Curious news from the Department of International Relations and Co-operation today, as its announced that a government-sponsered online radio station is to launch on the 17th October. Called Ubuntu Radio, the station will apparently focus on “communicating South Africa’s foreign policy”.

Not to be confused with podcasts about a certain well known local Linux distro, then.

There’s a test broadcast stream up at the website now, which you can access here, but few details beyond that.

Around the world, of course, there are several precedents for such a station. The US sponsors Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which began life as a cold war propaganda tool for teaching commies about truth, democracy and the American way. The BBC World Service was also long relied upon by activists in repressive regimes – including South Africa – as a source of information from an outside source (I can’t quite bring myself to describe it as “an unbiased source”) for much of the 20th Century.

On the other side, of course, during the second world war the Nazi government in Germany frequently used radio as a propaganda tool to undermine the allies – and managed to trick PG Wodehouse into appearing on it. Radio Moscow and the Voice of Russia served the USSR’s purpose in the cold war.

Obviously Ubuntu Radio isn’t planning anything as sinister (or is it?), and there are examples of other streams which are put to good use. NATO, for example, has a surprisingly good news channel – although it’s hardly what you’d call independent. We’ll be asking about its purpose at the launch on Thursday – or before if we get chance.