Al-Jazeera Service in English Starts

Al Jazeera English Channel staff prepare for the broadcast in Doha news room in Qatar on Tuesday, Nov. 14, 2006. On Wednesday at 12.00 GMT Al Jazeera launches an English-speaking channel on Wednesday to report world news from a Middle East perspective and challenge the dominance of Western media. The station, which has angered Washington and some Arab governments with its reporting from Iraq, said it wanted to give a fresh voice to under-reported regions round the world. (AP Photo/ Hamid Jalaudin) (Hamid Jalaludin - AP)

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- Ten years after it started Arabic-language broadcasts that angered leaders in the region and Washington, Al-Jazeera on Wednesday launched an English-language news channel available in more than 80 million homes but lacking major U.S. distribution.

Al-Jazeera English went on the air at 3 p.m. (8 a.m. EST), broadcasting from the station's headquarters in Doha, capital of the tiny Persian Gulf state of Qatar.

A screen graphic with a clock ticking down the minutes gave way to a photo montage of the biggest news stories of the past decade and an announcer saying the new channel would be "setting the news agenda."

"It's Nov. 15th, a new era in television news," its anchor said.

The channel quickly jumped to live feeds from various regions _ first Gaza, then Sudan's Darfur region, then Iran and Zimbabwe.

Al-Jazeera, which is bankrolled by Qatar's royal family, said its signal would reach 80 million households with cable and satellite TV, mainly in the Middle East and Europe. It hopes to steal viewers from CNN and the British Broadcasting Corp. by giving the world's 1 billion English speakers news from a non-Western perspective.

Al-Jazeera's feisty Arabic news channel is well known for angering leaders in the West and the Arab world, where it has been banned from operating in 18 countries at various times. Four Arab nations still bar its reporters.

The station has broken new ground covering once-taboo political, religious and social subjects, while airing interviews with opposition figures and Israeli officials who previously were absent from other Arab networks.

Bush administration officials have branded the network's airing of messages from Osama bin Laden as an incitement to terrorism and criticized its often graphic coverage of bloodshed in Iraq.

Al-Jazeera says the messages and images are newsworthy. It has promoted its broadcasts to U.S. officials as the ideal venue to address the Muslim world.

Still, the station is burdened with a reputation among Americans as anti-U.S. _ an image Al-Jazeera insists is unfair. Its staffers argue that while the station has an Arab viewpoint, its coverage is balanced.

At least for now, most Americans will have no chance to see Al-Jazeera to judge for themselves. Al-Jazeera's list of U.S. carriers included none of the major U.S. cable TV providers: Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cox Communications, Charter Communications or Cablevision. Neither of the two major satellite TV providers in the U.S. _ Dish Network and DirecTV _ are carrying the network.