CNN Launches Arabic-language website and opens Dubai Bureau

The latest addition to the CNN brand portfolio emphasises CNN's ongoing strategy of regionalisation through CNN-branded local language products. CNNArabic.com is the sixth local language website alongside CNN's Italian, German, Spanish, Portuguese and Danish offerings.

Dubai Media City is also the headquarters of CNN's fifth newsgathering operation in the Middle East, providing a strategic base in the Gulf complementing CNN's four other bureaux in the region, located in Cairo, Jerusalem, Beirut and Baghdad.

"I see CNNArabic.com as the biggest language venture since the CNN brand began," said Chris Cramer, president of CNN International News Networks. "It is in keeping with CNN's strategy to reach more users in their own language. The combined bureau and website encourages even closer collaboration between our television and interactive operations, enhancing our commitment to deliver fully-integrated news for this key region across CNN's expanding media platforms."

Ron Ciccone, senior vice president and managing director Turner Broadcasting System (TBS) Middle East, CNN's parent company, said "The Arabic website and newsgathering bureau demonstrate our commitment to the Middle Eastern market. Our choice of Dubai and Dubai Media City in particular underlines our support for its vision of a free media zone where the standard of objective responsible journalism will be guaranteed."

Caroline Faraj, the newly appointed editor of CNNArabic.com, comes to CNN from Jordan, from Al Rai, the leading Arabic daily newspaper in Jordan, where she held the post of senior political editor since 1987. She also served as managing editor for the Jordan Times (Jordan's only English language newspaper) and regional correspondent for the US Defense News. In her position as editor, Faraj oversees a team of five journalists from four Arab countries (Jordan, Egypt, Sudan and Lebanon) who work alongside CNN's global newsgathering teams to deliver CNN's perspective on world news to an Arabic-speaking audience.

CNNArabic.com draws on CNN's worldwide newsgathering resources of 42 bureaux and 900 affiliates worldwide, with region-specific editorial coming from CNN's bureaux across the Middle East. It operates under CNN's strict journalistic standards of accurate, objective and responsible reporting.

CNN is available in over seven million households throughout the Middle East.

CNN International Networks, a division of the CNN News Group, an AOL Time Warner Company, is the world's leading supplier of news and information, distributed via 22 services in 9 languages.

The division's 12 television networks reach 184 million households and the eight international websites which include six local-language news sites: CNN.dk (Danish), CNNItalia.it (Italian), CNN.com.br (Portuguese), CNNenEspanol.com (Spanish) and CNN.de (German) and CNNArabic.com (Arabic) generate millions of page views each week. CNN International Networks has major regional production centres in Atlanta, London and Hong Kong.