AJI hires fresh faces, struggles with launch date
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 Al Jazeera International (AJI), the first English language news channel based in the Middle East, could delay its much-anticipated launch in late spring due to technical difficulties.
“We’re still aiming for a late spring launch, but again that depends on the technical side of the project if it’s ready by then. We’re dealing with a company that is delaying us,” Lana Kachan, AJI’s public relations co-ordinator, told MEB Journal. “But we will announce the date two weeks prior to the actual launch,” she added.
 Online Arabic news reports had previously quoted the head of the newly-formed Al Jazeera umbrella network Wadah Khanfar as saying that the launch of AJI has been put off for technical reasons.
The channel that has so far cost more than $1 billion to set up, according to The New York Times, has secured an impressive line up of journalists to join its ranks, most recently CNN’s senior correspondent in Latin America Lucia Newman as its Argentina correspondent, and Mariana Sanchez, a former news anchor for Panamericana Television, as correspondent for the Venezuela bureau.
AJI has also hired former UK Channel 5 presenter, Barbara Serra, as news presenter from its London bureau. It also signed up former ABC news anchor Richard Gizbert as presenter of its media review program, Listening Post.
The channel announced in March that Shireen El Feki, former health correspondent for the Economist magazine, will host the channel’s main business program, People and Power, from its London headquarters. In addition, Teymour Nabili, CNBC Asia’s former award-winning anchor, will be co-hosting the channel’s newscast from Kuala Lampur with ex-CNN presenter Veronica Pedrosa.
Other hires include former CNN news anchor Riz Khan, the BBC’s veteran broadcaster David Frost and David Foster from Sky News.
It has not been smooth sailing for AJI, which will reportedly be viewed by  150 million people worldwide. The channel has yet to secure a cable, satellite or telecommunications provider in the United States. Unlike Europe, cable providers in the US have proved tough over a stipulation that Al Jazeera could not stream its content live on the internet. Al Jazeera announced earlier the appointment of Khanfar, the managing director of its Arabic news channel, as the overall head of the newly-formed umbrella network that includes five channels and an online website.
“Al Jazeera is no longer a news station targeted at Arabic speaking audiences. With the launch of the new English news channel and the documentary channel in addition to the two sports channels, it is natural to integrate all these channels and their websites into one network,” Khanfar told Al Jazeera Net, the network’s main website.
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