BBC Russian Service transmissions go quiet [Putin pulls plug]

upi via email, no url | 8/17/7

[NativeNewYorker]

MOSCOW, Aug. 17 (UPI) -- In a sign of increasingly strained British-Russian relationships, Moscow authorities pulled the plug on the local transmission of the BBC Russian Service.

The FM station in Moscow announced, effective Friday, it was taking off air all BBC Russian Service transmissions, the Times of London reported.

The action was taken by Russia's Federal Service for the Supervision of Mass Media, Communication and Protection of Cultural Heritage. It was seen as the latest punitive measure initiated in Moscow in the controversy between Britain and Russia over the death of Alexander Litvinenko, the former KGB officer who was poisoned with the radioactive isotope polonium-210 in London, the British newspaper said.

At the time of Litvinenko's death in November, broadcasts of the BBC Russian Service in Moscow and St. Petersburg went off air for unexplained reasons. The St Petersburg transmissions were halted permanently in December.

Richard Sambrook, director of the BBC's global news division, said he would appeal to the Russian broadcasting authorities to reconsider.

[taxesareforever]

Heading back into the Dark Ages.

[GOP_1900AD]

Tu-95s with nuclear armed cruise missiles have gone back on permanent alert, for the first time since 1992.

[Paperdoll]

So the lights are going out and the iron curtain is being pulled shut in Russia once again. Another ominous move, in concert with the China threat, and Iran’s cozy relationship hints of things coming to a head before very long.

[Da Coyote]

This is one of the few times I might agree with Putin. Let’s face it, Radio Moscow at its worst occasionally stumbled on something that might be correct. This far exceeds the modern BBC’s record. For years, I listened to the BBC on short wave to hear world news. No longer. Heck, I can just tune in to ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, or some of the no listener cable networks and hear the same thing. The (mindless) chattering class has won the coup...for the present.

[Red6]

lol

Freedom of press in Russia.

I’m surprised they didn’t have a series of accidents where BBC reporters fall from from roof tops or mysteriously get shot by a mugger, die from ingestion of plutonium or some contact poison.

No big deal, won't make the headlines for long in Europe.

[Red6]

Russia censors media though a punitive tax code, media blackouts such as over Chechnya, intimidation and like with the BBC now where they just pull the plug. A free press is part of the equation of a free people and Russia does not fit this description.

[Gay State Conservative]

You can take the boy out of the KGB but you can’t well,you know.There must be a deep deep,breathtakingly deep flaw in the Russian character for them to put up with what they put up with from ‘17 to ‘92....and for the last few years.

[Gay State Conservative]

This far exceeds the modern BBC’s record. For years, I listened to the BBC on short wave to hear world news. No longer.

Have you considered the possibility that the folks who run the BBC *Russian* service may have a much different world view than those who run the *English* service? If Putin wants to shut them down they must have been doing *something* right.

[Calvin Locke]

I no longer try to listen to the BBC, either. Antigua, Ascension, Rampisham, Skelton, depending on the time of day.

I miss some of the book transcriptions, but not much else.

I think their high water mark was getting kicked out of Zimbabwe in advance of the first "election" there, this millennium.

I would listen to Radio Canada, but they changed the schedule, and I fell out of the habit.

Their US news must have come from the ABC Radio wire, since the stories rarely varied from what I heard during news-breaks during the day.

[GOP_1900AD]

The Fourth Reich is solidifying before our very eyes.