rallied a global audience of open-minded people who don't take things around them for granted."

RT launched its first, English-language channel in December 2005 and now claims a global reach of more than 430 million people, or 22 percent of all cable subscribers worldwide.

[Associated Press]

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