- From 14 February, satellite viewers in the Arab world
will be able to watch a new US government-funded Arabic-language satellite
TV channel called al-Hurra, meaning "The Free One".
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- The channel sees its role as promoting democracy and
winning over public opinion in the Arab world. Al-Hurra is aimed at the
younger audience which dominates most Arab countries.
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- The channel will focus on news, current affairs and discussion
programmes, but will also carry general interest features on health, entertainment,
sports, fashion and science and technology.
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- It will broadcast via Arabsat and Nilesat satellites
and, in a few months, it will also be available over terrestrial transmitters
in Iraq.
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- At its headquarters in Washington, a mixed team of some
200 Arab and US journalists say they will try to harness US production
and marketing skills attuned to Arab sensibilities in their output.
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- They also insist they will be editorially independent.
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- But critics say the station will find it hard to establish
independent credibility as it is being set up with funding from US Congress,
which has given al-Hurra a $62m budget for its first year.
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- Cool response
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- Washington hopes its latest public diplomacy initiative
will succeed as an alternative to pan-Arab satellite television broadcasters
such as Qatar-based al-Jazeera or al-Arabiya, which broadcasts out of Dubai.
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- US officials see these stations as being often critical
of the US, particularly in their coverage of the US-led war on terror.
But, even before its launch, al-Hurra has provoked distrust and scepticism
from the Arab world.
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- "I have no doubt the new competition will be professional
and technically sound," al-Jazeera spokesman Jihad Ballout said.
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- "But as for changing Arab public opinion about the
US, I think it's going to take a little bit more than a new satellite channel
to do that."
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- Syrian newspaper Tishrin was even more blunt.
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- "This station is part of a project to re-colonise
the Arab homeland that the United States seeks to implement through a carrot-and-stick
policy," it said.
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- And Rami Khouri said in Lebanon's Daily Star newspaper
that al-Hurra will be "like the US government's Radio Sawa and Hi
magazine before it... an entertaining, expensive and irrelevant hoax".
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- "Where do they get this stuff from? Why do they
keep insulting us like this?" he asked.
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- Hearts and minds
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- But Professor Hussein Amin at the American University
in Cairo said that such criticism may ignite debates so far not seen in
the Arab world.
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- "This criticism, as harsh as it may be... will open
discussions about freedom of speech and expression and also human rights
and issues that do not gain full coverage in the Arab media," he said.
US officials are realistic when asked about the prospects for their new
satellite television venture.
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- They admit that, like other US efforts to win Arab hearts
and minds, it faces many challenges.
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- Al-Hurra's critics, meanwhile, say that what the Arab
world wants is a significant change in US policies affecting their region,
rather than more satellite television diplomacy.
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- © BBC MMIV
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- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3486109.stm
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