IRANIAN FILMMAKERS BARRED FROM ATTENDING CAIRO FILM FEST

Two Iranian films are scheduled to be screened at the 35th Cairo International film Festival during the coming week, but neither director of the two films or anyone else associated with them will be on hand to discuss them or to receive awards if they should win. Iranian news media reported on Thursday that Egypt’s […]

FILM PROMPTS RIOTS, MURDER OF U.S. AMBASSADOR

U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three members of his staff were killed early today (Wednesday) in Benghazi, Libya by protesters angered over a two-hour film, Innocence of Muslims, ridiculing the Islamic religion in general and its Prophet Muhammad in particular. The State Department did not immediately confirmed the death of the ambassador, but news reports […]

EGYPT SHUTS DOWN IRANIAN TV STUDIO IN CAIRO

Raising additional questions about whether the regime of Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak is being replaced by a new authoritarian establishment, police have shut down the Cairo studios of the Iranian satellite broadcaster al-Alam. The official explanation is that al-Alam was operating without a license — despite the fact that it has been broadcasting from Cairo since […]

VIEWERS FOR BBC’S ARABIC BROADCASTS INCREASE 80 PERCENT

While state-controlled broadcasters have attempted to buttress the besieged Arab regimes caught up in uprisings across North Africa, the BBC’s Arabic-language broadcasts have increased their audiences 80 percent, according to a study by the International Audience Research Program (IARP) conducted in Egypt, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Lebanon and Morocco. The biggest increase was seen in […]

AL-JAZEERA, COMCAST OPEN TALKS

In the wake of overwhelmingly positive critical and public reaction to its coverage of the upheaval in the Middle East, available in the U.S. via the Internet, al-Jazeera English has begun negotiating with Comcast, the nation’s largest cable operator, hoping finally to land an outlet on its system. In an interview with Reuters, al-Jazeera English […]

LARA LOGAN RECOVERING FROM SEXUAL ASSAULT IN CAIRO

CBS News correspondent Lara Logan was beaten and sexually assaulted in Cairo’s Tahrir Square on Friday as she was covering the aftermath of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s resignation, CBS disclosed on Tuesday. The network said that a group of 200 people who were “whipped into a frenzy” pulled Logan away from her crew and attacked […]

IRAN JAMMING BBC’S EGYPTIAN BROADCASTS

The BBC charged today (Friday) that Iran is jamming its Persian language television broadcasts from Egypt. In a statement, BBC World Service Director Peter Horrocks said, “This jamming should stop immediately. It is wrong that our significant Iranian audience is being denied impartial news and information from BBC Persian TV. … It is clear from […]

ATTACKS ON REPORTERS CONTINUE IN EGYPT

Arab-American reporter Ayman Mohyeldin, an anchor for al-Jazeera English, was arrested by the Egyptian military and held for seven hours in Cairo on Sunday, the network said. Mohyeldin’s arrest was the latest in an apparently coordinated military effort to intimidate journalists in general, and al-Jazeera journalists in particular, who are covering the Egyptian protests. Earlier […]

AL-JAZEERA LAUNCHES CAMPAIGN TO FIND CABLE HOME

Al-Jazeera English, which, with few exceptions, has been rejected by U.S. cable systems and which has been attracting millions of viewers to its live Internet coverage of the events in Egypt, is now urging them to demand that cable networks give it an outlet. “Demand al-Jazeera in the USA,” reads an ad on its site. […]

AL-JAZEERA’S CAIRO BUREAU CHIEF ARRESTED

The head of al-Jazeera’s bureau in Cairo, Abdel Fattah Fayed, and a reporter for the Qatar-based news network, Mohammed Fawi, were arrested by Egyptian security forces, the network said on its website today (Saturday). UPDATE: They were released several hours later, Reuters reported. The arrests occurred a day after unprecedented attacks on the news media […]

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