In a statement, she said: “Ofcom has shown the UK public, and the regulatory community internationally, that, despite a well-constructed facade of independence, it is nothing more than a tool of government, bending to its media-suppressing will.
ZURICH, April 8 (Reuters) – Austria’s government is monitoring the global banking turmoil although there are so far no signs of it spreading to the country’s financial sector, Finance Minister Magnus Brunner said in an interview published on Saturday.
The media watchdog went on: “We take seriously the importance, in our democratic society, of a broadcaster’s right to freedom of expression and the audience’s right to receive information and ideas without undue interference.
The despot took to the stage dressed in a £10,000 Loro Piana jacket – despite his country’s economy crumbling under the weight of Western sanctions – to address a crowd waving Russian national flags and banners marked with the letter ‘Z’, which has become a potent symbol of the invasion.
“By ignoring RT’s completely clean record of four consecutive years and stating purely political reasons tied directly to the situation in Ukraine and yet completely unassociated to RT’s operations, structure, management or editorial output, Ofcom has falsely judged RT to not be ‘fit and proper’ and in doing so robbed the UK public of access to information.”
The premier also made clear that the UK intends to push ahead with North Sea oil and gas development – and potentially fracking – saying the country will ‘make better use of our own naturally occurring hydrocarbons’.
Tens of thousands of flag-waving Russians packed out Moscow’s Luzhniki World Cup stadium on Friday as the despot attempted to drum up support for his stalled invasion of Ukraine, peddled debunked claims about why the war started and shilled a false narrative of Russia’s battlefield ‘success’.
They were surrounded and shelled by guns, the Ukrainians sent airstrikes against them. This is called genocide,’ he said, repeating his widely-debunked justification tutoring for math attacking. ‘It is to save people from this suffering and genocide that we launched our military operation.’
Ofcom said the decision to suspend the licence came amid ongoing investigations into RT’s news and current affairs coverage of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with Prime Minister Boris Johnson also having previously called for an Ofcom review.
Vladimir Putin gave a a tub-thumping address yesterday to tens of thousands of Russians gathered at Moscow’s world cup stadium, celebrating his invasion of Ukraine in 2014 and drumming up support for his new war
A statement released by the regulator on Friday said: “We consider the volume and potentially serious nature of the issues raised within such a short period to be of great concern – especially given RT’s compliance history, which has seen the channel fined £200,000 for previous due impartiality breaches.
Ofcom said it noted new laws in Russia which “effectively criminalise any independent journalism that departs from the Russian state’s own news narrative”, particularly in relation to the invasion of Ukraine.
Meanwhile, whoever set up a live stream of the event on YouTube did not turn the comment section off, meaning thousands of negative comments towards the event – written in Russian – flooded the page, as did blue and yellow heart emojis – the colours of Ukraine’s flag.
Several Telegram channels critical of the Kremlin reported that students and employees of state institutions in a number of regions were ordered by their superiors to attend rallies and concerts marking the Crimea anniversary.
Toler, whose investigative consortium has done several probes of Russian intelligence operations, said he believed he had traced the posting back to Thug Shaker Central on Discord, which was then reposting by users to a bigger group.
In the wake of the invasion, the Kremlin has cracked down harder on dissent and the flow of information, arresting thousands of antiwar protesters, banning sites such as Facebook and Twitter, and handing out tough prison sentences for what it says is false reporting on the war, which Moscow refers to as a ‘special military operation.’
Putin used the rally to peddle falsehoods about why the war started and to shill a narrative of Russia’s battlefield success, speaking of ‘how our guys are fighting during this operation, shoulder to shoulder, helping each other’
‘The best confirmation of this is how our guys are fighting during this operation, shoulder to shoulder, helping each other. When it is necessary, they cover each-other as if it was their own brother from bullets.
In Ukraine, the documents suggested a misalignment between US and Ukrainian military strategies, with intelligence reports appearing to show the US continues to spy on top military and political leaders in the region.
The event was heavily anti-Western and filled with Soviet nostalgia, as Russian authorities ramped up patriotism in response to being hit by massive international sanctions for Putin’s Ukraine campaign, which has stalled thanks to fierce resistance.