New pan-Arab TV goes on air

The TV hopes it will win Arab viewers

The new Al-Arabiya news channel went on air in the United Arab Emirates on Thursday promising its audience "objectivity and accuracy"

The station, which said it wanted to win the trust of its audience, hopes to attract Arab viewers by offering an alternative to the highly popular Qatar-based al-Jazeera TV.

The head of Al-Arabiya's parent pan-Arab satellite TV channel, MBC, has said its mission is to provide "a balanced alternative" to Al-Jazeera, but many media analysts say this will not be easy.

Programming opened with Koranic verses and a comprehensive half-hour bulletin of international news and video reports.

A variety of news, political, cultural, and social features were also promised.

The top story was the death of the Pakistan air force chief in a plane crash, followed by reports on the Arab League, and the US-Turkish impasse over the deployment of US troops in Turkey.

Other stories included anti-war rallies in the Philippines, Japan and the USA, and a feature on the plight of Iraqi refugees in Jordan.

The plane crash in Iran was also reported, as were Middle East developments and the Franco-African summit in Paris.

Crowd-puller

The channel announced that it would run an interview on Friday with US Secretary of State Colin Powell.

The news bulletin was followed by business and economic reports focusing on the potential impact on oil prices of a possible war in Iraq.

Then came a number of trailers for the TV's current affairs, human interest and science features, and there was a world press review.

Other stories included the alleged tears of oil falling from the face of the statue of the Virgin Mary in Caracas, and a report on a BBC programme about British Muslims discovering the Hajj pilgrimage.

For the first two weeks, Al-Arabiya TV plans to broadcast 12 hours a day, and then extend to broadcasting round the clock.

"We trust God to guide us in the right path," it said.

BBC Monitoring, based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.