BBC World Service Terminates Arabic Radio after 84 Years

The public service broadcaster marks its centenary later this year. (AFP)
The public service broadcaster marks its centenary later this year. (AFP)
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BBC World Service Terminates Arabic Radio after 84 Years

The public service broadcaster marks its centenary later this year. (AFP)
The public service broadcaster marks its centenary later this year. (AFP)

BBC has announced that it will close BBC Arabic radio after 84 years among other radios due to cost, inflation and licensing fees.

Nearly 400 staff at BBC World Service will lose their jobs as part of a cost-cutting program and move to digital platforms, the broadcaster announced on Thursday, paring down its Iranian-language service among others.

In July the broadcaster detailed plans to merge BBC World News television and its domestic UK equivalent into a single channel to launch in April next year.

BBC World Service -- one of the UK's most recognizable global brands -- currently operates in 41 languages around the world with a weekly audience of some 364 million people.

But the corporation said audience habits were changing and more people were accessing news online, which along with a freeze on BBC funding and increased operating costs meant a move to "digital-first" made financial sense.

"Today's proposals entail a net total of around 382 post closures," the public service broadcaster said in an online statement.

Eleven language services -- Azerbaijani, Brasil, Marathi, Mundo, Punjabi, Russian, Serbian, Sinhala, Thai, Turkish, and Vietnamese -- are already digital only.

Under the restructuring plans they will be joined by seven more: Chinese, Gujarati, Igbo, Indonesian, Pidgin, Urdu and Yoruba.

Radio services in Arabic, Persian, Kyrgyz, Hindi, Bengali, Chinese, Indonesian, Tamil and Urdu will stop, if the proposals are approved by staff and unions.

No language services will close, the broadcaster insisted, although some production will move out of London and schedules would change.

The Thai service will move to Bangkok, the Korean service to Seoul and the Bangla service to Dhaka.

The "Focus on Africa" television bulletin will be broadcast from Nairobi, it added.

BBC World Service director Liliane Landor said there was a "compelling case" for expanding digital services, as audiences had more than doubled since 2018.

"The way audiences are accessing news and content is changing and the challenge of reaching and engaging people around the world with quality, trusted journalism is growing," she added.

Government criticized
The head of the broadcasting union Bectu, Philippa Childs, said they were disappointed at the proposed changes.

"While we recognize the BBC must adapt to meet the challenges of a changing media landscape, once again it is workers who are hit by the government's poorly judged political decisions," she said.

The government's freezing of the license fee which pays for BBC World Service had created the funding squeeze and the need for cuts, she added.

Bectu will push for staff to be redeployed where possible and to ensure it "mitigates the needs for any compulsory redundancies", Childs said.

BBC World Service is funded out of the UK license fee -- currently £159 for a color TV and payable by every household with a television set.

The BBC has faced repeated claims from right-wingers since the UK's divisive Brexit referendum in 2016 of political bias, and pushing a "woke", London-centric liberal agenda.

But it has faced similar accusations of political bias in favor of the right from the left.

The government announced a freeze on the license fee in January, in what was seen by critics as an attempt to save the then-prime minister Boris Johnson's job.

At the time Johnson was facing mounting claims of wrongdoing in office, which ultimately forced him to resign.

Ministers claimed the funding model needed to be revised because of technological changes, including the uptake of streaming services, as well as increases in the cost of living.

Opposition parties however said the monthly payments -- equivalent to some £13.13 -- were small change compared to energy bill increases totaling thousands of pounds a year.

The culture secretary at the time, Johnson loyalist Nadine Dorries, had previously accused the BBC of "tokenism" in diversity hiring and elitist "group think" but denied wanting to dismantle the corporation.



Severe Storms in New York City Area Kill Two in New Jersey Floods

 A woman walks along the Hudson River, with the Jersey City skyline in the background, in New York City, US, July 14, 2025. (Reuters)
A woman walks along the Hudson River, with the Jersey City skyline in the background, in New York City, US, July 14, 2025. (Reuters)
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Severe Storms in New York City Area Kill Two in New Jersey Floods

 A woman walks along the Hudson River, with the Jersey City skyline in the background, in New York City, US, July 14, 2025. (Reuters)
A woman walks along the Hudson River, with the Jersey City skyline in the background, in New York City, US, July 14, 2025. (Reuters)

Two people were killed in New Jersey during flash flooding as severe storms lashed the New York City area on Monday night into Tuesday, submerging cars and flooding subway stations.

The intense rainfall caused widespread travel disruption across the region's airports, highways and railways.

More than 2 inches (5 cm) of rain were recorded in a single hour in Manhattan's Central Park, the second most for a 60-minute period in history, according to Mayor Eric Adams.

Videos showed flooding in several subway stations on Monday evening, including a geyser of water spewing into a station on Manhattan's West Side.

Officials said the subway system was simply overwhelmed by the amount of rainfall in such a short amount of time. The antiquated sewer system can handle around 1.75 inches (4.44 cm) of rainfall per hour, Rohit Aggarwala, the city's environmental protection commissioner, told reporters on Tuesday, compared with a rate of more than 4 inches an hour at the storm's peak.

"I probably don't recall seeing that level of rain before," Adams said.

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy declared a state of emergency and said two people died in Plainfield when their vehicle was swept away by floodwaters.

The victims were found in a submerged car, Murphy told reporters.

Murphy said that some places got 6 inches (15.25 cm) of rain in less than 2.5 hours and that it appeared some locations experienced flooding for the first time. The governor blamed climate change for the increasing frequency and intensity of extreme weather events.

"That's the new reality," he said.

In Westchester County, north of the city, authorities conducted multiple water rescues as cars were submerged and highways shut down due to flooding. In nearby Rockland County, the suburb of Nanuet recorded more than 5 inches (12.7 cm) of rain, according to the National Weather Service.