Iraqi 'Ninth Studio' avoids TV's sectarian divide - Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle... - 0 views
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Since 2003, the televised media environment in Iraq has witnessed dramatic changes. Whereas Iraqis were once forced to choose between only two local television stations — one administered by the Ministry of Information and the other run by the son of then-President Saddam Hussein — they now have dozens of satellite channels reporting on national affairs.
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a deep hunger on the part of many Iraqis to learn about the outside world from which they had been cut off by the old regime's extremely strict official censorship. Iraq undertook a rapid and astounding transition from a model of censorship resembling what George Orwell described in his novel 1984 toward what former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld described as a state of "untidy” freedom.
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There is a widespread belief that the official Iraqi channel has lost its independence and been completely reduced to subservience to the will and dictates of the government, even to the point that members of parliament have threatened to block funding for its operating budget. In similar fashion, most other Iraqi channels have become captive to political influences either hostile or sympathetic toward the government. Many have concluded that the media outlets in Iraq are actually deepening the country's ethnic and sectarian divides, rather than working to overcome them.
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Culture in Iran: Change the key, Rohani | The Economist - 0 views
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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.
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“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.
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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.”
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Al Jazeera English - IRAN: AFTER THE REVOLUTION - Iranian Arabs seek equal rights - 0 views
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Ahwazi Arabs have not been included in Iran's economic development and prosperity derived from oil exports, according to a 2007 Human Rights report published by civil rights organisations in Europe in coordination with the Belgium–based Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organisation.
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I do not think there is an official will to marginalise Iranian Arabs or deny them their basic rights
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administrative inefficiencies are often wrongly blamed on religious or ethnic discrimination
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Without Mubarak, Egypt state TV switches sides - 0 views
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State TV even promised to be more truthful in its reporting.
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Hisham Qassam, who publishes several independent Egyptian papers, said state media could even fade away if a new government cuts off funding. "It's a slow demise, it could take over a year," he said. "But it's over, it's finished."
Huffington Post Op-Ed: Cairo Under Siege Ahead Of Obama's Speech at 3arabawy - 0 views
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Republicans screw the Arabs. Democrats screw the Arabs, but with a smile,” is a popular saying among the dissidents’ circles in Egypt.
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Even before his “historical speech” is delivered, Obama’s “mini-historical speeches” have been nothing but one slap after the other on the faces of human rights campaigners in the region. After conversing with the Saudi monarch, “yes we can” changed to “I’m struck by his majesty’s wisdom.” Will the next step be praising the public beheadings in the kingdom as an example of ideal justice?
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Hosni Mubarak has ruled Egypt since 1981 with an iron fist, detention facilities, and a fearful security aparatus which is engaged in systematic torture of dissidents and ordinary Egyptian citizens, as documented by local and international rights watchdogs. He has always managed to get away with good coverage in the Western press, however, that tended to focus on his “moderate” (read: obedient to US foreign policy) role as “peacemaker” in the region, besides the archeological discoverings of the I-so-wanna-be-Indiana-Jones, also known as Mr. Zahi Hawas.
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There's Twitter the company, and twitter the medium | Technology | Los Angeles Times - 0 views
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“It’s a very dangerous network because it’s all centralized,” he said, “not only on a technological level, where it goes through one set of servers — but it also goes through one set of business interests that’s anything but transparent.” Danger may sound a bit overzealous for a Web service that barely existed two years ago, but for a media landscape in the middle of a profound shift, two years can be the span between eras. Twitter is becoming a major source for news, commerce and free expression and, as with a free press itself, defenders don’t want a few profit-motivated individuals making all the decisions about how it should evolve. Like Facebook and YouTube before it, Twitter is now transitioning from a freely available, much-loved Web service to a well-funded business venture looking to cash in on the audience and cachet it built in its freewheeling early days.
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Both critics have installed their own smaller, open-source micro-messaging systems outside of Twitter’s domain. Laporte calls his the Twit Army. The software they’re using was developed by Evan Prodromou, a developer in Montreal. Prodromou is the force behind Laconica — an open-source, Twitter-like system that anyone can install; hundreds of administrators already have, creating a dispersed, decentralized network of Twitter clones that can all talk to one another. Prodromou compares the state of micro-messaging to the early days of consumer e-mail. In the early 1990s, the e-mail world was dominated by proprietary dial-up entities like CompuServe, MCI and Prodigy. But because those systems were competitive, they didn’t connect to one another, and you could send messages only to people inside your own service. “I couldn’t send you e-mail and you couldn’t send me e-mail,” Prodromou explained. “We were on these separate islands. Making the change to an open standard for Internet e-mail has meant e-mail has become ubiquitous. I think that’s where we’re at now with microblogging.”
How a diplomatic crisis among Gulf nations led to fake news campaign in the United States - 0 views
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it’s not just Kremlin-produced disinformation that Americans may have stumbled upon recently. Browsing Facebook and Twitter — and even just perusing the magazine rack at their local Walmart — they may have also been exposed to propaganda supporting the ambitious goals of two oil-rich Arab Gulf countries
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when Saudi Arabia and the UAE launched a boycott and blockade of the tiny peninsula state of Qatar last year, organizations with ties to Riyadh and Abu Dhabi tried something new: They worked to sway American public opinion through online and social media campaigns, bringing a complicated, distant conflict among three Washington allies to US shores
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As they took steps against Doha, Saudi Arabia and the UAE also initiated propaganda efforts in the US aimed at weakening Washington’s alliance with Qatar — which hosts the largest American military base in the Middle East — while also enhancing their own images.
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Is interest in African art on the rise in the Middle East? | The Art Newspaper - 0 views
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a budding taste among Middle Eastern collectors for Modern and contemporary African art—and not only by artists from North Africa, which has historically identified with the Middle East
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“There is a growing interest overall in African art and this seems relatively strong in the Middle East,” he says. He notes that while there are far fewer active collectors and museums than in the United States, they are often better funded.
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Rakeb Sile, the co-founder of Addis Fine Art, the first Ethiopian gallery to exhibit at Art Dubai, agrees that there has been a “huge swell” in Middle Eastern interest in sub-Saharan art, and that demand is growing. Being so near the Gulf, the Horn of Africa has long-standing cultural and economic links with the United Arab Emirates, putting Addis Fine Art in a strong position to attract new buyers. (The UAE has invested heavily in Ethiopia in recent years in an effort to strengthen bilateral ties.) Sile estimates that around 20% of her collectors are from the Middle East.
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Turkey's media landscape shaken up by major foreign players | Middle East Eye - 0 views
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At a time when press freedoms are regularly described as under threat and investment in the shaky Turkish economy is no sure bet, foreign media companies could be expected to avoid the country. Instead the opposite is true. A swathe of often state-backed foreign media outlets have begun expanding their output in Turkey, with Chinese, German, Russian and Azeri companies establishing radio stations, websites, online portals and even a news channel in recent years.
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Alper Gormus, a prominent Turkish media critic, said that the Turkish public depended on outlets such as Russia's Sputnik Turkiye, the UK's BBC Turkce or Deutsche Well Turkce because trust in government-controlled media was extremely low.
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“The conditions are very similar to post-coup Turkey in the 1980s in the sense that the majority of the media is supporting the government,"
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Freelancing abroad in a world obsessed with Trump - Columbia Journalism Review - 0 views
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“I can’t make a living reporting from the Middle East anymore,” said Sulome in mid-December. “I just can’t justify doing this to myself.” The day we spoke, she heard that Foreign Policy, one of the most reliable destinations for freelancers writing on-the-ground, deeply reported international pieces, would be closing its foreign bureaus. (CJR independently confirmed this, though it has not been publicly announced.) “They are one of the only publications that publish these kinds of stories,” she said, letting out a defeated sigh.
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Sulome blames a news cycle dominated by Donald Trump. Newspapers, magazines, and TV news programs simply have less space for freelance international stories than before—unless, of course, they directly involve Trump.
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Trump was the focus of 41 percent of American news coverage in his first 100 days in office. That’s three times the amount of coverage showered on previous presidents
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An industry under threat: Ramadan 2019, brought to you by Egyptian Media Group | MadaMasr - 0 views
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This time of year, the offices of TV production companies are usually bustling with stars conducting meetings in preparation for the upcoming Ramadan television season (which falls in May this year)
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The local television scene is rife with talk about the implications of recent developments in the field, which entail an effective halt in almost all TV drama production
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What we’re witnessing this year is not a marketing crisis, or a weakness in screenplays, or any of the other issues that have ailed the drama industry in the past; rather, the very existence of the industry is under unprecedented threat. The number of series being produced has plummeted, and is expected to amount to 18 series at most, the majority of which are to be produced by Synergy, the production house owned by Tamer Morsy, head of the intelligence-affiliated Egyptian Media Group (EMG). It is the newest step in the state’s ongoing bid to monopolize all forms of media and artistic production in Egypt.
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The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer: Turning Qatar into an Island: Saudi cuts off... - 0 views
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There’s a cutting-off-the-nose-to-spite-the face aspect to a Saudi plan to turn Qatar into an island by digging a 60-kilometre ocean channel through the two countries’ land border that would accommodate a nuclear waste heap as well as a military base. If implemented, the channel would signal the kingdom’s belief that relations between the world’s only two Wahhabi states will not any time soon return to the projection of Gulf brotherhood that was the dominant theme prior to the United Arab Emirates-Saudi-led imposition in June of last year of a diplomatic and economic boycott of Qatar.
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The message that notions of Gulf brotherhood are shallow at best is one that will be heard not only in Doha, but also in other capitals in the region
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the nuclear waste dump and military base would be on the side of the channel that touches the Qatari border and would effectively constitute a Saudi outpost on the newly created island.
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China Expands Media Dominance in Africa - SPIEGEL ONLINE - 0 views
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Liao Liang's mission in the Kenyan capital is hardly confidential: As a senior editor of the China Global Television Network (CGTN), a subsidiary of Chinese state television, his task is that of shining a positive light on his country's ambitious activities -- particularly those in Africa, where China's reputation has suffered as its footprint has grown.
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"It's an apartheid system," he says, with the Chinese at the top, then the whites, then the blacks and at the very bottom are the Kenyans. "We have to let the Chinese go first in the restrooms and we're only allowed to eat in the cafeteria after 1 p.m., after they have eaten. They treat us like their inferiors." Sometimes, James M. says, he only receives half of his contractual editor's salary of 2,000 euros per month. He says he is penalized 2,000 shillings - around 17 euros - for every mistake in his stories, including typos.
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CGTN journalists aren't just there to ward off criticism of China's expansion in Africa but also to break the West's media dominance. The broadcaster has a similar mission in Africa as Russia's state broadcaster RT does in Europe.
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US lobbying revelations upend Tunisia's presidential race - 0 views
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As Tunisians prepare for back-to-back legislative and presidential elections, news first revealed by Al-Monitor has had a bombshell effect: A purported emissary of imprisoned presidential candidate Nabil Karoui signed a $1 million lobbying contract to secure a meeting with President Donald Trump, among others.
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Karoui’s opponents cite laws that forbid any foreign funding or support for Tunisians running for office. “The money didn’t come from Tunisia so it came from outside Tunisia, and that is against the law,” said Leila Chettaoui, a member of parliament for Prime Minister Youssef Chahed’s pro-secular Tahya Tounes party. “If it’s proven to be the case, Karoui must be disqualified.”
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complaint also mentions Ennahda party, which has retained Burson-Marsteller (now BCW) for public affairs work in the United States since 2014, as well as parliamentary candidate Olfa Terras-Rambourg, who retained Washington firm America to Africa Consulting in early September
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https://www.tap.info.tn/en/Portal-Politics/12645897-covid-19-small - 0 views
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exceptional measures taken to support the media sector, including media institutions, in the face of the coronavirus crisis
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the State will cover 50% of the broadcasting costs for the year 2020 of all private radio and television channels
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The State and public institutions will also undertake to subscribe to electronic versions of newspapers with a budget of 1.2 million dinars
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Qatar's Gulf Allies Have Had Enough of Doha's Broken Promises - 0 views
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Citizens of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states woke up on Monday morning to what is the most severe crisis in the regional block’s 38 year history to date. In a closely coordinated series of statements, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the UAE, along with Egypt, announced the severing of ties with the peninsular state of Qatar.
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In what may be the most debilitating move, Qatar’s border with Saudi Arabia—which is its only land border —has been shut and all flights over Saudi and UAE airspace has been closed off to Qatar bound flights and Qatar Airways. Qatari citizens have been given two weeks to leave Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the UAE and all travel by these countries citizens to Qatar is now prohibited.
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It is likely that this time the Gulf States will demand the complete shuttering of the Al Jazeera TV Network before any mediation can take place. Additionally, the plug will have to be pulled on networks funded by Qatar such as Al Araby Al Jadeed (The New Arab), originally set up to compete with Al Jazeera and headed by former Arab Israeli politician Azmi Bishara.
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The Uncounted - The New York Times - 0 views
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Our own reporting, conducted over 18 months, shows that the air war has been significantly less precise than the coalition claims. Between April 2016 and June 2017, we visited the sites of nearly 150 airstrikes across northern Iraq, not long after ISIS was evicted from them. We toured the wreckage; we interviewed hundreds of witnesses, survivors, family members, intelligence informants and local officials; we photographed bomb fragments, scoured local news sources, identified ISIS targets in the vicinity and mapped the destruction through satellite imagery. We also visited the American air base in Qatar where the coalition directs the air campaign. There, we were given access to the main operations floor and interviewed senior commanders, intelligence officials, legal advisers and civilian-casualty assessment experts. We provided their analysts with the coordinates and date ranges of every airstrike — 103 in all — in three ISIS-controlled areas and examined their responses. The result is the first systematic, ground-based sample of airstrikes in Iraq since this latest military action began in 2014.
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one in five of the coalition strikes we identified resulted in civilian death, a rate more than 31 times that acknowledged by the coalition
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a consistent failure by the coalition to investigate claims properly or to keep records that make it possible to investigate the claims at all
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OTF | The Rise of Digital Authoritarianism in Egypt: Digital Expression Arrests from 20... - 0 views
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Since 2013, Egypt has seen the worst human rights crackdown in the country’s history. The current regime has imprisoned thousands of political activists, criminalized demonstrations, and seized control over the media landscape in a successful effort to limit genuine political discourse. Today it is nearly impossible for any alternative narrative to penetrate conventional modalities of expression. As the state continues to close physical spaces and exert control over traditional media, alternative political voices have been forced to rely on digital platforms as a means to express themselves. In response, the state has turned its attention to these platforms.
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Online censorship increased in 2017 when the websites of 21 independent media and political organizations were blocked inside the country in a single day. The number of blocked websites in Egypt has since surpassed 500. Large-scale phishing attacks are also frequently launched against Egyptian civil society, with attacks documented in 2017 and 2019. In 2018, several new laws were passed in Egyptian parliament limiting digital expression and inhibiting the right to privacy.
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After compiling a dataset of 333 digital expression violations (including arrests, acquittals, prison sentences, investigations, fines, lawsuits, and pretrial detentions) in Egypt from 2011 until mid-2019, this report found the number of Egyptian citizens targeted by the state for digital expression has been steadily rising. Analysis of this data reveals a yearly increase in the number of digital expression violations, with a surge in the occurrence of these violations beginning in 2016 and continuing until mid-2019, when the data collection for this report ended.
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