Lynn Bo Bo / EPA

Journalists work in the Voice Weekly News Journal newsroom as they prepare for publication in Yangon, Myanmar.

Lynn Bo Bo / EPA

A Buddhist monk and a man read a new private daily newspaper in Yangon, Myanmar on April 1. Myanmar ended a five-decade state monopoly on daily news, when four privately owned newspapers hit the streets.

Lynn Bo Bo / EPA

A journalist works in the Voice Weekly News Journal newsroom in Yangon, Myanmar.

Myanmar ended a five-decade state monopoly on daily news, when four privately owned newspapers hit the streets on Monday.

In August of 2012, Myanmar's quasi-civilian government embarked on media reforms as part of its democratization program and recently granted licenses to 16 media groups to print daily papers. Only four publications were available on the first day that the reforms took effect.

"All four papers sold out quickly today," Kyi Kyi, a roadside book vendor, told Reuters.

"But it's very hard to predict their future sales since three of them were distributed free of charge today and the remaining one was sold at 150 kyat ($0.17) per copy." Continue reading.

Myanmar media was ranked among the most oppressed during its military rule.

-- European Pressphoto Agency, Reuters, Associated Press

Khin Maung Win / AP

A press operator holds a page of a daily newspaper at a printing press on April 1, in Yangon, Myanmar.

Soe Zeya Tun / Reuters

Workers arrange the pages of The Voice Daily newspaper at a press machine house in Yangon on April 1.

Lynn Bo Bo / EPA

A street vendor displays new private daily newspapers and journals to a taxi driver at a road of Yangon, Myanmar on April 1.

Reuters

A man covers an art piece by Beijing-based artist Chi Peng with paper after government officials from the cultural bureau deemed it unfit for display before the inauguration of the SH Contemporary Art Fair at the Shanghai Exhibition Center on September 6, 2012.

Reuters

Government officials from the cultural bureau inspect artworks before the inauguration of the fair.

Reuters reports — The pot-bellied official in a tan golf shirt paused in front of a poster-sized image for a few seconds, asked a member of his entourage to make a note of it, then continued to lead the group on its awkward march through the Shanghai Exhibition Center.

A few hours later, the digitally manipulated photo of China's legendary Monkey King facing Tiananmen Gate, by Beijing-based artist Chi Peng, was pulled from the wall, one of several works at the SH Contemporary Art Fair deemed unfit for display by Shanghai's culture police.

"It's especially sensitive this year because the 18th Party Congress will start soon," said a fair organizer after trying to convince another booth to remove a painting that censors didn't like because it appeared to include images of Mao Zedong. Read the full story.

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Reuters

Workers cover an art piece after it was deemed unfit for display. Censorship of political content has long been a feature of the Chinese art world under Communist Party rule, but gallery owners and artists at SH Contemporary were told on Thursday that city officials were being extra careful ahead of a once-a-decade leadership transition set to take place in Beijing next month.

Raed Qutena / EPA file

A demolished TV studio is seen after an angry crowd stormed a Kuwaiti private television station on Oct. 17, 2010. Fajr al-Saeed, owner of the station, said she had received threats to her life after the talk show "Zain wa Shain" ("Good and Bad") was aired.

When this television studio was attacked in October, the AP reported that:

Kuwait has some of the most vibrant political debate and press freedoms in the Gulf, but censorship is widespread across the Middle East and journalists often face tight controls[...]

Interior Minister Sheik Jaber Al Khaled Al Sabah told the Arab Times newspaper that authorities had the attackers in custody.

"We will not accept an attack against anybody," the newspaper quoted him as saying. "This is an offensive act and it is not in line with our customs. We are on top of the situation to forestall further degeneration."

Since that time, the Kuwaiti Parliament has debated whether or not Scope TV should be able to broadcast after airing a "malicious program," according to the Arab Times.

Also, the Guardian reports this week that Kuwait has banned the use of digital single-lens-reflex (DSLR) cameras in Kuwait, citing a local English-language newspaper:

The Kuwait Times reports: "What most Kuwaiti photographers have come to wonder is how such a decision could be reached by authorities, especially considering digital cameras and cell phone cameras have the same abilities.

"What most people think of photography as a hobby has become a bit misguided due to the fact that the country has so little exposure to art."

Digital SLR cameras may have been targeted as "big black camera[s] tend to worry people", the newspaper said. "Taking a picture of a stranger would seem like much less of an issue if you were using a more discreet camera or even a cell phone."

This is a downright strange policy. My Micro Four Thirds point-and-shoot camera has 60% of the sensor size as a chip in a professional DSLR. My iPhone takes very nice, fairly big files. Why ban the big cameras? More the point, why ban any cameras? I wonder this in particular given how nice some of the DSLR pictures of Kuwait on Flickr are. From pictures from unusual perspectives to celebrations of development to beautiful landscapes to pictures of kids to nature photographs, it's hard to understand why a nation would want to restrict high-quality amateur images of its sights. See all of the Flickr pictures tagged "Kuwait" and "DSLR" here on Flickr.

Oh wait--it's not just Kuwait. We've asked here, about American laws, "Is photography a crime"? The comment thread on that post is worth reading and contributing to as well.