American diplomats appeared pleased with Saudi Arabia's new strategy to control editors and journalists, according to a secret State Department dispatch disclosed this week by the watchdog site WikiLeaks that offered a rare peak into the shadowy mechanisms of censorship in the ultra-conservative kingdom.

The May 11, 2009, diplomatic cable titled "Ideological and Ownership Trends in the Saudi Media" noted approvingly that the government seemed to be opening up to a certain amount of foreign cultural influence in the form of Hollywood movies and television shows while cracking down on Islamist messages deemed too extreme even for the state-approved brand of fundamentalist Wahhabi Islam.

But despite the author of the report's apparent hope that shows like "Desperate Housewives" and "Late Night With David Letterman" would serve as an antidote to some of the more conservative trends in the country, the document makes clear that the government has no intention of ceding control over the message, just tweaking it a little.

Saudi regulatory bodies, which are beholden to the royal family, have evolved to thrive in a dynamic new media environment, switching to a more subtly coercive and decentralized approach. "Instead of being fired or seeing their publications shut down, editors now are fined [$10,600] out of their own salaries for each objectionable piece that appears in their newspaper," the cable read. "Journalists, too, are held to account."

Will a television miniseries about the history of Egypt's biggest political opposition movement, the Muslim Brotherhood, undermine or promote the group's image in the eyes of millions of viewers in the Arab world?

Named "Al Gama'a" or "The Group" and written by prominent scriptwriter Wahid Hamed, the prime-time serial has been airing every night on state-owned and private satellite television channels throughout the holy month of Ramadan, when television viewing and advertisement rates reach their annual peak.

"Al Gama'a" traces the movement from its founding by spiritual leader Hassan Banna in 1928 as an anti-British and anti-colonialist political group through the various phases it has gone through to become a powerful political, social and religious phenomenon, influencing people in various countries across the Middle East.

Opposition activists linked to Iran's "green movement" have launched a new satellite TV channel, RASA TV, from Belgium as an alternative news source for discontented Iranians at home and abroad.

Ebrahim Nabavi, one of the channel's organizers, is a well-known satirist and former political prisoner currently living in Europe. He told Radio Free Europe that the aim of the channel, which is also available online, is to break the government's monopoly on the flow of information.

"During the last year, Iran's state TV never broadcast any [objective] news about the green movement, and what it did broadcast was lies," Nabavi said. "Censorship and distortion of the news in Iran led us to establish a new media to collect news from inside Iran and then broadcast it back into the country again."

Forget "wardrobe malfunctions" like the infamous 2004 Super Bowl halftime mishap that concerned federal regulators. Celebrities in Iran have bigger things to worry about, like getting blacklisted from the little screen by the government just as the big Ramadan television season gets underway.

The moderate daily newspaper Mardom Salari printed a list of singers, poets, actors and other celebrities it claims have been banned from appearing on television for supporting the political opposition known as the "green movement."

In the past, cultural authorities have denied the existence of such a list, but the report includes the names of many high-profile figures.

The fierce competition between TV channels in Egypt to win audiences and advertising money during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan bombards Muslims with soap operas and historical dramas that distract them from performing their religious traditions.

Ramadan began Wednesday as Egyptian TV and independent satellite channels began showing 48 new soap operas and nearly the same number of other programs produced specially for the holy month.

Statistics from the Pan Arab Research Center (PARC) show that Ramadan is the advertising high season in Egypt, with $146 million spent during the holy month last year, a remarkable 62% increase over any other time of the year. Millions of Egyptians watch soap operas after breaking their fast after sunset and before beginning it again after morning prayers.

Malaysia's new hit reality show, "Imam Muda," or "Young Imam," is a lot like Tyra Banks' "America's Next Top Model," except that instead of, say, posing naked with tarantulas, contestants must wash and prepare a body for burial according to Islamic tradition.

"Imam Muda" pits contestants against each other in a series of challenges to determine who will make the best spiritual leader, or imam. In the featured clip, competitors try their hand at divorce counseling in order to prove they have what it takes to serve their congregation.

The winner, to be announced in the finale on July 30, will be sent to Saudi Arabia to pursue his religious studies, Upon his return, he will be given a car, a laptop and a position as imam in one of Kuala Lumpur's main mosques.

The show has proved especially popular among young people, according to NPR, which aired an interview with the BBC's Jennifer Pak about "Imam Muda's" appeal.

An upcoming television series about the early days of the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's largest opposition and religious movement, is angering many group members, including the son of founder Hassan al-Banna.

The series called "Al Gama'a" ("The Group") is written by prominent scriptwriter Waheed Hamed and directed by Mohamed Yassin. It has been in production for nearly two years and is expected to be broadcast by Egyptian public television during the upcoming holy month of Ramadan in August.

Hamed has previously revealed that his script will focus on the first and most influential 20 years in the life of the Brotherhood as well as the biography of its founder. Nonetheless, Brotherhood leaders, who worry the series will be government propaganda against them, criticized Hamed for not allowing the group to review a copy of the script and to double-check historical facts.

"The main problem is Hamed's unwillingness to consult any of the group's leaders, who have been members long enough to know our history, while he was writing the script," Mohamed Habib, former Brotherhood deputy leader, has said.

Hey, there's this guy out there doing my routine, Pete Townshend might (or not) have once harrumphed  about Jimi Hendrix. To this very day, some disagree about who first broke guitars on stage and who did it better. Now, an ad in a new campaign for a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians presents the diplomatic version of that rock 'n' roll copyright question: Who broke from tradition first in calling for the two-state solution and who can do it better (or at all).

In the spot,  Yossi Beilin sits on his couch, watching TV in his fluffy doggie slippers, perhaps a humorous reference to the days when Yitzhak Rabin had dismissed him as being Shimon Peres' poodle. His wife Daniella sits beside him, reading Hillary Rodham Clinton's memoirs, "Living History." On TV is Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, delivering his famous foreign policy speech at Bar Ilan University. "We will be ready in a future peace agreement to reach a solution where a demilitarized Palestinian state exists alongside the Jewish state," says Bibi's radiophonic voice.

The prosecutor for Egypt's state security office is seeking the death penalty for six of the 26 alleged Hezbollah operatives on trial for alleged conspiracy and terrorism.

In a hearing Tuesday, the prosecutor called the defendants "traitors" who formed a terrorist cell on behalf of Lebanon's Shiite militant organization to plot attacks against foreign and local targets inside Egypt. The prosecutor, Amr Farouk, suggested that Hezbollah's plans inside Egypt are being aided by the Shiite regime of Iran.

"Plotting those attacks came from another country that wants to seize its control over the Arab and Islamic world, and Hezbollah is just a tool for executing this foreign country's mean interests," Farouk said.

Cairo's supreme state security court decided to postpone its final verdict on the case until Feb. 20. Eighteen Egyptians, five Palestinians, two Lebanese and one man from Sudan are indicted of conspiring with Hezbollah for the purpose of attacking Israeli tourists in Egypt, bombing ships in the Suez Canal, and building tunnels for smuggling weapons to and from the Gaza Strip.

Egyptian authorities captured most of the suspects in a series of operations that began in November 2008. Some of the accused first admitted planning attacks against Israeli tourists, before recanting by saying that they were only working to help Palestinians in Gaza and had no intention of harming Egyptian interests.

Last year, the smash-hit Turkish soap opera Noor spellbound millions of viewers across Turkey and the Arab world.

These days, a new media drama is gripping the nation anew with its juicy ingredients of money, power and famous main characters.

For more than a year now, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and Turkish media boss Aydin Dogan have been engaged in a catty, public row over the critical news coverage aired by Dogan’s powerful media organization, Dogan Yayin Holding, which controls more than half of Turkey’s media market.

The media boss has positioned himself as a staunch and vocal critic of the ruling Justice and Development Party, known by its Turkish acronym AKP. He has irked the prime minister on several occasions with his media group reporting aggressively on corruption scandals involving prominent figures and framing Erdogan's government as a threat to the secular order in Turkey.

In response, Erdogan has lashed out at Dogan several times and makes no effort to hide his deep dislike for the media boss. Most recently, Erdogan likened his foe to Italian American gangster Al Capone.

Baghdad is buzzing about the shooting Monday night of a prominent TV commentator who regularly criticized the government on his show "Without Fences" on the privately owned Al-Diyar TV station.

Imad Abadi was shot in the head and neck by gunmen using a pistol equipped with a silencer at about 8 p.m. as he rode in his car in the Salhiya neighborhood not far from Baghdad's Green Zone. He managed to keep driving to an Iraqi checkpoint, and doctors today said his chances of recovery are good.

"For sure it is the politicians who are responsible," said Ziad Ajili, the head of the Journalistic Freedoms Observatory, an independent press freedom group. "He was very brave in exposing corruption and he is one of the most prominent journalists who are criticizing the political parties."

Al Sharqiya TV repeatedly played throughout the day a recent clip of an interview with Abadi, speaking of receiving threats to his life, the dangers facing journalists in Iraq and the scale of corruption in Iraq.

The recent barring of Iran's Arabic-speaking news channel, al-Alam, or the World, from two Egyptian and Arabic satellite companies has prompted a number of contradicting suggestions over the motives behind the decision.

Both satellite companies -- the Egyptian-owned Nilesat and the Saudi-managed Arabsat -- ended the World's broadcast signal last week without warning.

Nilesat's executive director, Ahmed Anis, announced that the broadcasting was cut due to contract violations. But the head of the World's bureau in Cairo said he was informed by Nilesat officials that the decision came from a higher Egyptian government authority.