![]() The increase in government funding announced last year came after the BBC was forced to take on the £245m annual cost of the World Service, which had been funded by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, as part of the 2010 licence fee settlement with the government. Languages to be included in the latest expansion include Afaan Oromo, Amharic, Gujarati, Igbo, Korean, Marathi, Pidgin, Punjabi, Telugu, Tigrinya, and Yoruba. BBC News provides trusted World and UK news as well as local and regional perspectives. ![]() Other planned services include more than 30 new TV programmes across Africa, more regional programming from BBC Arabic and a video offer in 40 languages. Visit BBC News for up-to-the-minute news, breaking news, video, audio and feature stories. As an independent broadcaster, we remain as relevant as ever in the 21st century, when in many places there is not more free expression, but less.” With the first of the new services to launch in 2017, the new output will target younger people and women in particular.įrancesca Unsworth, director of the World Service, said: “Through war, revolution and global change, people around the world have relied on the World Service for independent, trusted, impartial news. ![]() A number of foreign broadcasters already target the country, including South Korea’s KBS and the US-funded Voice of America and Radio Free Asia. Some diplomats have argued that the BBC’s plans to compete against Kim Jong-un’s state-sponsored media for North Korea’s 25 million people will cause tension. Much more online content and on social media will also be produced. With echoes of cold war transmissions – when the BBC, Voice of America and Radio Free Europe broadcast into the Soviet Union and countries of the Warsaw pact – the plans announced on Wednesday will lead to extended news bulletins and a relaunched website in Russian, as well as daily radio programmes aimed at audiences in the Korean peninsula. As we move towards our centenary, my vision is of a confident, outward-looking BBC which brings the best of our independent, impartial journalism and world-class entertainment to half a billion people around the world. “The BBC World Service is a jewel in the crown – for the BBC and for Britain. North Korea claims to have recovered from Covid Kim says N Korea ready to mobilise nuclear forces US recovers cash after suspected North Korean hack North. Tony Hall, director general of the broadcaster, called the announcement “a historic day for the BBC”. BBC News, North Korea Imagine a country where your mobile phone is taken from you at the airport with no explanation or apology, where theres no access to the internet, where your minders watch every move and youre reported if you try to leave your hotel alone. The BBC’s plans, which focus on its links to “democracy and the free press”, come after state-sponsored rivals such as al-Jazeera and RT (previously Russia Today) have expanded into the UK. ![]() 9 8 million infections since late April with just 74 deaths for an official fatality rate of 0.ġ1 The country has one of the world’s worst healthcare systems, with poorly equipped hospitals, few intensive care units, and no Covid-19 treatment drugs or vaccines, experts say.ġ2 In contrast, South Korea - with its advanced healthcare systems and highly vaccinated population - has a reported Covid fatality rate of 0.ġ3 12 percent, according to official data.ġ4 ‘Hard to believe’“It is hard to believe any country if they say that the confirmed number of patients has suddenly gone to zero,” Ahn Chan-il, a North Korean studies scholar, told AFP.ġ5 “Like its military weapons and nuclear programmes, it seems right to say that Covid is also being used to highlight Kim Jong Un’s leadership and shore up loyalty, regardless of what the truth is.ġ7 Pyongyang said in late May it had started seeing “progress” in controlling the outbreak but experts, including the World Health Organization, have repeatedly cast doubt on the claim.ġ8 North Korea is not believed to have vaccinated any of its roughly 25 million people, having rejected jabs offered by the WHO’s Covax programme.ġ9 The Seoul-based specialist site NK News reported that North Korea imported 3,554 invasive ventilators from China in June, sharply up from April, despite an overall decrease in trade.Ģ0 But Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies, told AFP that Pyongyang’s claim to have brought the epidemic under control seemed “somewhat reliable”.Ģ1 Things could be getting back to normal as “there are no signs of tighter border control, no official request has been made to Beijing for medical aid or equipment, and Pyongyang-based diplomats remain in place”, he said.The plans, financed by a £289m funding boost from the UK government in 2015, are likely to cause controversy in several places where the ruling power may not welcome the BBC’s offer of “independent journalism”, including Russia and North Korea.
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