For immediate release 
A Semana (Cape Verde) and afrol News to formalise cooperation

Oslo, 29 January 2005 - afrol News and Cape Verde's leading independent media, A Semana, are about to formalise their cooperation, which was launched last year. A Semana has become the cornerstone in afrol News' new Portuguese language service.

Chief editor of A Semana, Filomena Silva, and chief editor of afrol News' Spanish language service, Pablo Gracia Sáez, have been negotiating a formal agreement between the two media. The final wording of the agreement has now been defined and it now only awaits signing by the two parties.

For the Oslo-based news agency and the Praia-based newspaper, the cooperation until now has been especially fruitful. A Semana draws a significant part of its international coverage from afrol News' production and afrol News has been watchful to increase its news copy of Portuguese-speaking countries in Africa, which of course is of major interest to A Semana.

A Semana, on the other hand, has contributed strongly to an improved coverage of Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau and the Canary Islands - a coverage which is of great interest to afrol News' readers, in particular readers of the Spanish edition.

The cooperation between A Semana and afrol News - until now informal - has also been the backbone of afrol News' launching of a Portuguese language service earlier this month. This service, which so far is only available to partner media, is based on A Semana's proper news production, A Semana's translations of afrol News articles, news copy from Mediacoop (Mozambique), translations by the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA, Namibia) and elaborated press releases in Portuguese, prepared by afrol News (Oslo).

About afrol News:
afrol News is an independent news agency based in Oslo (Norway), exclusively covering African affairs in English, Spanish and Portuguese language. afrol News works with a network of independent African media, which it provides with a free international news coverage. afrol News also distributes contextualised news articles from its partner media to its readers and customers. afrol News was founded as a private company in April 2000.

About A Semana:
A Semana ("The Week") is Cape Verde's leading independent media and also the country's most read weekly newspaper. Twelve years after launching the newspaper, A Semana also went online and is by now the leading Cape Verdean internet media, providing daily news updates in Portuguese, English and French. This also makes A Semana the natural outlet for advertisers, wanting to reach Cape Verdeans or the large Cape Verdean Diaspora.

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