new zealand has become the latest country to ground the boeing seven three seven max eight aircraft follows a similar decision by european nations china and india on sunday and ethiopian airlines crash killed one hundred fifty seven people on board it was the second major accident involving the aircraft in five months u.s. aviation regulators insist the model is safe for as well as government is investigating opposition leader one way though for the massive power outage that's left millions without electricity president nicolas maduro is branded a us puppet has accused the us of mounting a cyber attack on the country's power grid is blaming years of corruption and incompetence the blackout algeria has sworn in a new prime minister to try to end weeks of antigovernment protests in order to dean by the way is seen as a loyalist of president of the lizzie's beautifully. the president announced reforms on monday he also delayed april's election and said he wouldn't seek

a fifth term we're back at the top of the hour with another full bulletin of news now it's time for the listening post stay with us. tool to al-jazeera. person the one of the main beneficiaries is that the case listen if you want to live edition of in india that's not exactly my point we meet with global newsmakers and talk about the stories that matter. but i mean television shows such. things on right. now that if i could become a coffee cup. hello i'm richard disappeared and you're at the listening

post here are some of the stories that we're covering this week the case against benjamin netanyahu and the israeli media outlets the prime minister is accused of trying to bring under his control after five years the egyptian photojournalist show is no longer behind bars many of his colleagues still are colonial residue governments in sub-saharan africa are still using laws that colonists left behind to silence journalists and a music video comes out of china in defense of a mobile phone company will begin in israel and the corruption case that centers on prime minister benjamin netanyahu is attempts to control the media a story that also exposes the degree to which certain israeli news outlets are willing to sell out their coverage elections are just weeks away and netanyahu is looking at charges of bribery fraud and breach of trust one of the cases alleges the prime minister agreed to limit the distribution of one newspaper israel by your

home in exchange for positive coverage in another era not he's also accused of offering a telecoms company beza a lucrative government contracts buying in effect positive news coverage on a website owned by the same company a news site called while the attorney general handling the k. . says netanyahu even had a hand in choosing which editors and reporters while i would hire or fire prime minister netanyahu is using the fake news defense calling the case a witch hunt cooked up by political rivals and their friends in the media it's a line he's used before but the victim narrative is starting to sound a little unconvincing our starting point this week is television. w should be the story of. those who would do that if i'm actually on the order fella get in for a. little bit of

a detour they slowly shot before the voters often that. she duly knew had been could be grouped. in a big loud. only syllable of the most going to. just equal who loses should. knock and grimace on it then you know the bin it's. this is a first in israeli political history a sitting prime minister faces indictment on multiple counts of corruption and media manipulation the telecom and media baron getting contracts and bribes from benjamin netanyahu in return for favorable coverage show a love each the man who issued the indictment notice attorney general of the high mantel blinked in his written ruling detailing the grounds for indictment mandalit

walks us through an extensive system set up by netanyahu to control media coverage of himself his government and his family it's damning however supporters of the prime minister argue he was left with little choice of the cumana five about that of fame and all the cases have to do with the media. why was nothing else so involved in the media why did he try to measure so much with it nobody's asking that question could it be didn't it to me i was vilified by the media more than any other prime minister in the western world their own is clearly there is no prime minister or president anywhere that so savagely criticize day in day out what they will tell you in the on the well exploited test this is the name. the thing that was most important to him. finally brings him down you know if they mean the whole that everybody now is a lefty everybody now is out to get him that made the at the county again a misunderstanding is not a big deal when within that the now if you're watching i'm not out to get you i'm

just waiting really thought that this happened because the prime minister's contentions that he is up against some kind of left wing media conspiracy failed the scrutiny test on the sad side of the need to do. to the attorney general leading the investigation mandalit was appointed by netanyahu himself two of the prosecution's key witnesses reported to have provided the most incriminating evidence our former confidant of the prime minister and details of what is being called case four thousand involving israel's biggest telecom company which owns the online news site while on paint a picture of elaborate media manipulation police allege the prime minister's relationship with besant c.e.o. a low which was based on bribes netanyahu provided besuch with government contracts

and regulatory favors in return for not just flattering coverage of his government but a hand in the way the website operate police say that from two thousand and twelve to two thousand and seventeen the prime minister or his staff blatantly into. hundreds of times and on a near daily basis often calling in the middle of the night to demand changes in the coverage. there are recordings in which netanyahu speaks with a lot of it who then passes messages on to align your sure the c.e.o. . so it's obvious that netanyahu tried to intervene we spoke with journalists asking them how come there were positive articles on net and you know her as well of negative one are you for or against him explain that what we're seeing with the tip of the iceberg underneath there was a constant battle about whether to follow the orders that came from netanyahu or

over the editorial team to just do the job and. looking up while workers while our reporters and junior editors i think that some of them were maybe too young and then they couldn't see the big picture but it was not only on their shoulders it was a matter of their chief executive editor and they rector of the company those were the people that did it not. the netanyahu a lot of which relationships resulted in politically driven material like this maybe. it first appeared on the prime minister's website on the morning of march seventeenth two thousand and fifteen the day israelis voted in the last general election within minutes it was on wallace homepage where it would remain on the order say prosecutors of the prime minister's office by midday i thought of that video the arabs are flocking to the poll which is just pure

incitement it was on the home page for a whole day it was discussed totally ungentle istic and rather and. then there were dozens of articles and photos of sarin netanyahu helping holocaust survivors for instance now it's one thing to post such pieces which really have zero new. but to then take down other articles such as the piece on the poverty report in israel actual information that is important that it was a disproportionate faith. that i know things were as complex and detailed as the indictment. i had absolutely no idea i didn't know that they were actually helping choose images for specific i didn't know that sorry netanyahu has so for sending text messages if we would have known about it would not have had any reporters that . case four thousand and the communications between netanyahu and is just one of the corruption allegations under investigation there's also case two

thousand backed up by secretly recorded conversations in which netanyahu offers to support legislation that would limit the distribution of the country's most widely read newspaper israel a free tab in return for favorable coverage in the biggest traditional paper on the market yet or not the prosecutors announcement of a coming indictment happened just weeks before an election in which the netanyahu campaign clearly has the media in its sights posters of. journalists face and bearing the slogan. team has also launched a facebook broadcast quote throw the fake out. in the increasingly polarized israeli media space there are still voices the prime minister wants to hear.

some of whom can be found at news outlets like channel twenty. four. and a lot of the small. i don't get it when the leftists criticize and it's considered journalistic integrity but when the right wing journalist says he supports the prime minister and think he's doing a great job and suddenly i get attacked for my journalistic integrity have you ever asked a leftwing journalist about their integrity you never have why do you only ask me this should be one standard for all the media once the. asked whether this indictment can play in netanya his favor the answer is absolutely yes part of his genius is that he realized how to use they often say that after each netanyahu scandal his party gets an extra two seats in the election

this time we're right in the midst of an election and the indictment helps netanyahu push the idea that the leftist media patronize him is trying to dethrone netanyahu his turn media into the biggest game and this indictment in my opinion is only making his campaign stronger compression of it's a lot. more in previous elections netanyahu built an enemy in the shape of an iran . and hezbollah today the situation isn't one that enables him to build an enemy from the outside and therefore he's putting up the media and the justice system to be the enemy. that tries to bring me down. we're discussing other media stories that are on our radar this week with one of our producers flow phillips flow the egyptian photojournalist mahmoud. better known

to show released from prison this past week after something like five and a half years behind bars but he's not exactly a free man is he not exactly and should undeniably this is one of the best pieces of media news to come out of egypt lately but one condition of siobhan's. is that he spends every night for the next five years at a police station and all this for a case that so many consider a sham shocking was arrested back in august twenty third team during the early days of the c.c. government there was a huge pro muslim brotherhood demonstration in cairo in which at least six hundred protesters were killed sharpton says he was just taking pictures but he wound up behind bars charged with murder and terrorism it took more than five years for the case to get to trial and by the time he was sentenced shocking to virtually served out his time here's what he had to say when he got home says whoa whoa. he's also a. little shows a really. holds old he needs all of us. there are still more

than thirty other journalists in egyptian prisons including al jazeera his own man hussein who's been in jail now for more than two years hussein still hasn't been charged with a crime let alone convicted. ok now to croatia where hundreds of journalists took to the streets of the capital zagreb just last weekend to protest against pressures that are facing the media what kind of things are they talking about so they've got a variety of complaints wretched they say they're often abused and threatened and that the government medals in the country's media but what really stands out here is the sheer number of norse suits being filed against croatian journalists more than a thousand and a currently being sued for myriad reasons under a law the croatian journalists association says is being abused the way this law is written makes content deemed shaming or humiliating a criminal offense and it's pretty easy to see how powerful people can just use that to their advantage and while most of these lawsuits are being filed by

politicians what's with these news outlets that are suing some of their own employees so this is the bizarre pod croatia's public broadcast t.v. is suing thirty six journalists including some of their own six months ago fired her voice zovko he's also the head of the journalists association after he spoke out against political interference and censorship at the station he's been a chatty for twenty one years and now the channel is serving him to seventy thousand dollars the european federation of journalists issued a statement prime minister under a plank a bitch to get to work and to take concrete steps to limit abusive prosecutions against journalists ok thanks for next we're moving to a media story whose roots date back to the late nineteenth century european powers were setting sail for africa sweeping across the continent colonizing country after country and once they took power they wrote laws designed to ensure that the call

the nighest would not rise up against the cauldron are cers laws that could also be used to silence censor jail or intimidate journalists who refused to toe the line come the late one nine hundred fifty s. africans began revolting and over the next decade or two most countries would win their. independence however much of the colonial legislation remained in place and there is now a growing list of journalists in sub-saharan africa falling afoul of those laws that were never written with democratic societies and the listening posts nick muirhead now on the colonial era laws that still determine what can and cannot be reported in sub-saharan africa. two thousand and eighteen in the democratic republic of congo a newspaper editor still funny. was jailed for publishing articles critical of a bank she was prosecuted under a defamation law dating back to nine hundred forty when the d r c was

a belgian called in november two thousand and sixteen five zambian radio journalists were arrested for allegedly calling a member of the ruling party a useless person they were charged under section one seventy nine of the zambian penal code which dates back to british colonial times and in another former british colony. a newspaper editor at the sunday standard published a report that the former president was involved in a late night car crash he was charged with sedition i told my lawyer that you know what i am going to plead guilty to save the ship because i believe that i think and he. will be but there was a change of government and the government decided that it but i was very disappointed that they do that because that we need only opportunity we had the chinese the constitutionality of this edition so sedition. compared

to a lesser. of definition which were much more used to is very specific to care and sedition it is people at the pinnacle of power in any society there are sumption is that the said comments remarks views expressed have a potential of cost and national security threat or a public order threat one suspects that because the newspaper was so independent then had been writing about other matters that was clearly upset in the government of the day that they used that as an excuse to move against the journalists the irony of course is that the world looks up and sees that as a best of democracy and stable rule in sub-saharan africa and yet some fortunately sedition still remains

a crime in botswana and it is used to close down the democratic space. which is by design colonial era little swear in britain to protect democracy but to limit dissent in countries like britain france and belgium established the african colonies in the late nineteenth century the new colonial administrations expected journalists who were almost exclusively white and mostly compliant to highlight the achievements of government perpetuating the notion of african dependence on colonialism they also want to be opponents silenced and legal frameworks.