We’re delighted that the BBC’s Gaza correspondent, Alan Johnston, has been freed and handed to Hamas officials after 114 days in captivity.
Interviewed immediately after his release, Johnston said he had been in the hands of “dangerous and unpredictable” people.
A major power failure has resulted in the AIB UK headquarters being without power from 1422 GMT on Monday 9 July 2007.
As a result, our telephone, e-mail and fax systems are not operating correctly.
We apologise that at present, the AIB is not able to be contacted. We hope that power will be restored by first thing on Tuesday morning, 10 July.
The AIB HQ lost power at 1422 GMT on Monday 9 July.
Power has been restored, but it is taking some time to get the AIB’s communications systems operational again.
Please bear with us during this period of disruption.
The Armenian parliament has failed to pass a bill that would have placed severe restrictions on foreign broadcast media, particularly RFE/RL (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty).
The legislation would have banned foreign broadcasts on Armenian public television and radio and heavily taxed their rebroadcast on private stations.
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) had said the proposals, which passed its first reading on June 29, amounted to a “ban on RFE/RL” and could have made Armenia’s March 2008 presidential elections less free and fair.
The measure didn’t pass in its second and final reading because opposition, independent, and even some pro-government lawmakers blocked a quorum by boycotting two separate votes.
Human Rights Watch, meanwhile, had called the legislative package a potential blow to media freedom in general.
The failed vote in parliament, where just enough lawmakers boycotted the vote to prevent a quorum, means the government must start over if it wants to try again to pass the legislation. That involves redrafting the proposals and resubmitting them again for a new first reading.
Victor Dalakian, an independent member of parliament, was one of the more outspoken critics of the legislation introduced by the government.
“The minority proved that quality is more important than quantity, and this would be a lesson for the parliamentary majority, that it should respect one of the most important rights: liberty,” Dalakian told RFE/RL.
But it wasn’t just the minority that doomed the draft legislation. It didn’t pass its second and final reading because opposition, independent, and even some pro-government lawmakers blocked a quorum by boycotting two separate votes. In the first attempt, only 64 votes were cast (63 for, none against, one abstention) in the 131-member parliament. In the second try, 65 votes were cast (63 for, none against, two abstentions). Both fell short of the 66 votes necessary for a quorum.
Speaker Tigran Torosian and other officials had argued that the legislation would actually not have affected RFE/RL broadcasts. But that position, given the legislation’s wording, left observers both inside and outside the country puzzled.
That’s because the legislation clearly spelled out sharp disincentives for private Armenian radio stations to carry foreign broadcasters’ programmes. They would have had to pay more than 200 US dollars in taxes each time they retransmitted a programme produced by a foreign media organization. That is about 70 times more than broadcasters must pay for a locally made program.
According to a public survey carried out by Magram Market Research commissioned by the NTV Plus satellite television company, the share of monthly audience of the Russia Today TV channel was 16% in Moscow and 25% in other regions of Russia.
The audience of Russia Today in Moscow is higher than the respective figure of CNN that has reached 15%. The Bloomberg TV channel specialising on financial and economic new is interesting for 14% of Moscow respondents.
At the same time, five per cent of the audience watch Russia Today nearly every or every day, 21% of the respondents do this once or twice a week and 14% – fewer than once a week.
Fifteen per cent of the Moscow respondents are employed in the industrial sector, 12% – in the finance, banking and insurance sectors, 6% – in public management and another 6% – in science and education. Thirty-nine per cent of the polled are mid-managers and 16 per cent are top managers.
The survey sampled more than 2,000 subscribers of NTV Plus in Moscow and other regions of Russia and was carried out in a way of telephone interviews from December 2006 to February 2007. Men and women aged 16 to 60 took part in the survey.
The news from Russia Today aim primarily at the English-speaking audience. Our audience in Moscow and Russian regions are all those who need unbiased and interesting information about Russia on a daily basis, but who do not speak Russian. The survey was made in winter. However, we have all reasons to believe that today these figures could be even higher, Margarita Simonyan, Editor-in-Chief of Russia Today, said.
RFE/RL’s Armenian Service offered intensive coverage of the May 12
parliamentary elections in Armenia – work that’s been recognised by the OSCE.
On Election Day and the day after,
the Service broadcast live for over three hours, with special election
programmes produced in both Prague and Yerevan.
The coverage was singled
out for praise by the OSCE/ODIHR joint observation mission for its
balance and thoroughness (the OSCE/ODIHR “Statement Of Preliminary
Findings And Conclusions” can be found at
http://www.osce.org/documents/odihr/2007/05/24424_en.pdf).
The Director of RFE/RL’s Armenian Service, Hrair Tamrazian, may be
reached by email at tamrazianh@rferl.org. The Armenian Service’s website is at http://www.azatutyun.am/; English-language news about
events in Armenia can be found at
http://www.rferl.org/featuresarchive/country/armenia.html