After two years of struggling to get its news programming to American living rooms, Al Jazeera English’s program Witness will now be available to 30 million households in the U.S. via Link TV.

(July 10, 2003) WIDE ANGLE goes behind the scenes of Al-Jazeera's broadcast headquarters in the Arabian Gulf state of Qatar during its nonstop coverage of the war in Iraq. Watched by millions of people in the Arab world, the first Arabic all-news network had continuous access to events in Iraq.

Explore a map of the vast Middle East, featuring cities from Rabat to Islamabad, Ankara to Khartoum. For each country, the map features information on the capital, year of independence, and political structure.

Link to information on articles about al-Jazeera, reporting in conflict zones, and the transcript of an al-Jazeera interview with former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

For a satellite channel that broadcasts only in Arabic, al-Jazeera has achieved an astonishing level of recognition way beyond the Arab world. To understand why this is so is to understand some key contradictions of contemporary media and global politics.