Television Broadcasts

Thousands of supporters of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak attacked anti-government forces in Cairo's main square Wednesday, some charging in on camels and horses in a dramatic escalation of violence that prompted an official order to clear the area. After days of raucous but peaceful demonstrations that had resembled a giant block party, pro-Mubarak forces pushed their way into the square from side streets, wielding clubs and horse whips against cordons of protesters. The crowd of anti-government demonstrators, sparse compared to their numbers in previous days, hurled stones and chunks of concrete.

In Guangzhou, the city formerly known as Canton, Chinese government banners hang in primary schools with instructions to use the country's official language, Mandarin, also known as Putonghua: "Speak Putonghua, write standard Chinese, use civilized language, be a civilized person. " But residents of the city, the capital of one of China's proudest Cantonese-speaking regions, recently marched by the hundreds to protest a new government proposal to switch television broadcasts from the local dialect to Mandarin ahead of the multi-sport Asian Games scheduled for November in Guangzhou.

President Obama signed a memorandum Monday that would double the current amount of airwaves available for wireless devices over the next 10 years, a move intended to create jobs and boost investment in the mobile phone market. The availability of more wireless spectrum will allow faster delivery of data and video onto smart phones and other next-generation devices. The memorandum calls for 500 megahertz of government and commercial spectrum to be made available over the next 10 years.

President Hu Jintao cut short his trip to South America on Thursday and Premier Wen Jiabao flew to a far-flung corner of the Tibetan plateau, pulling out all stops to portray a compassionate Chinese government doing all it can to help the victims of Wednesday's magnitude 6.9 earthquake. At last count, the quake had left 617 people dead, 9,110 injured and more than 100,000 homeless, the majority of them Tibetan. The earthquake took place in a politically tense region where many Tibetans have long chafed under Chinese rule.

For once, it was good news that came from the depths of a Chinese coal mine as 115 workers were rescued Monday after eight days and eight nights trapped deep inside a mine in Shanxi province. The extraordinary rescue turned into a round-the-clock reality show with state-run TV broadcasting live footage of the rescue workers carrying out the miners to a cheering audience. Rescue crews were still hoping as of Monday night to bring out 38 more miners. Although the miners had their faces wrapped with towels to protect their eyes after so many days in darkness, their elation was evident.

Victor Rojas , once a pitcher in the Angels' minor league system and son of Cookie Rojas , once manager of the Angels, was named Wednesday as the new television play-by-play voice of the team. Rojas, 42, is leaving MLB Network to fill the spot left by Rory Markas , who died unexpectedly in January. Rojas will work with analyst Mark Gubicza on FS West and Channel 13 broadcasts. Before joining MLB Network when it launched in December 2008, Rojas worked for the Texas Rangers for five years, handling play-by-play and analyst roles.

Like most towns, Norwalk broadcasts its City Council meetings on its government access cable channel. But unlike most cities, Norwalk blacks out the portion of the meeting where residents step to the microphone and speak their mind. As soon as residents start taking turns sounding off on civic affairs, the cameras are shut down. "We stop as soon as they get to oral communications," said Sherian Mussegek, the city's production supervisor. "That's it. We're off." Neither Mayor Cheri Kelley nor longtime City Manager Ernie Garcia returned calls or e-mails to explain why the council adopted the policy, but Vice Mayor Gordon Stefanhagen said, "It just went that way and we did it. I don't know why."

Reporting from Caracas, Venezuela, and Quito, Ecuador -- Protests broke out in Venezuela on Monday after cable companies dropped transmission of a popular channel that the government declared had broken telecommunications laws by not broadcasting President Hugo Chavez's speeches. Government critics and supporters of Radio Caracas Television took to the streets of Caracas, the capital, and several other cities after companies dropped RCTV's programming under threat of losing their licenses.

News Corp.'s Fox TV stations and several of its cable networks remained on Time Warner Cable systems as executives from the two companies negotiated late into the New Year's Eve night on a new contract that would prevent the signals from going dark. Representatives for both sides indicated that negotiations, which had been taking place over the last three days in a conference room on Fox's Century City lot, were cordial. Signaling that headway was appearing to be made, the two companies agreed to a three-hour extension of the contract after a midnight deadline passed on the East Coast.

Television viewers are a notoriously dissatisfied bunch, complaining often about lousy programming, foul language, superficiality and assorted other irritations. Although most of these shortcomings are matters of individual taste, on one point viewers are unified: TV commercials are too loud. That complaint has been voiced almost since the dawn of advertiser-supported TV, yet neither broadcasters nor advertisers have put a stop to the volume surges. On Tuesday, the House approved a bill to turn down the advertisers' volume.