Canadian model Chrystal Callahan's weekly program premiered last Sunday, as we presumed. The fifteen minute show focused on positive news items and local culture of the Chechen Republic. Additionally, Callahan's background reveals the unlikely host as a bit more likely than originally thought.

The program's intention is extremely upfront - to highlight and praise traditional values alongside positive changes taking place in Chechnya, as previously stated by show's producers. For this purpose, a heavy positive spin is consistent throughout the program. The show, dubbed into English, is available to view on the Chechen Republic News Agency website.

The first episode featured two news stories: President Ramzan Kadyrov funds the treatment of children with cerebral palsy by Chinese medicine specialists from Moscow and honor-roll students from Dagistan visit the central mosque in Grozny, one of the biggest in the world. A feature on the importance and celebration of the birth of a son in the family followed. Then, Callahan went shopping for the various bright headscarfs currently in fashion, choosing the bandana in bronze silk. We get the feeling there aren't going to be any news of political descent group uprisings, but it's interesting to see media exposure of a population so rarely represented in world news.

Callahan has previously visited the Russian Republic of Chechnya to direct the documentary feature "Greco-Roman Grozny" with the help of Russian state news agency. The short documentary followed the lives of three Chechen teens fighting for a chance to be on the Russian Olympic wrestling team. Her newest state-organized project - "Highlights of the Week with Crystal Callahan" - shares a similar desire to place a human face on the Republic. We are told that Callahan is under a six-month contract with the agency.

Image courtesy of David Burghardt