Ntv

AFTER WAGING an all-out war against President Vladimir Putin's most vocal critic, Russian government is about to complete the takeover of NTV. As a result, the Kremlin will effectively control all television news programming. NTV has been a thorn in the side of Mr. Putin since he came to power 15 months ago. Alone among television stations, it has exposed official corruption and questioned the cruelty of the stalemated Chechnya war. When Boris Yeltsin occupied the Kremlin, NTV was equally irreverent toward and critical of his administration.

MOSCOW - Russia's intelligence agency said yesterday that it had broken a U.S. spy ring that was trying to steal Russian defense secrets, including information about the country's military ties with former Soviet republics. The allegation adds to a list of ruffled relations between the two countries weeks before President Bush is scheduled to arrive in Russia for his first visit. President Vladimir V. Putin's decision to support the American-led war against terror had strengthened U.S.-Russia ties, but disagreements over nuclear disarmament and trade are expected to top the agenda at next month's summit.

MOSCOW - In the crowded offices and hallways of NTV yesterday, caffeine-jagged editors, reporters and producers waited for the inevitable moment when their foes would come and take possession. It has become something of a Russian trademark: Workers have occupied factories, and scientists have taken over their institutes until chased out by police. Eight years ago, members of parliament took over their own building, to be ousted in the end by tanks. But in the struggle by the nation's only independent television network against the new management selected by its Kremlin-associated debtholder - a struggle that they cast as one for freedom of the press - none of the sweating, exhausted, excited employees quite expected what would happen yesterday, which was nothing.

MOSCOW - Hours after government officials pulled the plug yesterday on the television network called TV6, the last network independent of Kremlin control, members of its staff gathered in their old studios to plan their next move. They have few choices. Svetlana Sorokina, host of a popular news talk show, likened the shutdown engineered by the government and its business allies to a murder. "There is no place now where I can work and start a new program," she said. "We are liquidated."

MOSCOW - The other night, the sexually provocative movie "Last Tango in Paris," starring Marlon Brando, turned up unannounced on NTV television. A few nights later, the politically provocative and beloved satirist named Viktor Shenderovich disappeared from his 10 p.m. time slot. Before confused and frustrated NTV viewers could sort that out, they were confronted with yet another disorienting image. NTV news, known for its unflinching coverage of the misery accompanying the fighting in Chechnya, was suddenly presenting a picture of life as normal in the war-torn republic.

MOSCOW -- The 11-day-old attempt by staffers at Russia's only national independent television company to defend their station against a hostile takeover ended early yesterday when the new management sent in guards and seized control. The new bosses said the takeover is related to debts run up by NTV, but the embattled journalists defending their station said the fight concerns freedom of the press. NTV is controlled by a team answering to Gazprom, the state-owned natural-gas monopoly that has been a reliable instrument of the Kremlin's will.

MOSCOW - No more revolutions or counter-revolutions for Russia, President Vladimir V. Putin was saying yesterday in his state-of-the-nation address - just steady reform. But as he spoke, a Kremlin affiliate was ousting the management of NTV, the country's only independent television network, thrusting the company - and the country - into a showdown over free speech. NTV's employees holed up in the broadcast center last night, vowing to resist. Police circled the building. Putin, said Mikhail Berger, the editor of the newspaper Segodnya, was really delivering two messages yesterday: a decorative one for public consumption and then the real one, against independent journalism.

MOSCOW - The vicious fight going on here over the press summons up the words of the legendary American journalist A. J. Liebling: Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one. This axiom helps explain why an investigation by Russia's chief prosecutor into the Media-MOST business empire controlled by Vladimir A. Gusinsky, one of Russia's wealthy oligarchs, has taken on doomsday proportions as far as press advocates are concerned. Gusinsky owns a newspaper and a radio station as well as a newsmagazine published in cooperation with America's Newsweek, but his prize holding is NTV, Russia's only independent national television network.

NEW YORK (AP) -- NBC News and Nippon Television Networ agreed recently on a joint newsgathering venture, the third agreement this year between a U.S. network news division and a Japanese broadcaster.NBC News will have exclusive U.S. rights to all Japanese and international news material of NTV, NBC said.In return, NTV, with which NBC has had a working relationship for almost 40 years, will get exclusive rights to news material from the NBC News Channel, the 24-hour affiliates' news service that NBC will start on New Year's Day.The Japanese network will be the News Channel's first overseas affiliate, NBC said.

MOSCOW - President Vladimir V. Putin has won friends abroad and reassured doubters at home with soothing talk about freedom and human rights, and recently called press criticism "natural" in a democratic society. But last night, Putin's allies won a significant victory in their efforts to silence the last major independent TV station, the home of television journalists who in the past have questioned Putin's policies and exposed corruption in the highest levels of business and government.

MOSCOW - President Vladimir V. Putin has won friends abroad and reassured doubters at home with soothing talk about freedom and human rights, and recently called press criticism "natural" in a democratic society. But last night, Putin's allies won a significant victory in their efforts to silence the last major independent TV station, the home of television journalists who in the past have questioned Putin's policies and exposed corruption in the highest levels of business and government.

MOSCOW - With recent reports from Chechnya suggesting that the behavior of Russian troops toward civilians there is deteriorating, President Vladimir V. Putin sharply defended his Caucasus policy yesterday at his first real Kremlin news conference. In the past two weeks, refugees straggling out of the breakaway republic have told of villages being swept clean, of men being led off for beatings and torture, and of women being raped by federal soldiers. The drawn-out war, which catapulted Putin to political popularity in 1999, appears to have taken a new turn, as the Russian army and security services have been unable to stamp out the rebels.

MOSCOW - The other night, the sexually provocative movie "Last Tango in Paris," starring Marlon Brando, turned up unannounced on NTV television. A few nights later, the politically provocative and beloved satirist named Viktor Shenderovich disappeared from his 10 p.m. time slot. Before confused and frustrated NTV viewers could sort that out, they were confronted with yet another disorienting image. NTV news, known for its unflinching coverage of the misery accompanying the fighting in Chechnya, was suddenly presenting a picture of life as normal in the war-torn republic.

MOSCOW -- The 11-day-old attempt by staffers at Russia's only national independent television company to defend their station against a hostile takeover ended early yesterday when the new management sent in guards and seized control. The new bosses said the takeover is related to debts run up by NTV, but the embattled journalists defending their station said the fight concerns freedom of the press. NTV is controlled by a team answering to Gazprom, the state-owned natural-gas monopoly that has been a reliable instrument of the Kremlin's will.

AFTER WAGING an all-out war against President Vladimir Putin's most vocal critic, Russian government is about to complete the takeover of NTV. As a result, the Kremlin will effectively control all television news programming. NTV has been a thorn in the side of Mr. Putin since he came to power 15 months ago. Alone among television stations, it has exposed official corruption and questioned the cruelty of the stalemated Chechnya war. When Boris Yeltsin occupied the Kremlin, NTV was equally irreverent toward and critical of his administration.

MOSCOW - In the crowded offices and hallways of NTV yesterday, caffeine-jagged editors, reporters and producers waited for the inevitable moment when their foes would come and take possession. It has become something of a Russian trademark: Workers have occupied factories, and scientists have taken over their institutes until chased out by police. Eight years ago, members of parliament took over their own building, to be ousted in the end by tanks. But in the struggle by the nation's only independent television network against the new management selected by its Kremlin-associated debtholder - a struggle that they cast as one for freedom of the press - none of the sweating, exhausted, excited employees quite expected what would happen yesterday, which was nothing.

MOSCOW - The owner of their station is in jail, and the NTV television reporters and satirists have learned a serious lesson about the dangers of criticizing the Kremlin and the limits on freedom of speech in President Vladimir V. Putin's Russia. Yesterday the satirists - about 25 puppeteers, writers, artists, technicians and a director - assembled in a cavernous film studio, putting that lesson to good use. They were training their cameras, lights and wicked wit on a rubbery puppet in their midst.

MOSCOW - Russia's intelligence agency said yesterday that it had broken a U.S. spy ring that was trying to steal Russian defense secrets, including information about the country's military ties with former Soviet republics. The allegation adds to a list of ruffled relations between the two countries weeks before President Bush is scheduled to arrive in Russia for his first visit. President Vladimir V. Putin's decision to support the American-led war against terror had strengthened U.S.-Russia ties, but disagreements over nuclear disarmament and trade are expected to top the agenda at next month's summit.

MOSCOW - No more revolutions or counter-revolutions for Russia, President Vladimir V. Putin was saying yesterday in his state-of-the-nation address - just steady reform. But as he spoke, a Kremlin affiliate was ousting the management of NTV, the country's only independent television network, thrusting the company - and the country - into a showdown over free speech. NTV's employees holed up in the broadcast center last night, vowing to resist. Police circled the building. Putin, said Mikhail Berger, the editor of the newspaper Segodnya, was really delivering two messages yesterday: a decorative one for public consumption and then the real one, against independent journalism.

MOSCOW - The vicious fight going on here over the press summons up the words of the legendary American journalist A. J. Liebling: Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one. This axiom helps explain why an investigation by Russia's chief prosecutor into the Media-MOST business empire controlled by Vladimir A. Gusinsky, one of Russia's wealthy oligarchs, has taken on doomsday proportions as far as press advocates are concerned. Gusinsky owns a newspaper and a radio station as well as a newsmagazine published in cooperation with America's Newsweek, but his prize holding is NTV, Russia's only independent national television network.