DOHA, Nov 15: Al Jazeera's English-language news channel hit the airwaves on Wednesday with a heavyweight cast of presenters and the ambition to compete with western broadcasting giants.

Al Jazeera English, sister channel of Qatar's Arabic television Al Jazeera, said its launch ushered in `a new era in international news’ as it began broadcasts at 1200 GMT with a news bulletin featuring reports from Gaza, Sudan's Darfur region and Tehran.

Anchors Shiulie Ghosh and Sami Zeidan stood in the ultra-sophisticated studios at Doha headquarters as the channel flashed `breaking news’ about a tsunami warning in Japan.

In an apparent attempt to immediately establish its credentials as a balanced network, Al Jazeera English showed a snippet of an interview with Hamas political supremo Khaled Meshaal and said it would later air an interview with Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres.

Two Israeli journalists are among staff covering Israel.

Al Jazeera English, which has broadcasting centres in Kuala Lumpur, London and Washington as well as Doha, has said it hopes to reach a potential audience of 80 million viewers by cable and satellite, mostly in Asia, Africa and Europe.

But the channel said on Tuesday it would not be available on cable in the United States for at least a year as “there is no free space for us on the US cable network”, according to the channel's commercial director Lindsey Oliver.

It will initially have 12 hours of live programming, which it plans to boost to 24 hours on January 1.—AFP