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About 100 Egyptian nationals living in Qatar have been asked by Doha authorities to leave the country within a few weeks time, according to an Egyptian opposition figure based abroad who spoke to Mada Masr on condition of anonymity.  The move by Qatar comes after Egypt requested that the figures — all of whom are affiliated with Islamist groups — be delivered to Egyptian authorities, said the source.

Qatar has given the Egyptian nationals notice to leave the country amid a diplomatic rapprochement between Doha and Cairo that has blossomed over the past year. 

Helping bridge the distance between Doha and Cairo are the increasingly strained relations between the current Egyptian administration and its long-standing Gulf backers in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, as well as a number of economic investment opportunities, with potential for Egypt’s need for foreign direct investment to soothe its distressed balance of payments to align with Qatari interest in a number of key strategic economic sectors, including agriculture and telecommunications. 

Egypt is a reminder not to be suckered into the narrative that a place is stable because it is static.

New technologies have lubricated the mechanisms of revolt. Facebook and Twitter make it easier for dissidents to network. Mobile phones mean that government brutality is more likely to end up on YouTube, raising the costs of repression.

Maybe the most critical technology — and this is tough for a scribbler like myself to admit — is television. It was Arab satellite television broadcasts like those of Al Jazeera that broke the government monopoly on information in Egypt. Too often, Americans scorn Al Jazeera (and its English service is on few cable systems), but it played a greater role in promoting democracy in the Arab world than anything the United States did.

though it is uncommon for a government to back down on censorship, there is precedent: In 2010, when Tunisia's government blocked Facebook, they were quickly forced into submission by street protests. And earlier this year, the Palestinian Authority was shamed into reversing a ban on a handful of opposition sites.

when the tools of our everyday lives become collateral damage in governmental efforts to block speech, citizens take notice

Iranians have developed a taste for the global internet. Despite an official ban on the site, Facebook is widely used (through the use of proxies and VPNs, which a reported half of Iran's population uses) and Twitter is increasing in popularity. Any attempt to block the social networks Iranians have become accustomed to would surely result in an uproar.

As blogging becomes more popular, Saudi Arabian authorities are starting to treat it with the same caution and restriction applied to traditional media in the country. Of course this has gotten many bloggers upset, and people have taken to Twitter to protest, with the hashtag #haza3 which refers to the Ministry official’s last name. Public protesting is illegal in Saudi Arabia.

This latest push by Facebook to tie people to one identity across the interwebs is very troublesome.

The problem with tying internet-wide identity to a broadcast network like Facebook is that people don’t want one normalized identity, either in real life, or virtually.

Face it, authenticity goes way down when people know their 700 friends, grandma, and 5 ex-girlfriends are tuning in each time they post something on the web.

The late Iraqi dictator is lauded on a mysterious satellite channel that began broadcasting on the Islamic calendar's anniversary of his 2006 execution.

The Associated Press tracked down a man in Damascus, Syria named Mohammed Jarboua, who claimed to be its chairman. The Saddam channel, he said, "didn't receive a penny from the Baathists" and is for Iraqis and other Arabs who "long for his rule." Jarboua has clearly made considerable efforts to hide where it's aired from and refuses to say who is funding it besides "people who love us."

Saddam's hanging three years ago was on the first day of Eid al-Adha, the most important holiday of the Islamic calendar. His execution — and the day it was done — remains a sore point for Saddam sympathizers still smarting over images of the defiant leader in his final moments as Shiites in the death chamber shouted curses.

Tawfiq Okasha, a talkshow host recently turned MP

Okasha launched his political career by inviting the Israeli ambassador, Haim Koren, on to his television show.The blossoming friendship was cemented last week when both were pictured after a three-hour meeting

Egypt's parliament voted on Wednesday to annul his membership.It was a spectacular fall that was perhaps helped by as series of articles in the Egyptian press, most mnotably in Al-Youm7 newspaper, which is owned by some businessmen in Egypt and often loyal to the establishment and the army

the closure by Kurdish security forces of the Iraqi independent broadcaster NRT's office in Dohuk, Iraqi Kurdistan

security forces known as Asayish, which are aligned with the ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party, detained NRT television journalists, cameramen, and drivers and confiscated their broadcasting equipment, and on the following day barred entry to NRT's offices

"Shutting down a broadcaster and detaining TV crews for delivering the news clearly contradicts the authorities' claim that Iraqi Kurdistan is a regional hub for democracy and press freedom," said CPJ Middle East and North Africa Program Coordinator Sherif Mansour from Washington, D.C.

Social media platforms provide a channel for citizens to report events on the ground in a faster way and without the editorial interference of newspapers’ managements and the state. It is the only completely free and independent outlet to spread information.

As long as we have a biased, censored media, which is not just in Egypt but any mainstream media, alternative outlets like Twitter and others will be the tools used by the people and activists to expose the truth.

The role will be that of support group, the way it always has been. It's where you get hope, where you know you have people...who share similar views, no matter what those views are, all over Egypt. In a society that is bound to be more isolationist due to fear, Twitter provides a safe mechanism to interact and meet like-minded others and find comfort in that. We will need all the comfort we can get.

Speaking about Religion and media censorship. Al Masry Al Youm has officially apologized  for the daring cover of Assyasy Magazine "The Politician magazine" latest issue. Here is the daring cover which is the product of famous revolutionary cartoonist Ahmed Nady. The controversial cover by Ahmed Nady The cover shows those who signed Al Azhar document to denounce violence completely naked and in their hands wine glasses and in the back Mohamed Morsi tells a strong and enormous CSF officer to act as he wants as there is no more political cover for the protesters

Many activists criticized the political activists and parties participated in the document accusing them of dumping the protesters alone facing the police violence. This is the first time the Sheikh of Al Azhar and the Church representative are  being shown naked like that. According to Ahmed Nady , the cartoonist he got a tip that Al Masry Al Youm administration has decided to pull the issue from the market after it got an objection from the Church on how a church man would appear like that in a cartoon on cover of a magazine.

it seems that administration of Al Masry Al Youm does not want to break any taboos anymore

The new law, according to the QNA release, will ban any dissemination via electronic means of “incorrect news” that endangers “the safety of the state, or public order or internal or external security.” The law also “stipulates punishment for anyone who exceeds any principles of social values.” The cybercrime legislation would also make illegal the publishing of “news or pictures or audio-video recordings related to the sanctity of the private and family life of individuals, even if they are correct, via libel or slander through the Internet or an IT device.”

Despite the presence of Al Jazeera, Qatar’s internal journalism suffers from a lack of protections for journalists, operating under a media law passed in 1979. A revised media law was discussed in 2012 but never passed after criticism that its broad language would stifle good journalism. The advocacy group Freedom House labels Qatar’s press freedom as “not free” and the country is ranked at No. 110 out of 179 in Reporter’s Without Borders’ press freedom rankings

Jan Keulen, the former director of the Doha Centre for Media Freedom, said that enacting the law could “impede the development of online journalism.” Keulen told Al-Monitor that Qatar’s new leader, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani — who took over for his father last July — has never mentioned topics such as democracy, elections or press freedom. Meanwhile, Qatar’s news powerhouse Al Jazeera touts these principles throughout the region.

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.

According to a presidential statement, the four hour meeting was arranged to discuss a general sentiment among youth who took part in the January revolution that they are being targeted with an intense defaming campaign

Some of the attendees accused several media outlets of launching a smear campaign against them. They also criticised the "poor performance" of the Egyptian state TV

Private TV channels and newspapers known to be affiliated with the Mubarak's regime have been accusing activists of the January 25 revolution of being foreign agents or of being paid to cause unrest in Egypt.

A couple Pakistani papers and TV networks were deceived by false US diplomatic cables [EPA] Several leading Pakistani newspapers have acknowledged that they were hoaxed, after publishing reports based on fake WikiLeaks cables that contained crude anti-India propaganda. The reports, which featured prominently in several papers on Thursday, cited alleged US diplomatic cables as confirming many right-wing Pakistani views and conspiracy theories about the country's arch enemy India and the disputed Kashmir region. Much of Pakistan's media toes a pro-military, anti-Indian line, which was reflected by the papers' extensive coverage of the fake memos. The instigators of the hoax remain unclear, though the material appeared to have originated on a news website that features anti-Indian and pro-Pakistani articles.

bloggers often use Facebook and Twitter to promote their blog posts to a wider audience. Rather than being competitors, he said, they are complementary.

Among 34-to-45-year-olds who use the Internet, the percentage who blog increased six points, to 16 percent, in 2010 from two years earlier, the Pew survey found. Blogging by 46-to-55-year-olds increased five percentage points, to 11 percent, while blogging among 65-to-73-year-olds rose two percentage points, to 8 percent.

“The act of telling your story and sharing part of your life with somebody is alive and well — even more so than at the dawn of blogging,” Mr. Rainie said. “It’s just morphing onto other platforms.” The blurring of lines is readily apparent among users of Tumblr. Although Tumblr calls itself a blogging service, many of its users are unaware of the description and do not consider themselves bloggers — raising the possibility that the decline in blogging by the younger generation is merely a semantic issue.

Most international news organisations have no presence in the country (and, some say, a lack of interest in the protests). Media posted online by Tunisian web activists has been some of the only material that has slipped through the blackout, even if their videos and photos haven't generated quite the same enthusiastic coverage by Western media as the Iranian protest movement did in 2009.

Several sources Al Jazeera spoke with said that web activists had been receiving anonymous phone calls, warning them to delete critical posts on their Facebook pages or face the consequences.

Sami Ben Gharbia, who monitors Tunisia's web censorship for Global Voices, said that Google and Facebook were in no way complicit in the sophisticated phishing technique. The initial signs that something was underway came on Saturday, he said, when the secure https protocol became unavailable in Tunisia. This forced web users to use the non-secure http protocol. The government's internet team then appears to have gone phishing for individuals' usernames and passwords on services including Gmail, Facebook, Yahoo and Hotmail. Web activists and journalists alerted others of the alleged hacking by the government via Twitter, which is not susceptible to the same types of operations. "The goal, amongst others, is to delete the Facebook pages which these people administer," a Tunisian internet professional, who has also been in contact with Anonymous, told Al Jazeera in an emailed interview. The same source, who asked to remain unidentified due to the potential consequences for speaking out, said that in communication with the international group, he had come up with a Greasemonkey script for fireFox internet browsers that deactivated the government's malicious code.

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.