Tunisia LiveBlog: Concession or Confrontation?

2140 GMT:Comment of the Night via Twitter....

"Just switched to Tunis TV.There is a democratic debate going on.Is this a joke or what? The country turned democratic in one hour."

2040 GMT: The Tunisian authorities have lifted the block on the multimedia site Nawaat and on the video site YouTube and Daily Motion.

It is also reported that the photographic site Flickr and even sites for pornography are now accessible.

2030 GMT: Just to round off the highlights of the President's speech: he also ordered the reduction of bread, milk, and sugar prices.

1914 GMT: Ben Ali says, "We will give freedom to the media and we will put an end to censorship of the Internet. We must find social remedies."

He assures, "This is not a Presidency for life" and asks those who wish to campaign in 2014 to present themselves.

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Tunisia Media Special: Journalists to President "End Censorship on Coverage of Unrest"

The Committee to Protect Journalists is disturbed by your government's attempt to censor coverage of recent protests against unemployment and corruption in Tunisia. We are specifically alarmed by the confiscation of two opposition weeklies, the government's denunciation of Al-Jazeera, the systematic obstruction of reporting and broadcasting, as well as the blocking of news websites that are covering the protests. We call on your government to bring to an immediate end its efforts to curtail independent reporting and to reverse course on the restrictions in place since mid-December.

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Tunisia Cyber-Special: Authorities "Invade" Facebook to Monitor Activists (O'Brien)

Based on reports of users in the country, Tunisian authorities appear to be modifying web pages on the fly to steal usernames and passwords for sites such as Facebook, Google and Yahoo. Unknown parties have subsequently logged onto these sites using these stolen credentials, and used them to delete Facebook groups, pages, and accounts.

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Iran "Gold Medal" Feature: The List of More than 100 Detained Journalists

This week the Committee to Protect Journalists announced that 145 journalists were in prison in 2010. Iran and China led an ignominious list with each having 34 reporters behind bars. 

We suspected, however, that Tehran may actually have claimed the gold medal for detentions. So we turned to Arshama3's Blog, which has maintained a comprehensive list since autumn 2009.

We asked Arshama for an update and received this list. While further information is needed in some cases, it appears that more than 100 journalists are in prison today, with others facing a return to serve sentences that have been handed down:

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The Latest from Iran (8 December): Back to the Smog

2205 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Actually, I don't want to finish with smog. Instead, I note Fereshteh Ghazi's interview with journalist Emaduddin Baghi just before he returned to Evin Prison to serve a seven-year sentence. Baghi explains, "It is impossible to work through legal channels in the Islamic Republic."

2200 GMT: Back to the Smog. To almost end the day where we began....

Like the Washington Post, the Financial Times prefers to discuss pollution rather than protests: "Tehran residents are blaming the Iranian government’s production of poor-quality petrol for the serious air pollution affecting Iran’s capital city."

Do not fear, however. The solution is at hand. Reviving a proposal offered by Tehran Friday Prayers leader Ayatollah Emami Kashani, the Basij-e Mostazafin organisation has issued a statement to the people: Pray for Rain.

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