I just watched Al-Ittijah Al-Mu`akis on AlJazeera Arabic. I notice that specific focus on Arab countries is now gone. These are some of the fruits of that dreaded Saudi-Qatari reconciliation. Today, the show dealt with state security apparatuses--an important topic. The host, Faysal Al-Qasim, cited an interesting statistics about the number of security meetings between Arab ministers over a 20 years period. But I was most disappointed by Yahya Zakariyya: the eloquent and usually assertive speaker--I don't know his politics. Today, his opponent, a "former" Egyptian officer in the "state security" apparatus, intimidated him. He would order him to stop talking, and Zakariyya would stop talking. He was not himself, I felt.