US congressmen urge Azerbaijani President not to stop Voice of America
On November 24, Elsie Hastings and Benjamin Cardin, co-chairs of the US Congress Commission for Security and Cooperation in Europe, sent a letter to President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliev with expression of their concern with the plans to stop in 2009 access of foreign radio companies, in particular Voice of America and Radio Liberty, to the frequencies controlled by the country's government.
In particular, the letter runs that realization of the plans by Baku will become "an absolutely wrong signal" at the moment when the country "is going to set up good working relations with US president elect Barack Obama," the ITAR-TASS reports.
On November 20, the Day.Az source reported that the Closed Joint-Stock Company "Azerbaijani Television and Radio Programmes", known as AzTV, had sent an official warning to the Voice of America Broadcasting Board saying that since December 31, 2008, the AzTV will stop broadcasting the "News Flash" programme.
![Tumso Abdurakhmanov. Screenshot from video posted by Abu-Saddam Shishani [LIVE] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIR3s7AB0Uw](/system/uploads/article_image/image/0001/18460/main_image_Tumso.jpg "Tumso Abdurakhmanov. Screenshot from video posted by Abu-Saddam Shishani [LIVE] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIR3s7AB0Uw")