The broadcasting operations are going to close in Serbian, Portuguese, Macedonian, Albanian, and English in Balkan republics Serbia, Macedonia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Kosovo.

Only the agency’s web sites, featuring online broadcasts in languages mentioned above will remain in operation.

BBC already has closed its services in Bulgarian, Slovenian and Croatian.

“I can’t advise the British government on how it should spend its money, but this is a sad thing,” Leonid Gozman, co-chairman of the pro-business Right Cause Party, said to The Moscow Times by telephone.

“Now we are able to listen to variety of radio stations, but possibly a day will come when we would again have to turn to foreign radio stations for the truth,” Gozman said.

The Russian Service began broadcasting to the Soviet Union in 1946 and quickly established a reputation with Soviet listeners, in the brief period before the onset of the Cold War.

From 1949 until 1987, the jamming of the signal by the Soviet authorities consumed vast amounts of money and technical expertise. For many years, a significant part of the USSR’s entire radio broadcasting system was devoted to blocking transmissions from abroad.

According to the BBC Europe, despite Soviet jamming, millions were listening to BBC radio broadcastings in Russian by shortwave during the Cold War. The total audience reached 6 million by 1999.

In its heyday, the Russian Service provided a full range of news and current affairs, analysis, musical, medical, scientific, cultural and religious programs. In the past week, the Russian Service has revived some outstanding material from the archives: an interview with Paul McCartney and a ground-breaking hour-long, live studio interview with Margaret Thatcher, answering questions from listeners across the Soviet Union.

Among the service’s most popular programs was music show “Rok-Posevy” (”Rock Seeding”), hosted by iconic rock journalist Seva Novgorodtsev since 1977. He was awarded the Member of the Order of the British Empire in the 2005 Queen’s New Years Honors List for his services to broadcasting.

“Unlike many other ‘enemy voices,’ the BBC dedicated more time to music and culture,” political analyst, and a long-term listener, Stanislav Belkovsky said. For him the first hook was even more exquisite — a show dedicated to 17th-Century English philosopher Francis Bacon.

The closure was not entirely unexpected after the Russian BBC left the FM broadcast band in 2007, switching to middle waves and losing a chunk of its audience in the process.

“I think we have already lost the majority of our audience, when we switched to medium waves. I don’t think so many people will notice the disappearance,” a BBC Russian Service employee told to the Russian business daily Vedomosti.

However, the BBC is planning to concentrate in TV programming in Indian languages like Urdu, Hindi, and in Sub-Saharan Africa in the days to come with additional funding.

The BBC is aiming to cut expenses by 16 percent by 2014, when its current government grant ends. Axing the foreign-language broadcasts is expected to result in net savings of £46 million (US$74 million) – and the loss of some 30 million listeners worldwide, the broadcaster said in a January statement.

According to Amnesty International information, about 300 people gathered in the city’s Fountain Square for a rally held by the Musavat opposition party. Several people were also detained on their way to the event by the police.

“There is no justification for heavy-handed tactics to be used against obviously peaceful protestors,” said Natalia Nozadze, Amnesty International’s Azerbaijan expert who was present at the protest.

Demonstrators chanted “Liberty” and called for the resignation of the president and also called for the release of imprisoned activists.

The opposition activists sent out more than 35,000 invitations for people to support the anti-government group on Facebook and more than 3,000 clicked the “I’m attending” button to support the Friday action.

Observers sound skeptical of a Near-Eastern scenario to be repeated in Baku. But Friday’s protests rattled the authorities enough to cause a wave of arrests that made the regime look both vicious and fearful.

Police said 43 people were detained near the Oil Academy, a major university in central Baku.

Azerbaijan, an energy supplier to Europe and a transit route for U.S. troops in Afghanistan, has been ruled by one family for nearly two decades since Soviet veteran Heidar Aliyev came to power in 1993. He was succeeded by his son Ilham in 2003.

The removal of autocrats in Tunisia and Egypt is being felt in other Central Asian countries as well.

Run by an aging tyrant Islam Karimov, Uzbekistan is nervous too.

State media in Uzbekistan, the only media permitted in the country, has been attacking both Muslim extremists and Western “satanic” rock and roll. This kind of music is created by “evil forces” and is “approaching as dark clouds over the heads of Uzbek youth,” the Radio Free Europe quoted local media as saying.

Meanwhile, in a sign of both corruption and anxiety, last year Uzbeks became the second-fastest growing nationality purchasing luxury residential properties in London. The Moscow Times reports average sale amounts to US$3.3 million.

While Russia has benefited from the turmoil in the Arab world due to the surge in the price of oil, China is worried about its own internal tensions in Tibet and Islamic Turkic-speaking Xinjiang, and at the same time China depends on Central Asia for a considerable portion of its energy needs.

China buys a lot of natural gas from Turkmenistan. Lately, China has been turning to neighboring Kazakhstan for more of its energy needs — 40 percent of its uranium, for example. China National Petroleum Corp. is developing gas deposits in western Kazakhstan for direct export to China via a pipeline under construction.

“But the problem is that a good percentage of energy shipments over land have to enter China via Xinjiang, which can easily become unsafe if disturbances break out,” Richard Lourie, the author of Autobiography of Joseph Stalin, said to The Moscow Times.

On December 27, the Central Election Commission registered a statement by the initiative group in favor of such a plebiscite, which was endorsed by both houses of parliament. In their letter to Nazarbayev, the legislators asked him “to support the initiative to call a national referendum on the following question: Do you accept the law on Amendments to the Constitution of the Republic of Kazakhstan, envisaging the possibility of extending in a national referendum the powers of the first president of Kazakhstan?”

The initiative group operating throughout the country has already collected 3.6 million signatures in support of the referendum, in contrast to the required minimum of 200,000.

Last Friday, a joint session of the lower and upper houses of parliament voted unanimously to change the constitution to allow the referendum. “The will of our people is law,” said Yerlan Nigmatulin, a Member of Parliament.

Earlier this January, the United States called the idea a “setback for democracy.” On the eve of the vote, the U.S. ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, a group that includes democracy promotion among its main goals, expressed grave concerns over the referendum plans.

“To cancel presidential elections once again in favor of a referendum would represent a step backwards from Kazakhstan’s OSCE commitments to establishing democracy, holding periodic free and fair elections, and respecting the rule of law,” Ambassador Ian Kelly told the OSCE permanent council in Vienna.

Kazakhstan has never held an election deemed free and fair by international observers.
On January 6, the U.S. Embassy to Kazakhstan made Washington’s position clear.

“We think that it is important that Kazakhstan’s government and citizens honor their international commitments and continue to strive for free and fair elections,” the Embassy said in a statement.

The United States has fostered close ties with the mineral-rich country, despite the government’s record on human rights, the stifling of opposition and the concentration of power in the hands of the president and his family.

Nursultan Nazarbayev has led Kazakhstan since its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. He has already indicated he is confident of winning the next election, due in 2012.

Parliament, snubbing U.S. and EU criticism, has unanimously approved a referendum that would avert any potential challenge of the 70-year-old president in 2012 and 2017 elections.

The constitutional council, itself headed by the president, said in a statement that it would examine whether the proposal complied with Kazakhstan’s constitution and deliver its verdict within a month.

Presidential adviser Yermukhamet Yertysbayev said he was uncertain what Nazarbayev would do now. Yertysbayev conceded that allowing the referendum would likely set Kazakhstan on a collision course with its international commitments to improve democratic standards.

“But parliament was unable to take any other decision since they represent the people, and 5 million people have supported this idea of referendum,” he said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Some analysts have suggested that the idea was made only so that President Nazarbayev could reject it, in order to improve his democratic credentials in the West, BBC News reports. But the success of the petition campaign now appears to have made the referendum inevitable.

A satirical cartoon posted last Friday on YouTube to the accompaniment of a song mocking the referendum proposal ends with an on-screen message reading: “Make the right choice! Be a sheep and vote yes.”

Early Monday the state electoral commission said Lukashenko had won 79.7 percent with Sannikov, his closest rival, garnering only 1.6 percent.

Belarus police Monday arrested hundreds of protestors. The numbers of demonstrators at a rally in central Minsk swelled to tens of thousands at one point, AFP correspondents reported, with some of them trying to storm government buildings and smashing the glass doors.

Media correspondents’ reports have seen several demonstrators beaten with truncheons.

Nine candidates were running against Lukashenko. Belarus police arrested at least four of them -Sannikov, Nikolai Statkevich, Rygor Katusev and Vitaly Rymanshevsky, their party spokespeople told Reuters.

Lukashenko, 56, runs a command economy and has ruled the country of about 10 million with an iron fist since 1994, often jailing opponents and muzzling independent media while offering generous welfare and pensions to his citizens.

No one, he has said, should expect him to leave office.

“There will definitely be political changes … but no change of power in Belarus,” he told reporters in Moscow last week.

The agreement, signed in Moscow Dec. 9, signals that Minsk can continue to refine cheap Russian oil and sell it to Europe at a profit. The practice has long lubricated Belarus’ economy and allowed Lukashenko to leave much of it unreformed and offering Soviet-style state handouts.

“Russia will continue to invest in President Lukashenko because there is no danger of a color revolution with him,” Sergei Markov, a State Duma deputy with United Russia, said to The Moscow Times.

Both Russia and the International Monetary Fund have injected millions of dollars into Belarus, sending its foreign debt soaring. Minsk owed some US$25.6 billion in October, while foreign currency reserves stood at just US$2.8 billion on Dec. 1, according to the Belarussian central bank.

According to the documents published in WikiLeaks, Lukashenko is the richest man of Belarus. His personal worth is amounted to US$9 billion.

The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index 2010, released earlier this week, identified Belarus as an “authoritarian regime,” ranking it at 130, sandwiched between Gambia and Angola.

By comparison, the same report characterized Russia as a “hybrid regime” and ranked the country at 107, above Nepal but below Kyrgyzstan.

The OSCE had said on Sunday that the election already appeared “better” than in 2006.

The European Union has dangled the prospect of financial aid if Sunday’s vote is deemed fair. The EU will be watching carefully the verdict on Monday of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which has fielded a small army of election monitors across the country.

The current Belarusian economic model, governed by annual and five-year plans “becomes non-competitive even in post-Soviet countries,” RIA Novosti quoted IMF representative in Belarus Natalia Kolyadina as saying.

The suspended gold projects were said to contravene the country’s new Water and Forest Law, which bans mining activities in water basins and forest areas of the landlocked country, where water is in scarce supply.

In September, local environmental activists armed with hunting rifles opened fire at the site of a gold mine owned by China’s Puraam and Canada’s Centerra Gold about 100 kilometers north of Ulaanbaatar, which they accused of running roughshod over local environmental laws.

The number of licenses to be reviewed for termination compares with a total of about 4,000 mining licenses that the country has issued to date.

Regulations have been established to compensate license-holders facing losses as a result of the law, Mongolia’s minister for mineral resources and energy D. Zorigt said to Mongolian daily Udriin Sonin.

Michael Waring from Toronto-based Galileo Global Equity Advisors said the review shouldn’t be viewed as an attack on foreign miners.

“Mongolia is only really moving towards where the rest of the developed mining world is already at, in terms of protecting watersheds,” he said in an interview to The Wall Street Journal.

Mongolia’s vast and largely untapped mineral and energy resources have attracted a surge of interest from mining companies and investors, particularly in the past year. A number of major mining companies with assets in Mongolia are listed on stock exchanges in Canada and Hong Kong.

However, the revocation of the licenses highlights the regulatory risks businesses operating in Mongolia face as the country comes to grips with the implications of its resource boom.

According to Zorigt, names of companies whose licenses are to be terminated would be announced at a later date.

“Where only part of the area is in law violation, licenses may be partly terminated,” he said, while adding that “some mines may be classified as strategic deposits, in which case they could be exempted from the law, though the government would then acquire an equity stake in the project.”

“Too many outsiders were trying to pick up licenses in a bit of a lottery and trade, and you know what that can lead to. These licenses need to be properly explored and well thought through,” Eric Zurrin, ResCap chief executive, an investment bank active in Mongolia, said to Reuters.

At the same time, some experts consider that the law did not offer precise definition of water basins and forest areas, leaving it unclear what projects would be under threat.

Department of geology, mining and cadastral units at the Minerals Resources Authority have not yet taken a decision to invalidate gold mining licenses in environmentally sensitive areas.

There are four requirements that have to be met before any license can be terminated. The government must define the specific boundaries where the offending licenses breach the law, specify compensation procedures and rules, allocate the compensation money, and there has to be an individual compensation agreement with every license holder.

The deal should ease worries that Europe, which takes gas through the Polish pipeline, will face shortages during the coming winter.

Russia and Poland agreed on to increase gas delivery to Poland and its transit to Germany through the Yamal pipeline last year but was not signed due to worries that it was incompatible with European Union laws.

“The EU delegation participated in the talks and did not raise any objections to the governmental agreement,” Joanna Strzelec-Lobodzinska, Poland’s Deputy Economy Minister, told reporters in Moscow.

Poland’s current supply contract runs out next week, and the delay in signing the deal raised fears of supply disruptions similar to those experienced in 2009, when European consumers were left shivering during a price row between Russia and the Ukraine.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il attended a concert yesterday celebrating the 57th anniversary of the Korean War as the two main adversaries from that conflict conducted war drills off his country’s eastern coast.

The State Merited Chorus performed numbers such as “Our General is the Best” and “My Song in the Trench,” state-run Korean Central News Agency reported today. The audience gave “enthusiastic cheers” to Kim, the Supreme Commander of the Korean People’s Army, who “heartily congratulated them on the victory” in the Fatherland Liberation War.

As Kim took part in celebrations to mark the cease-fire that ended open hostility on the Korean peninsula, U.S. and South Korean forces were putting on a display of military might that included anti-submarine maneuvers intended as a deterrent to the North.

The four-day drills, which end today, are being held after a South Korean-led investigation team in May blamed North Korea for torpedoing the South’s warship Cheonan, killing 46 sailors.

The three-year Korean War ended in a cease-fire after China’s entry pushed back the U.S. and United Nations forces. South Korea remains technically at war with the North, with the two sides separated by one of the world’s most-fortified borders.

This is the third try to pass the law on Casino through Ikh Khural. Two other drafts were rejected by the previous Parliament.

“Neighboring regions of neighboring countries don’t have any casinos or gambling centers, which allows such businesses to flourish in Mongolia,” deputies said to Business Mongolia. Law initiators believe that it will contribute to the Mongolian economy and revenue.

According to the draft document, one percent of casino income will be collected into the “Good Will” Foundation, a social welfare fund. The casino is going to be open only for foreigners and the government of Mongolia will own certain part of its asset.

The government of the country had signed a contract four years ago that will put a U.S. real-estate company, Winwheel Bullion, in charge of building a casino complex with hotels, shopping malls, banks and a modern airport to bring visitors across the vast distances needed to reach it. Neither the company nor the Mongolian side have provided any information about financial arrangements for the zone.

The government first awarded a contract to develop Zamyn Uud to a British Virgin Islands-registered company called Western Paradise, promising tax breaks and other incentives, but that deal fell through.

Zamyn-Uud FTZ is 900 hectares in size and located three kilometers east of the main town and three kilometers north of Erenhot city (usually shortened into Eriyen, Ereen or Erlian), Inner Mongolia, China.

A tiny town and railway depot, Zamyn Uud is about 350 miles northwest of Beijing, has a population of 10.000 inhabitants and is very much dependent upon the commercial activity generated by the neighboring Chinese city Erenhot.

The major employer in Zamyn-Uud is the Government of Mongolia, which employs approximately 700 people to manage and operate the Mongolian Railway. In this location, the railway is very important as it handles goods and products being transported from Russia to China (around 10 million tons per year), facilitates direct cross-border trade with China, and has a container loading and unloading facility (twenty wagons a day) to overcome the difference in rail gauge of the Mongolian and Chinese railway systems. Handling capacity of the transshipment facility is 60-80 wagons a day.

The city of Erenhot is experiencing fast economic growth. Its current population is estimated at almost two -hundred thousand residents while the per capita GDP of the city was at 14,000 Yuan in 2009.

Between Mongolia and China there presently is only one international port of entry operating on a permanent basis and nine bilateral ports of entry operating on a seasonal basis. Most prominent among these is the “Zamiin-Uud – Erenhot,” international port.Nine others, including “Bulgan” port in the province of Khobdo, “Gashuunsukhait” port in the province of South Gobi, and “Shiveekhuren,” also in South Gobi, are very crowded during the short season in which they operate.

According to the state’s statistic data 508.821 of Mongolian citizens traveled through the various ports of entry to Russia and China in 2000, but the majority – 266.221 passing through Zamyn Uud –Erenhot.

Answering journalists’ questions about the situation in Kyrgyzstan, a spokesman of the Belarusian Foreign Ministry underlined: “We’re faced with a serious international problem. Our President, Alexander Lukashenko is working on directions for a resolution. There is no doubt that this problem can be solved only within the framework of international law.”

Ensuring the Belarusian Embassy’s safety in the Kyrgyz Republic is under control, Andrei Savinykh said at a press briefing in Minsk. According to the spokesman, the Belarusian Foreign Ministry is working with local authorities in Bishkek, and “they are providing us all possible assistance.”

“The main problem, as you know, is uncontrolled destructive elements involved in riots and looting. It is important to note that this is a systemic threat is not only for us but for the Kyrgyz society in general. In this regard, we also implement a range of measures aimed to ensure security of the embassy staff and their families,” said Andrei Savinykh.

Earlier this week Kyrgyz bloggers launched a flash mob called “Let’s bombard the Belarusian president web-site with messages,” which was supported by many Internet users who expressed outrage towards Kurmanbek Bakiyev’s refusal to recognize his resignation from office saying that the interim had not kept their side of the promise to protect his family from harassment.

After his arrival in Belarus, the president of Kyrgyzstan declared his non-resignation as the head of state. In turn, Alexander Lukashenko noted that Kurmanbek Bakiyev can be dismissed from his post only be holding election in the Kyrgyzstan and the leader of the country should participate in it.

According to the opposition politician, there should be a “fair trial” in Kyrgyzstan against Kurmanbek Bakiyev. “If he’s a criminal, then we have no right to conceal such people in our country, it blows upon its prestige,” said activist leader “For Freedom” (Za Svabodu) movement, Alexander Milinkevich. “Firstly, I think that there should be an investigation on the case of the dead and injured during the Kyrgyz events. If Bakiyev is proved by trial, he should be in Kyrgyzstan, not hiding in Belarus,” he said.

Interior Minister Moldomusa Kongantiyev and First Deputy Prime Minister Akylbek Zhaparov were severely beaten by protesters in the town of Talas, where the unrest began on Tuesday, the Ferghana.ru news service reported. The Kyrgyz Interior Ministry denied reports that Kongantiyev had died of his injuries.

The protesters set fire to the prosecutor’s office and looted state television headquarters. Kyrgyz state television and state-controlled Channel Five have suspended broadcasting, reports Interfax.

The local White House has been taken over by opposition forces and Roza Otunbaeva has taken charge of the interim government. She informed journalists that Prime-Minister Daniyar Usenov “signed the resignation statement and personally submitted it to me. The opposition forces took over the power”, as quoted by RIAN. The resignation of  the Prime-Minister automatically means the resignation of the Cabinet Council.

The imprisoned opposition leaders Ismail Isakov, Erkin Bulekbaev, Saparbek Argynov and Uran Ryskulov were released although there were no legal sanctions or amnesty granted. The opposition leaders and various marginal men (who also refer to themselves as opposition members) gave live interviews on state television channel.

Meanwhile unknown people devastated the Kyrgyz national arts museum, named after Gapar Aitiev. The collection included precious paintings of Russian and Soviet artists like Vrubel, Levitan, Falk and other famous impressionists.

Their has been no word from Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiev till now. He has not addressed the nation since the events started and there are only unconfirmed rumours that he might be in the south gathering support there. Interfax informed that on the night of April 7 Bakiev’s house was looted and burned with people grabbing personal belongings, bed-clothes, dishes, rugs and whatever they could lay their hands on. Not a single fire-engine arrived at the scene. The location of the president’s teammates and relatives has not been yet reported. According to unofficial sources, the President’s son Maxim Bakiev was on his way to the United States to attend  investment forum on April 8 in Washington DC. The event was pre-planned and turned out to be perfect timing for him.

The Russian Federation had hinted that it no longer supported the Bakiev regime. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin called the unrest “a purely internal matter” and accused Kyrgyzstan’s president of “stepping on the same rake” as his predecessor, Askar Akayev. Both Bakiyev and Akayev incited public anger over alleged widespread corruption and nepotism in their administrations.

Askar Akayev, who now lives in Moscow, urged Bakiyev to step down. “The best outcome for the people of Kyrgyzstan would be the resignation of Bakiyev,” Akayev said on Ekho Moskvy radio.

“The single reason for these protests is Bakiyev and his politics”, said former independent RF Duma Deputy Vladimir Ryzhkov to Moscow Times. He said the Kyrgyz government was a classic dictatorship — “oppressive, corrupt and clannish — there are very good grounds to overthrow it. Russia has a huge influence over economically weak Kyrgyzstan. If it sends a mission with an energetic leader, it can act as a peacemaker,”. By not responding, Moscow risks losing the support of the Kyrgyz, “a people who are traditionally very friendly toward us,” he said.

The U.S. State Department is clueless as to how to manage the situation and said on Wednesday that the United States believes the Kyrgyz government is still in power despite claims that opposition had seized control. “We continue to think the government remains in power,” said State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley, while adding – “We have no indication that the government has ceased to function …the situation is difficult, but not to the extent that there are claims that the government has fallen, we don’t have that information”.

Kyrgyzstan achieved independence with the collapse of Soviet Union in 1991. Though still an impoverished Central Asian nation, it’s seen as a strategic asset in both Moscow and Washington. Immediately after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, U.S. set up a military base in Kyrgyzstan to support the war in Afghanistan. But in February 2009, at the same press conference that announced the gift of $2.1 billion in Russian aid to the Kyrgyz, President Bakiyev also announced the closure of the U.S. air base. He later backtracked, offering United States continued use of the base, but at three times the original rent.

Last month alone, more than 50,000 U.S. and coalition troops passed through Manas en route to Afghanistan according to U.S. military officials. The U.S. agreement allowing American use of the base in Kyrgyzstan, a mountainous is set to expire soon.

According to statistics, Kyrgyzstan’s population is now 5.4 million. The country’s gross domestic product in 2008 was $4 billion while main exports are cotton, tobacco, gold, mercury, uranium and natural gas.