The regulations governing press freedom in Arabic-language news vary widely depending on the country where a publication is published. Asharq Al-Aswat, for example, is published in London and subject to few press restrictions; any newspaper in Syria, by contrast, will be shut down immediately if it fails to hew to the government line. Note too that some publications—Al Jazeera most notably—are government-funded. So Al Jazeera is in effect the foreign propaganda arm of the Qatari government. (It is nonetheless an excellent and professional newspaper, but it has a pronounced bias, and you’ll certainly never read about human rights violations in Qatar in its pages.) We’ve indicated in our descriptions the country where the newspaper is published and, if relevant, its source of funding.