Saudi Arabia will send troops into Sanaa, the Yemeni capital, if peace talks between the Saudi-backed government and Shiite rebels fail, a military spokesman said Wednesday, raising the specter of extended conflict. – Washington Post’s Checkpoint
“It is not a good sign when a government says it promotes democracy yet sends its police to intimidate and arrest journalists and prevent peaceful public demonstrations. In this vein, the Egyptian government’s storming of the Egyptian Press Syndicate’s offices on May 1 is only the latest and most dramatic move by Arab governments to use a variety of means at their disposal to control what citizens have access to in their media. This is not a new trend, as Arab governments have tried for sixty years -- since the Egyptian invention of the Ministry of Information in the 1950s -- to shape the minds and actions of citizens, so that they conform to what the government believes is appropriate behavior. The danger today is that many Arab governments, very much led by the Egyptian example, simultaneously seek to limit the content of the traditional media while also clamping down on free expression through free-wheeling social media or civil society activism.”