Al Jazeera

Just a quick bulletin really to draw all your attention to Al Jazeera. The Arabic news service based in Qatar grabbed the west’s attention when it was first to broadcast Osama Bin Laden’s videos as well as broadcasting in full the footage of the American prisoner abuse when the western stations refused to do so.

Far from being the public relations arm of Islamic extremists it has, just like any self respected news service, smarted itself up and gone for the big time. Its rapid growth has it currently taking on the likes of the BBC, FOX and CNN at their own game. Their relatively new English speaking service (to be found at http://english.aljazeera.net) is pretty amazing if I am to be honest. You see what with my reputation for being horribly exciting to upkeep, I ensure that I spend a great deal of my time browsing news sites, so as something of a connoisseur of news services I think you should all heed my advice and check it out immediately. It’s superb. Really is. It gives a broad overview of world news without the western bias, which while none of us like to think exists – really does. Yet having said that do not for a second think it is the mindless ravings of some sort of Islamic cleric. Oh no. Far from it. This is top quality and finely balanced journalism at its best. A fine addition to anyone’s RSS feed.

And if you don’t have RSS feeds on your homepage by now. Then shame on you.