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Al Jazeera Arabic

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Al-Jazeerah (sometimes spelled Al-Jazeera or Al-Jazirah), meaning "The Island" or "The (Arabian) Peninsula" is an Arabic television channel originating in Qatar. Al-Jazeerah claims to be the only politically free television station in the Middle East.

The channel began broadcasting in late 1996. In April of that year, the BBC's own Arabic Television service, faced with censorship demands by the Saudi Arabian government, had shut down after two years of operation. Many of the former BBC staff members joined Al-Jazeerah.

Al-Jazeerah is probably the most watched news channel in the Middle East, where many people see it as a more trusted source of news than government channels and western channels such as CNN.

The station has been sharply criticized by the US for working with extremists and leaders such as Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. But Al-Jazeerah is also criticized by many of its viewers for giving air time to Israeli officials.

It is widely believed in the US that inhabitants of the Middle East are given limited information by their governments and media, and that information is biased against the US. Al-Jazeerah is seen as arguably the most open and complete source of information. Therefore, Al-Jazeerah is a major focus of current US propaganda efforts.

In January 2003 the BBC announced that it had signed a deal whereby it and Al-Jazeerah would share facilities and information including news footage, a move widely seen as further endorsement of the neutrality of the channel.

The station launched an English language version in March of 2003, and the website was immediately attacked by hackers, who redirected visitors to a site featuring an American flag. The managing editor of the English language site is Joanne Tucker, born in Lebanon, daughter of an American father and a Lebanese mother. Tucker was raised in Saudi Arabia and the United Kingdom, and studied at Cambridge University before joining the BBC.

On March 4, 2003 the New York Stock Exchange banned al Jazeerah from its trading floor indefinitely, because of its disliking of al Jazeerah's reporting of the invasion of Iraq. The official reason was security concerns.

Al-Jazeera plans to launch an English language satellite television channel.

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