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The new law, approved by parliament and signed into law by Sisi on Monday, will see the creation of a Supreme Council for the Administration of the Media, a body that can revoke licences to foreign media and fine or suspend publications and broadcasters. INSIDE STORY: How far will Egypt go in attacking media freedoms? (25:15)

The council, whose chairman will be picked by Sisi, will create a list of penalties and sue media organisations that violate its regulations and fine outlets that break licence terms.

earlier this month, when the law was still being deliberated in parliament, the press syndicate condemned the legislation as an infringement on the media. "The law allows the executive power to take control of media outlets," it said in a statement published by local media.

Abu Dhabi Media Summit is thought to have set the stage for a major transformation of that United Arab Emirate from a more reclusive presidency of the Gulf federation to an international media player. Although flashy neighboring Dubai has to date been the undisputed leader in the region with its Media City (http://www.dubaimediacity.com) hosting countless news and entertainment organizations, Abu Dhabi's low-key approach is slowly turning it into a news hub for the likes of CNN (www.cnn.com), which began broadcasting from studios there in recent months. An Arab media analyst credits UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdallah bin Zayed Al Nahyan for the beefed up media presence. Sheikh Abdallah, the late ruler's son, was his country's information minister and as a young man interned at the headquarters of an international news agency, where he is thought to have acquired a taste for the industry. Google, represented by CEO Eric Schmidt, is seeing its fastest revenue and user growth in the Middle East/North Africa region, Gulf News quoted the company chief as telling summit participants, although he apparently declined to provide specific numbers. Schmidt also said there was a shortage of Arabic content, and that Arabic websites were slow to be developed. The media summit drew almost 500 global media leaders and delegates, including AOL CEO Tim Armstrong, incoming Ericsson CEO Hans Vestberg, Turkey's Dogan Media Group Vice Chairman Mehmet Ali Yalçindag, and Murdoch partner Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, to name a few. But critics dubbed it a summit for CEOs and geeks that excluded journalists from covering it first-hand.

maintenance of the pre-revolutionary media landscape: No new TV station has been allowed. Just as no daily newspaper has emerged. New titles are edited by political parties and appear as weeklies, most of which incorporate the standard of the tabloid press. After a 9-days hunger strike by Radio Kalima’s manager, Omar Mistiri, twelve regional radios out of 74 candidates were finally selected in late June by the National Authority for Information and Communication Reform (INRIC), a temporary media advisory board. Now, the selected radios are waiting for the governmental permission. At the institutional level, the disappearance of the Communication Ministry does not lead, right now, to more media autonomy. Pre-revolutionary media managers are mainly the same: CEOs, Editors and Chairmen of Board moved from flattery of the ousted president and his system to a doubtful celebration of the “revolution”. In the state-owned media, the turnover of managers is conducted without any transparency just like under the dictatorship. Changes look more like a consequence of power balance between the different clans in the current government than a nascent process towards a democratic media system.

field reporting, which was longtime banned from or depreciated in the official media

The legal status of old private media, especially those belonging to the former president family, is still unclear. Some of them are under jurisdictional managers, but INRIC excluded them for the moment from any ethical obligations. Hannibal TV, owned by a relative to Leila Trabelsi, was involved in many ethical infringements to the Ethical Code like slandering or fake news, before and particularly after the revolution. Larbi Nasra, the Hanibal TV owner, seems to play a political role by receiving political leaders and airing many reports about his own charitable actions. Fethi Houidi, Information Minister under Ben Ali, is still Nessma TV’s CEO. Moez Sinaoui, former Nessma PR man, was nominated as the Interim Prime Minister’s spokesman

In October 2016, lawyer Samir Sabri filed a lawsuit before the Second Circuit of the Administrative Judiciary Court, demanding that Shiite media outlets and websites be shut down in Egypt

“It is unacceptable and unreasonable to have a media platform in Egypt promoting Shiite ideology. Egypt is an Islamic state and the main source of legislation is Sharia under the constitution, which recognizes Christianity and Judaism to be monotheistic. El-Nafis is one of the news websites inciting against Saudi Arabia, Al-Azhar and the Ministry of Awqaf, where Ahmad Rasem al-Nafis attacks in his articles the Sunnis and Saudi Arabia and calls for professing the Shiite faith.”

“The Salafist leaders’ Wahhabism was behind the dissemination of extremism in Syria and Yemen. Shiite channels and websites in Egypt do not advocate extremism or renounce any ideology or doctrine. They call for dealing with the Shiites as Muslims at a time when Salafist movements claim that Shiites are non-Muslims.”

Members of the collective see themselves as performing an essential storytelling role: providing coverage of police brutality and filling a media "vacuum". "There isn't a free media," founder member Omar Hamilton told me during a visit to the collective's workspace in Cairo. "We have to step in where we can to provide alternative narratives, to provide what we would see as the truth that's not being presented."

"There's nothing you can really do about it except run at the right time. Which is just after everyone else but not before it's too late,"

we needed a space to work out of and to host a library of revolutionary material and to archive everything we can, including mobile phone footage and news-quality material

When not standing up to the regime, Okasha was busy being part of it: In 2010, he was elected MP of a constituency in his native Daqahlia on a National Democratic Party ticket.

Okasha’s Al-Faraeen appearances are the stuff of legend and have transformed him into a cult figure. There is something a bit unreal about his TV persona — the animated delivery, the meandering and sometimes bizarre anecdotes, the sudden explosions of rage. A catalog of popular “Okasha-isms” now exists, such as his warnings about Masonic plots on “13/13/13” and his challenge to Mohamed ElBaradei to prove his qualifications for the presidency by describing how ducks are force-fed in the Egyptian countryside.

While his critics dismiss him as a buffoon and enemy of the revolution, Okasha has proved himself to be an astute broadcaster with mass appeal.

Tajikistan’s government has blocked the websites of the British Broadcasting Corporation and Russian TV channel Vesti, local internet providers told RIA Novosti on Monday. “The decision has been taken by the Governmental Communications Service,”

Experts link the move to a controversial armed conflict in the east of the republic that took place on July 24. At least nine Tajik security officers were killed and another 25 others injured in a special operation in Tajikistan’s eastern city of Khorog against a mafia-style group believed to be behind the murder of a top Tajik security general, Abdullo Nazarov. Dushanbe denies any casualties among civilians, but the opposition media reported some 200 dead, including security officers and civilians.

pretext for an ethnic cleansing campaign

"Cyber attacks are the new reality of modern warfare," said Hayat Alvi, lecturer in Middle Eastern studies at the US Naval War College. "We can expect more... from all directions. In war, the greatest casualty is the truth. Each side will try to manipulate information to make their own side look like it is gaining while the other is losing."

In April, Saudi-based broadcaster Al Arabiya briefly lost control of one of its twitter accounts, which was then used to spread a string of stories suggesting a political crisis in Qatar. Tweets included claims that the Qatari prime minister had been sacked, his daughter arrested in London and that a coup orchestrated by the army chief was underway.

there seems little sign such incidents made a significant difference either on the ground in Syria or to the wider geopolitical picture

as a journalist you have to go to official sources but most of the time they just don’t respond. I have my sources and obtain different information about corruption at the municipal level. I know those who are on the municipal council and sometimes receive information about mismanagement and corruption, but when you ask for information from other sources you get total silence.” He added: “When you write about corruption and you have checked all your facts, the newspaper doesn’t want to publish the story. Recently I did an investigative report on how a leading sports figure is involved in corruption and when I had finished it no Tunisian newspaper would publish it. Unfortunately websites and blogs do not have the same impact on readers. On them we can sometimes post articles on corruption but they do not have the same impact as daily and weekly newspapers.”

The pressure exerted by the Tunisian authorities on journalists who attempt to cover corruption has taken its toll. The editor-in-chief of one opposition newspaper said that his newspaper refrained from making accusations of corruption. “We seek compromise within the constraints imposed upon us,” he said, in a clear reference to self-censorship, although he claimed that his newspaper differed from others, which, in return for “financing,” have “changed their tune.” The editor of another opposition newspaper, who is also an MP, said his newspaper does cover corruption and mismanagement. It is possible, he said, that he is given slightly more leeway by the authorities because his political party is legal and therefore has a right to state funding. Nonetheless, his paper is put under significant pressure. Tunisia’s Agency for Exterior Communication controls public advertising – which it apportions only to newspapers it approves of. This translates into considerable financial difficulties for any newspapers that don’t toe the line.

authorities employ two broad means to prevent unfavorable news from getting out: Sometimes they employ a legal ruling banning a particular issue or issues; this was the case when his newspaper published details about a court hearing related to social protests in the south of the country, when activists were on trial. On other occasions, the authorities don’t use the law; instead plainclothes police go to the stands and order them not to sell the issue.

a direct response to the attempts by the Freedom and Justice party to dominate public journalism institutions through the appointment of a new group of editors in chief for national newspapers using abusive and unprofessional standards which are seen as a continuation of the same restrictions and practices as those followed during the Mubarak era.

threats by the Minister of Investment to withdrawal broadcasting licenses from private television stations

support for the relative gains in freedoms attained after a long struggle that began prior to the Revolution, especially in the field of journalism and media. This struggle was bolstered by the courage of many journalists and media professionals throughout the revolution and beyond

The decision to expose Egyptians to the show was the outcome of a protocol signed by the Chinese government and the Egyptian Radio and Television Union (ERTU), a division of Egypt's information ministry, for the express purpose of using mass media to prepare the population for a stronger alliance between the two states. China gave ERTU the rights to the program for free and paid for the translation and overdubbing. Egyptian Information Minister Duraya Sharaf al-Din, toasting the program's premiere during a visit to the Chinese embassy in Cairo, told Chinese radio that her government wants the series to instill an emotional connection with China that will popularize political and economic ties.

The show falls outside the news cycle and offers little entertainment value, but for the narrow purpose of inducing Egyptian and Tunisian youth to enroll in their local Confucius Institutes it strikes precisely the right chords. Young listeners in an unstable country with high unemployment hear that they can study Chinese for free and dramatically boost their job prospects. The show's guests manage to preempt defensive reactions from the kind of nationalistic listeners who would bristle at such an overture from a foreign power: They are assured that Egypt, too, is a great civilization and only lags behind China owing to its history of exploitation by the West. A step toward China is a step toward liberation and progress. Beijing comes across as a refreshingly hospitable destination for study abroad, moreover. Its people honor guests and reject the anti-Arab stereotypes widespread in Europe and the United States.

Who listens to such a broadcast? Unlike America's Radio Sawa or the BBC from London, CRI Arabic isn't available on local radio in the region (with the exception of what appears to be a pilot project on FM radio in the sparsely populated North African republic of Mauritania). Nor does it figure prominently among Arabic stations hyped online. One finds it advertised in venues where Arabs already curious about China are likely to go. For example, the website of the Chinese embassy in Cairo features a link on its home page, while in person the embassy's cultural attaché encourages the young people he meets to tune in. Some Confucius Institute chapters also disseminate links to prospective students as a kind of audio brochure.

In taking aim at the frenzy of support for Field Marshal Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Bassem Youssef went further in his criticism of the army-backed political order than anyone else currently allowed on the airwaves.

"There's not another subject to talk about," he concluded, adding that he would flip through Egyptian television to find another topic. This led to a montage of Egyptians of all ages and various backgrounds, from talk show hosts to belly dancers, expressing their love for Sisi. When the clip ended, the heart surgeon-turned-comedian stuck a fake gun to his temple.

"We won't fear anyone," he said as the unmistakable profile of Sisi appeared behind him. "It's better we don't say anything about him," he said quickly. "That's not fear, that's respect." There is no need for political satire, he then told the audience, because "the world is stable and everything is stable in the country."

In Iran it is rare to hear a woman sing in public. So rare, in fact, that when Shiva Soroush did so for all of three minutes last year the entire audience took to their feet. Grown men wept. With an aria in a performance of Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi, Ms Soroush, 27, became the first woman since the 1979 Islamic Revolution to sing opera for a public audience.

“At first I thought it would be dangerous and I wouldn’t be able to perform... [but] I can feel there is more freedom in the theatres now,” she says, adding that hopefully other women may now be blessed with similar opportunities. Her troupe, the Tehran Opera Ensemble, is the brainchild of Hadi Rosat, who returned to Iran in 2012 after more than a decade studying in Austria and Italy. But Tehran music lovers seem to place particular hope in Ms Souroush, as if she were single-handedly serenading Iran out of what many recall as the “eight dark years” under former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, which ended last August.

Some 600 student members of the Basij, a militia run by the powerful Revolutionary Guard, recently wrote a letter to the president. Warning Mr Rohani not to let his declared agenda of “moderation” be infiltrated by reformists, the students demanded strict supervision of the arts, cinema and press to avoid “any kind of secularist tolerance.”

in Egypt's divisive media landscape, it is often big-name hosts like "El Boss" Eissa and Hadidi — or Al-Faraeen channel's Tawfik Okasha — who can dominate the media discourse, for better or worse.

the weird, wonderful and — at times — toxic world of the Egyptian news talk show

incitement and emotive broadcasting is on the rise. "There's been a resurgence in this sort of television, … driven by emotions and anger," a sort of television he says has grown more "hysterical" in the past nine months.

US President Barack Obama has described as "hateful" and "offensive" the claim by Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that most people believe the US government was behind the 9/11 attacks. Mr Obama was speaking exclusively to BBC Persian television, which broadcasts to Iran and Afghanistan.

"This is not a matter of us choosing to impose punishment on the Iranians," he told the BBC. "This is a matter of the Iranian government ultimately betraying the interests of its own people by isolating it further." And he pointed out that countries such as Russia and China had also backed the UN sanctions. "Most of these sanctions are targeted at the regime, at its military, and we think that over time, hopefully, there's enough reflection within the Iranian government, that they say to themselves, you know, 'This is not the best course for our people. This is not the best course for Iran.'"

the Iranians "seem to be talking about talks about talks".

it was not the opposition of "fundamentalists" that kept rai music (not just Khaled's) off of Algerian state radio. It was rather the Algerian (secular) regime's cultural policies. The state promoted classical Arabic culture and language and denied Algeria's multi-cultural nature. Expressive culture in Arabic dialect or Berber was therefore mostly excluded from the state-controlled media. Rai is sung in the distinctive colloquial Arabic of Wahran, which is not only very different from "classical" or literary Arabic but is also full of borrowings from Spanish, French and Berber. This official national-cultural politics, which was particularly severe during the regime of Houari Boumediene (1965-1978), began to loosen during Chadly Benjadid's regime (1979-1992). In his 1998 autobiography, "Derrière la sourire," Khaled recounts how he managed to break the official embargo in the early 1980s. He was invited to appear on a television show in Algiers, which he knew couldn't be censored because it was to be broadcast live. Khaled was warned ahead of time: no vulgarities, no sex. So he sang three songs: the first, about the Prophet Muhammad; the second, a "poetic" song, one that was artistically acceptable; and the third, about alcohol and women.

Khaled, and other rai stars, came to play at this festival due to the efforts of the "liberal" wing of the Algerian regime -- and particularly to Lieutenant-Colonel Hosni Snoussi, director of the state-supported arts and culture organization, Office Riadh el Feth in Algiers, who had taken Cheb Khaled under his wing. The regime's liberal wing became interested in promoting rai in the wake of a spate of unrest that erupted during the early 1980s. Most notably, the 1980 riots in Tizi Ouzou, Kabylia (the "Berber Spring"); the 1985 riots in Algiers, which broke out following rumors that housing being built for the poor would be allocated to state bureaucrats; and the 1986 student riots in Constantine that resulted in the deaths of four protesters and spread to other cities. Young Algerians played a leading role in all these protests. The liberal wing of the regime determined that, to deter further unrest, the state should focus on promoting the interests of youth and on developing the market economy. Rai was very popular with Algerian youth, and so the "liberals" determined that promoting it was to be an important element of these reform efforts. It was changes in state policy toward rai, pushed by Snoussi, that got Khaled and other rai stars onto the stage in Algiers in 1985.

The French government had a stake in trying to control and channel the energies of the rai scene.