Egypt + GCC tell online streaming platforms to adhere to “social values” in their content: The Supreme Council for Media Regulation has issued new regulations and licenses for online streaming platforms that require these platforms to ensure their content “adhere to social values and morals,” according to a statement. The council is also requiring these platforms — including Netflix and Disney+, which were singled out in the statement — to “take the necessary measures” regarding content that goes against these regulations, without providing further details. The council’s regulations come after Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar, and Kuwait issued similar directives to Netflix to remove content that violates “Islamic and social values and principles,” Bloomberg reports. Media watchdogs from the GCC countries have threatened to take legal action against the streaming giant if it does not comply.

The problematic content at issue: One scene was singled out by Saudi state TV from the children’s animated series Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous featuring two teenage girls claiming their love for each other and kissing. The scene in question has also been making the rounds on local WhatsApp groups. Earlier this year, a number of Arab and non-Arab countries (including Egypt) banned the animated film Lightyear and Disney’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness for their LGBTQ+ references. Netflix has yet to respond. The Guardian, BBC, Time, and Gulf News all have the story.

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SIGN OF THE TIMES- Dubai’s office rent prices are rising faster than London and New York, with increases of as much as 7% year-to-date, as the emirate sees an influx of global banks and businesses, reports Bloomberg. By comparison, prime rents in London and New York rose 1.4% and 3% or less, respectively, in 2Q 2022. The city has attracted wealth and expats partly due to its easy access to visas and pandemic response measures, with firms relocating there from Hong Kong and Russia. Dubai has also seen a swifter return to work-from-office than places like the US and the UK, a chief executive of ICD Brookfield Place, a skyscraper in the city’s financial district that opened at the outset of the global pandemic and now has a 90% occupancy rate, told Bloomberg. Up to 80% of the emirate’s workers are back in office, compared to 40-43% in London and the US, the business information service reports, citing property broker Savills.

A welcome change: Truss’ cabinet is the UK’s first without a white man in the four top seats of political power. Newly-minted UK Prime Minister Liz Truss’ new cabinet is one of the country’s most diverse cabinets, marking the first time a white male will not hold one of the country's four most important ministerial positions. The four positions — the country’s home secretary, treasury secretary, and finance and foreign ministers — are now occupied by women or people from racial minorities. Despite the Conservative Party’s campaign to diversify its candidates, still only 6% of Conservative members of parliament are from minority backgrounds and only a quarter are women. (Reuters | Washington Post | Bloomberg | The Telegraph)