High-quality English language analysis and editorial writing on the news.
By John Donovan This morning the oil giant Royal Dutch Shell Plc announced its second quarter results. In subsequent news coverage, Bloomberg commentators said they were stunned by the lack of comment by Shell on the risk of reprisals by Russia to the recent announcement of EU sanctions targeting the Russian oil and gas industry. […]
BBG Watch Commentary U.S. Senator Roger Wicker, R-Miss., a leading Senator on the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, is urging the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) to continue operating Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty’s (RFE/RL) Balkan Service and Radio Free Iraq. According to a press release from the senator’s office, Senator Wicker […]
David Schussler Here we are a nation of escapists, having displaced the indigenous, having fucked up the old world as we (whether we knew it or not) looked for a new world to destroy. While escaping the harsh realities of personal responsibility for the lives we no longer wanted, we dragged a battery of philosophers […]
British BBC and German Deutsche Welle (DW) offer superb coverage in English of Ukraine’s slide toward a repressive state. Too bad America’s voice abroad, Voice of America (VOA), is not, and has left the field to RT (Russia Today). A guest analysis by Ted Lipien, a global media analyst and former Voice of America associate […]
I agree with the one who told the parable of the Good Samaritan: that those who passed the man hurt by thieves would be partly responsible if he died. Yet life is a bit more complicated in reality. A few days ago, Kerry (said that he will) hold objectors to Obama’s wishes as responsible for […]
Recently, several instances have been reported from India where Importers and Exporters from India dealing with China and Russia have been cheated by fraudsters and the fraudulent money diverted to Banks in Hing Kong. The modus operandi is to intervene in genuine importer-exporter communication and to send instructions through false e-mail IDs similar to the […]
BBG Watch Commentary Fired Radio Liberty Russian journalists delivered some of the best in depth analysis of the links between the Boston bombings, violent jihadism and Chechnya. Known as Radio Liberty in Exile, journalists fired last year by the former management of Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) turned to their still employed RFE/RL […]
BBG Watch Commentary. U.S. government-funded Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) still broadcasts uncensored radio programs in local languages to the largely Muslim North Caucasus region in the Russian Federation, the reported home of the Boston bombing suspects. But if U.S. government bureaucrats and the Obama Administration had their way, these broadcasts, which include […]
…while ALL the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs members voted for this resolution preventing adoption of Russian children – several members of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs continue to uphold similar ‘Putin-like’ legislation preventing adoption of American children.
BBG Watch Commentary Commenting on the defense authorization bill that President Obama signed last night, which includes a provision that reduces restrictions of the Smith-Mundt Act on the dissemination of materials within the United States that were originally intended for audiences overseas, former Broadcasting Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) and Voice of America (VOA) official […]
Media in Russia are reporting that leaders of Helsinki human rights groups in Russia and the Czech Republic have appealed to former Solidarity labor union leader and Poland’s former president Lech Walesa to help them defend the rights of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) journalists who had been fired in Moscow on orders of RFE/RL […]
BBG Watch Commentary “Not only have I not changed my views on how bad the situation is at RFE/RL, I came away from the BBG panel more worried than I went in and more convinced than ever that it needs radical change at the top.” – Freedom House President David Kramer U.S. officials and American […]
BBG Watch Commentary Radio Liberty Internet team fired last September by American executives of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) received last Saturday in Moscow a prestigious Sakharov human rights journalism prize along with its star young reporter and web editor Elena Vlasenko who had resigned from RFE/RL in protest against the dismissal of her colleagues. […]
BBG Watch Commentary Kristina Gorelik (КриÑтина Горелик), fired last September by American taxpayer-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) along with dozens of her colleagues, has received today the Moscow Helsinki Group prize for “journalistic activity aimed at promoting human rights values.”  The prize was presented on the International Human Rights Day, December 10. At Radio […]
BBG Watch Commentary After the American management of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) headed by President and CEO Steven Korn fired without any warning dozens of Radio Liberty web editors and other journalists, cancelled their pro-human rights programs, and brought in a new team led by Masha Gessen to change programming philosophy and redesign the […]
BBG Watch Commentary Members of the Broadcasting Board of Governors and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Board of Directors are planning to consult former Radio Liberty journalists in Russia fired on orders of RFE/RL President Steven Korn. Mikhail Gorbachev with fired Radio Liberty journalist  Mikhail Sokolov (Radio Liberty in Exile) Sources told BBG Watch that in […]
BBG Watch Commentary Radio Liberty in Exile responds to RFE/RL President Steven Korn’s dismissive comments about Russian opposition leaders by appealing to U.S. Congress for help. Radio Liberty in Exile, a group of Russian journalists fired in September by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) management and their colleagues who had resigned in protest, has responded […]
BBG Watch – www.bbgwatch.com Commentary Radio Liberty-in-Exile group of fired Radio Liberty journalists is planning a protest in Moscow during a panel discussion on Monday by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty president Steven Korn, his deputy Julia Ragona and their new Russian Service director Masha Gessen. View larger image of captured Radio Liberty (Radio Svoboda) home […]
BBG Watch Commentary In an article published in National Review Online, Mario Corti and Ted Lipien argue that Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) executives have mislead the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) and the American public on the circumstances and the reasons for the mass firing of Radio Liberty journalists in Moscow. The authors state […]
Mikhail Kasyanov, one of the signatories of the protest letter to the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) over the mass firing of Radio Liberty journalists and cancellation of their political and human rights programs, was Prime Minister of Russia, 2000-2004. Kasyanov, the last member of the Russian government closely associated with Yeltsin, was dismissed, along […]
BBG Watch Commentary A young Russian journalism student Kirill Filimonov, protesting against U.S. decision to stifle Radio Liberty broadcasts and to fire its journalists, was detained by the police but released and, with about 30 mostly young, Russian demonstrators, continued the picket Tuesday in front of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. Russian and foreign media were […]
BBG Watch, an independent website edited by employees and former employees of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), a federal agency in charge of U.S. international broadcasts, has learned that a group of young Radio Liberty listeners and users of its website is relying on Facebook and other social media to organize a demonstration in […]
Lyudmila Alexeyeva, photo by Владимир Липка (Vladimir Lipka) BBG Watch Commentary Reports in Russian media say that a letter of protest sent to the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the U.S. Congress, which was signed by Russia’s most famous human rights leaders, condemns the management of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) for engineering a […]
In Syria, the war is getting nasty. One recent massacre of women and children is being touted as the reason for someone (NATO? Turkey? The UN?) to step in and stop the killing. And news reports of the government bombing civilian areas make many shudder. StrategyPage points out that a lot of the massacres are […]
Annette Lantos, the wife of the late Congressman Tom Lantos, has joined efforts to oppose the Broadcasting Board of Governors’ (BBG) proposals to cut Voice of America (VOA) services, the independent, nongovernmental Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting reported today on its website www.cusib.org. Mrs. Lantos’s April 4, 2012 letter to the BBG begins: “I write […]
Ted Lipien, a former Voice of America (VOA) acting associate director, has been warning for some time that marketing and staffing policies pushed by the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) executives have changed the focus of VOA and other BBG broadcasters from serious, accurate and well balanced journalism to ratings-chasing entertainment and sloppy reporting produced […]
NPR’s Michele Kelemen, a former employee of Voice of America, reported on the recent VOA Russian Service interview with a leading Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny which he later described as “100 percent fake” and complained that VOA “went nuts.” The fake interview may have been created by Kremlin supporters who have been known to […]
In a Washington Times Op-Ed, a Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting member Ted Lipien warned about a pro-Putin bias in the Voice of America Russian programs. Lipien reported that a highly respected independent journalist in Russia hired by the Broadcasting Board of Governors to evaluate the VOA Russian website concluded last year that it has […]
BBG Watch News Commentary According to BBG Watch sources, executives in charge of U.S. international broadcasting have been trying to keep secret the fake Voice of America (VOA) interview with a Russian opposition leader from members of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) who have the ultimate responsibility over VOA and other U.S. government-funded news […]
FreeMediaOnline.org Truckee, CA, USA, July 28, 2011 –Press freedom advocates and Ethiopian Americans are declaring a partial victory in their fight with the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), a U.S. government agency, over the censorship of the Voice of America radio programs to Ethiopia. They credit massive protests and a demonstration held Monday in front […]
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