Al Jazeera

LOS ANGELES - Al-Jazeera, the Pan-Arab news channel that struggled to win space on U.S. cable television, has acquired Current TV, boosting its reach in this country nearly ninefold to about 40 million homes. Bloomberg News, citing two sources close to the deal, reported the network was sold for about $500 million - an eightfold increase from the $60 million cofounder Al Gore and his partners paid in 2004. The former vice president confirmed the sale, saying in a statement that Al-Jazeera shares Current TV's mission "to give voice to those who are not typically heard; to speak truth to power; to provide independent and diverse points of view.

TV monitors, eight on each side, flank a huge world map inside the bustling newsroom of Al-Jazeera, the Arabic-language satellite news outlet that guarantees controversy each time it broadcasts a videotape of Osama bin Laden. "If it's newsy, we put it on the air," senior producer Ahmed A. Shouly said. But critics, including Vice President Cheney, have called the station a "platform for propaganda. " On Thursday, black-clad Islamic separatists holding hundreds of hostages inside a Moscow theater chose Al-Jazeera for their first communique to the world.

An American hostage, looking scared and clutching what appeared to be his passport, pleaded for his life and urged the U.S. government to withdraw its troops from the country in a video broadcast yesterday on the Arab satellite channel Al-Jazeera. A U.S. Embassy spokesman identified the man as Jeffrey Ake, 47, a contractor from LaPorte, Ind., who was kidnapped Monday while he was working at a water-treatment plant in Taji, about 20 miles north of Baghdad. The soundless video showed Ake seated behind a wooden desk, visibly shaken, with three machine guns pointed at him by men masked by kaffiyeh head scarves.

The world news is different on Channel 645. And that is the way Anan Zahr likes it. Beamed into her western Delaware County home via a satellite dish on the roof is Zahr's idea of Must-See TV - the Arab-language network al-Jazeera. The nightly reports she watches are heavy with stories on the destruction wreaked on Afghanistan by American bombs, with footage of dying civilians. Since the tape of Osama bin Laden laughing about the Sept. 11 destruction surfaced last month, she has seen a succession of commentators call it an American trick - a suspicion she herself harbors.

The Bush administration condemned it. Middle East kingdoms censored it. Al-Jazeera, the Arab news network with more than 40 million viewers worldwide, must be doing something right. Or something provocative, at least. In Control Room, an eye-opening, important film that examines the war in Iraq from both Arab and Western perspectives, "truth" becomes another casualty. Jehane Noujaim's behind-the-scenes documentary about Al-Jazeera - with its producers and reporters mobilizing to cover the imminent move into Iraq by the United States and Britain - offers a metaphoric aerial shot of the chasm separating Western viewers from their counterparts in the Arab world.

IN THE MAYOR'S WING of City Hall on Friday, an enormous red carpet covered the floors, dramatic navy-blue drapes lined the halls, and gold-painted chairs filled a reception room. The guest of honor? Mohamed Bin Abdullah Al-Rumaihi, Qatar's ambassador to the U.S. The small Persian Gulf state has the world's highest per capita gross domestic product and the largest natural-gas reserve. The ambassador is visiting Philadelphia in hopes of establishing a relationship leading to investment opportunities.

The world's most-wanted man reappeared on center stage yesterday in a videotape aired by an Arab language satellite network. Wearing a white flowing headdress, Osama bin Laden is shown next to his top aide Ayman al-Zawahiri against what appears to be a countryside backdrop. As bin Laden calmly strokes his beard, al-Zawahiri declares that the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks are a "great victory. " "God Almighty is merciful and he chooses those who are, those 19, who went out and sacrificed their lives for the cause of Allah," said al-Zawahiri in the tape released by the Al-Jazeera network and translated by CNN It was not clear when the videotape was shot.

A Spanish court yesterday sentenced a Syrian man to 27 years in prison for conspiring to commit the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States and leading a cell of the terrorist network al Qaeda in Madrid. The sentence is the only one to date in connection with the attacks. In addition to the main defendant, Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas, 41, also known as Abu Dahdah, 17 other men were found guilty of either belonging to or aiding his terrorist cell. Those men, including Taysir Alony, a correspondent for the Arabic satellite network Al-Jazeera, received sentences of from six to 11 years.

The Arab satellite station Al-Jazeera yesterday reported that it had received a statement and videotape from an Iraqi resistance group that claimed responsibility for attacks on American forces and threatened more. It was believed to be the first such claim, and the first time a group said it had organized the increasingly bloody offensive. The Pentagon repeatedly has said the attacks, which have claimed at least 18 American lives since May 1, when President Bush declared the major fighting over, were not the work of any organized resistance.

PARIS - A video apparently showing a Muslim gunman's attacks on soldiers and a Jewish school was sent to the Al-Jazeera news network - but not by him, French police said Tuesday, raising the specter of a possible accomplice. Al-Jazeera on Tuesday decided not to air a video that seems to have been filmed from the killer's point of view and includes the cries of his victims. The decision came after President Nicolas Sarkozy asked the network not to broadcast it. While French politicians describe gunman Mohamed Merah as a "lone wolf" terrorist, his brother is behind bars on suspicion of helping in the attacks and police are continuing to look for potential accomplices.

IN THE MAYOR'S WING of City Hall on Friday, an enormous red carpet covered the floors, dramatic navy-blue drapes lined the halls, and gold-painted chairs filled a reception room. The guest of honor? Mohamed Bin Abdullah Al-Rumaihi, Qatar's ambassador to the U.S. The small Persian Gulf state has the world's highest per capita gross domestic product and the largest natural-gas reserve. The ambassador is visiting Philadelphia in hopes of establishing a relationship leading to investment opportunities.

Since its launch in 2006, Al-Jazeera TV's English-language news channel has racked up prestigious journalism awards for its reporting on international issues, including the Arab Spring uprisings. The problem: Hardly anyone sees Al-Jazeera English (AJE) because few cable TV operators carry it. Last week, Al-Jazeera's owner - the emir of the oil- and natural gas-rich Persian Gulf state of Qatar - sought to change that. Al-Jazeera will pay an undisclosed sum - unconfirmed reports said $500 million - for Current TV, the little-watched but widely distributed cable network cofounded by former vice president Al Gore.

LOS ANGELES - Al-Jazeera, the Pan-Arab news channel that struggled to win space on U.S. cable television, has acquired Current TV, boosting its reach in this country nearly ninefold to about 40 million homes. Bloomberg News, citing two sources close to the deal, reported the network was sold for about $500 million - an eightfold increase from the $60 million cofounder Al Gore and his partners paid in 2004. The former vice president confirmed the sale, saying in a statement that Al-Jazeera shares Current TV's mission "to give voice to those who are not typically heard; to speak truth to power; to provide independent and diverse points of view.

BEIRUT - Fighters from a shadowy militant group with suspected links to al-Qaeda joined Syrian rebels in seizing a government missile defense base in northern Syria on Friday, according to activists and amateur video. It was unclear whether the rebels were able to hold the base, and analysts questioned whether they would be able to make use of any of the missiles they may have spirited away. Nevertheless, the assault underscored fears of advanced weaponry falling into the hands of extremists playing an increasingly large role in Syria's civil war. Videos purportedly shot inside the air defense base and posted online stated that the extremist group, Jabhat al-Nusra, participated in the overnight battle near the village of al-Taaneh, three miles east of the country's largest city, Aleppo.

PARIS - A video apparently showing a Muslim gunman's attacks on soldiers and a Jewish school was sent to the Al-Jazeera news network - but not by him, French police said Tuesday, raising the specter of a possible accomplice. Al-Jazeera on Tuesday decided not to air a video that seems to have been filmed from the killer's point of view and includes the cries of his victims. The decision came after President Nicolas Sarkozy asked the network not to broadcast it. While French politicians describe gunman Mohamed Merah as a "lone wolf" terrorist, his brother is behind bars on suspicion of helping in the attacks and police are continuing to look for potential accomplices.

THE ARAB-based TV giant Al Jazeera has a decade-long love-hate relationship with the U.S. government, but the network - which includes the English-language Al Jazeera English, or AJE - proved its worth in 2011 with intrepid wall-to-wall coverage of the "Arab Spring" uprising. And it did this without cutting away every five minutes to remind us that Whitney Houston is still dead. This week, Al Jazeera English won one of America's top two journalism prizes, a George Polk Award, for a documentary about the revolt against Bahrain's monarchy.

The English-language offshoot of the Arab network Al-Jazeera claims a viewership of 250 million households in 120 countries on six continents, but in the United States, it is available in only five markets. On Monday, about 40 demonstrators descended on the Philadelphia headquarters of Comcast Corp. to demand that it add Al-Jazeera English (AJE) to its lineup of cable offerings. Organized by Rethink Press, a Washington group critical of mainstream media, the protesters brought 23,092 signatures advocating for inclusion of AJE. It was created in 2006 as a spin-off of the 16-year-old Qatar-based channel known for aggressive coverage of the Middle East.

BEIRUT, Lebanon - A deadly mutiny of Syrian soldiers and loss of control over a tense northern town appeared to show extraordinary cracks in an autocratic regime that has long prided itself on its iron control. Details about the events in Jisr al-Shughour remained murky Tuesday. The government said 120 forces were dead, without explaining the enormous loss of life, and acknowledged losing "intermittent" control of the area. But reports Tuesday from residents and activists - and the television appearance of a soldier who says he switched sides after his hometown was bombarded - were the clearest sign yet that the weekly protests of thousands of Syrians are eroding President Bashar al-Assad's grip.

BENGHAZI, Libya - A Libyan journalist who ran a webcast program showing the aftermath of government attacks and commentary on the uprising against Moammar Gadhafi was killed in Saturday's government assault on the rebel capital in the country's east. Mohammed al-Nabbous, who founded a live-stream channel called Libya Al-Hurra, or Free Libya, was hit by sniper fire as Gadhafi sent warplanes, tanks and troops into Benghazi, the first city to fall to the rebellion that began Feb. 15, friends said.