DOHA, March 23: The launch of Arabic satellite television Al Jazeera’s English-language channel will be delayed until later this year, the group’s director general said on Thursday. The startup of Al Jazeera International, which had been expected sometime in the northern spring, ‘has been delayed, probably to the summer... for technical reasons’, the channel’s director general Wadah Khanfar said.

Mr Khanfar, 37, made the announcement on the same

day the company named him as the overall boss of a new umbrella company, Al Jazeera Satellite Network, bringing all its media activities into one group.

Mr Khanfar, a Palestinian who has managed Al Jazeera’s Arabic service for the last two years, now takes charge of the station’s popular websites, a future documentary channel as well as the English language channel.

Al Jazeera, which has changed the face of television news in the Arab world since it was founded in 1996, has faced relentless criticism from the United States over its broadcasting of footage and messages from militants.

Al Jazeera International is due to transmit from four regional broadcast centres in Doha, Kuala Lumpur, London and Washington with 250 journalists based in 30 countries.

Al Jazeera in Arabic already has more than 30 bureaus around the world.

Al Jazeera International director Nigel Parsons said, however, that the English-language channel may still start broadcasting as planned.

“We might still be launching it in the spring. We don’t know yet,” he said, adding that the network was waiting for technical installations to be completed. “The delay — if there will be a delay — is technical,” he added.—AFP