Al Jazeera has a new competitor. The competition comes not from another Arab country like the United Arab Emirates, which sponsors Abu Dhabi Television, or Saudi Arabia, which runs Al Arabia Television.

This time, it was Iran that launched a 24 hours news channel in Arabic called Al Alam – “the world”.

The channel, in terms of style, has similarities to Al Jazeera. But in terms of content, it offers surprisingly moderate analysis of the U.S. nation-building efforts in Iraq and positive coverage of the new governing council, which is backed by the United States.

Al-Alam broadcasts in Arabic, although the language of Iran is Farsi. Al-Alam says that it launched a 24-hour Arabic-language news channel to provide an alternative to western media regarding the Middle East, including countries such as Iraq and other Arab-speaking countries.

The two stations broadcast news on the hour, accompanied with dramatic music and live coverage. Another similarity is the focus on the human impacts of the Iraq war and the U.S. occupation of Iraq, including personal stories from Iraqi children and women, subjects usually ignored in U.S. media.

The new Al-Alam TV channel only started regular broadcasting in March, as the Iraq war began, and it already has established itself as popular Arab television for viewers in Iraq and abroad.

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