Arab TV network Al Jazeera launching English newscasts By Jim Krane, Associated Press ) DOHA, Qatar -- Al Jazeera's taboo-smashing newscasts regularly vex politicians in Washington, but not nearly as much as they anger leaders in the Arab world, where the news channel has been banned from operating in 18 countries at one time or another. the network is launching its biggest gamble on its 10th anniversary -- an English-language channel with an Arab perspective. Al Jazeera International plans to hit the airwaves Nov. 15 and hopes to steal viewers from CNN and the BBC. Feisty and sometimes graphic coverage of global carnage is an Al Jazeera specialty, as is bracing commentary that has shaken up the Arab world and rattled the West. "We have an edge over the other networks: We're already based in the Middle East. And we have a different perspective," director Wadah Khanfar said at a news conference at the network's Doha headquarters yesterday. Al Jazeera has been through a lot in 10 years, with three staffers killed in Iraq, another locked away without charge at the US prison facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and a correspondent who interviewed Osama bin Laden convicted on terror charges in Spain. Those it has covered have also suffered. The network is credited with waking up Arab TV viewers with brash discussions of banned topics. It questioned autocrats across the region and brought a large dollop of diplomatic clout to Qatar, a tiny sheikdom on the Persian Gulf. A frustrated President Bush even talked of bombing the channel's headquarters in 2004, according to a leaked British government memo. "It made the airwaves uncontrollable," Amjad Nasser wrote yesterday in the London-based pan-Arab daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi. The fear Al Jazeera inspires in the Arab world is best seen in Saudi Arabia, where the network has never been allowed to send a reporter -- even those making personal pilgrimages to Mecca. A Saudi boycott of the channel bars Al Jazeera advertisers from doing business in the kingdom. The boycott has chased away almost all advertisers, leaving Al Jazeera dependent on the deep pockets of Qatar's royal family. The station's employees are also banned from Iraq, Tunisia, and Algeria, staffers said. The network declines to say virtually anything about its finances, but it doesn't appear to be having money trouble. Al Jazeera International has hired more than 500 staffers . Al Jazeera says its goal is to reverse the information flow to the world's 1 billion English speakers who now have no choice but to watch Western-oriented broadcasters. © Copyright 2006 Globe Newspaper Company.