Al Jazeera Balkans is “Muslim" television". He concludes by saying that Al Jazeera's Arabic service played a key role in the Arab Spring and wonders "what sort of influence Qatar may want, or gain, in the Balkans". Writing in his blog on "The Weekly Standard" web site, Stephen Schwartz sees Al Jazeera Balkans (AJB) as "the revival of a “Yugoslav" television network", bringing up AJB news director Goran Milić's past affiliation with "Yutel", "a network that attempted to rescue Yugoslavia during its collapse, from 1990 to 1992". Schwartz concludes that "in entering the Balkans, Al Jazeera has opted for an attempted revival of
Al Jazeera BBC announced that it had signed an agreement with Al Jazeera for sharing facilities and information, including news footage. Al Jazeera's availability (via satellite) throughout the Middle East changed the television landscape of the region. Prior to the arrival of Al Jazeera, many Middle Eastern citizens were unable to watch TV channels other than state-controlled national TV stations. Al Jazeera introduced a level of freedom of speech on TV that was previously unheard of in many of these countries. Al Jazeera presented controversial views regarding the governments of many Arab states on the Persian Gulf, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain