CAIRO: Saudi billionaire Waleed Ben Talal on Monday said that he is launching a news channel in 2012 under the name The Arabs. The businessman announced the new channel at a press confrence at his office on Monday and said the new channel aims to “keep up with the dramatic changes that the region is witnessing.” He added that the channel will be a live 24-hour news service and will present political, social and economic coverage of current events. “It will serve all Arabs and will contribute in human and economic development in a frame of democracy that it will be structured on,” said the Saudi prince. He added that he hopes the channel will compete with the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera network and the Saudi network al-Arabiya. He added that the channel will be fully funded by him on a budget for 10 years. Saudi journalist Jamal Khashijji will be the head of the channel. He announced that he had signed a partnership deal with Bloomberg channel to take business related content from them for around five hours daily. Bin Talal is one of the richest people in the world and he has global investments, including a large stake in American news channel Fox News. BM
