HW 31: Al Jazeera all Over the World

"Baghdad Burning" is written by Riverbend, a young Iraqi woman living in Baghdad, Iraq during the invasion of the United States in 2003. Riverbend writes in the form of blogs on the Internet and tells of the trials and tribulations of everyday life in Iraq while it is amidst a bloody war. One evening, Riverbend is watching a show on TV on the Arabic news channel, Al Jazeera. The show hosted three different female Iraqi's for a debate dealing with Iraq, "The discussion was regarding how much women's rights in Iraq had been affected after the occupation" (Riverbend 65). The women discussed the increased regulations of women being forced to cover themselves up and the uprising number of rapes and abductions of Iraqi females. Al Jazeera is one of the most popular news channels in the Middle East, "Al Jazeera (offers) news coverage 24 hours a day from around the world and focusing on the hottest regions of conflict" (http://www.allied-media.com/aljazeera/). Many Iraqis and Middle Eastern countries get their news and information from the Al Jazeera network that offers around the clock news updates. Also, Al Jazeera covers other news topics like sports and entertainment, but the most watched shows are about politics and political debates. Al Jazeera is based out of Qatar and it started up in 1996 and it is now said that it has over 40 million viewers. Al Jazeera is not just popular among Middle Easterners, but it is, "the fastest growing network among Arab communities and Arabic speaking people around the world" (allied-media.com). Whether one lives in the United States or China, Al Jazeera is available all over the world and it is also translated into other languages such as English. Clearly Al Jazeera has a lot of influence all over the world and it keeps Arabs and all others that watch the channel posted on the latest news and world events.

Works Cited

Riverbend. Baghdad Burning. New York: The Feminist Press, 2005.
“Al Jazeera.” Allied Media Corp. 2007.