Al Jazeera English Launches

DOHA, November 15: Al
Jazeera English, the English-language news and current affairs channel based in
the Middle East, launched today in more than 80 million cable and satellite
homes across the globe.

The channel, with anchor
teams in broadcast centers in Doha, Kuala Lampur, London and Washington began
transmissions at 12.00 GMT.

Half of all the
channel’s programming will be news bulletins, and the other half will be made
up of news features and analysis, debates and documentaries.

In its first day on the
air, the channel’s news teams were covering stories in over 20 countries around
the world in addition to their 60 news bureaux. In the Middle East, Al Jazeera
has five correspondents deployed in Israel and the Palestinian territories;
coverage from Africa with feeds from Darfur, Somalia, Harare and the Democratic
Republic of the Congo, while in Latin America the channel’s correspondents will
report live from Brazil and Venezuela. This reflects the emphasis the channel
places on reporting from the South to the North.

The existing Al Jazeera’s
English language website, aljazeera.net/english re-launched to reflect the
channel’s look and feel and editorial content.

“I am absolutely delighted to have launched Al
Jazeera English, says Nigel Parsons, the channel’s managing director. “I firmly
believe there is a gap in the market which we will exploit, and that the world
needs Al Jazeera in English to bring a new perspective and understanding to
world events. I would like to thank everyone involved in the project including
all those distributors who are carrying the channel from day one”

Al Jazeera English is the
sister channel of Al Jazeera, the news service in Arabic, which launched in
1996 and reaches some 50 million viewers.