Director-General of Al Jazeera satellite TV network, Wadah Khanfar, who led the network for eight years, has resigned on Tuesday, reportedly to be replaced by a member of the Gulf’s state ruling family, according to Arabian Business. The man widely seen as the face of Arab media will be replaced by Sheikh Ahmed bin Jassim Al Thani, press reports said. Al Jazeera has not yet announced his successor.

Since it was launched in 1996, Al Jazeera has become the highest-profile satellite news broadcaster in the Middle East. It has frequently had difficulties with Western and Arab governments in a region where governments have traditionally kept tight control over state media.

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There have been recent media reports of the UAE enforcing a law that prescribes three to ten years imprisonment for spreading rumours through social media. This has evoked a shock for many people in the region.

The reports have triggered a heated debate on Qatari social networking sites with people arguing if such a law was needed at all and whether Qatar should follow suit. However, most commentators, though strongly opposed to rumour-mongering, said they favoured free expression through the Internet.

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Social networking sites are proving highly popular among Middle East hoteliers looking to get on board with region’s the online marketing craze. Websites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Youtube are gaining increasingly more attention from both value and luxury hotels, often playing a pivotal role in their wider marketing campaigns.

According to hotel managers, the sites’ ability to communicate with thousands of potential customers makes them an effective medium for raising brand awareness, increasing customer interaction and plugging promotions.

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Bloomberg has seen Middle East revenues rise by 15.6 per cent in 2010, according to the New York-based financial data giant, and expects sales in emerging markets to grow at 15 to 20 per cent annually, Arabian Business has reported.

The firm, founded by New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg, and which has around 300,000 subscribers worldwide, has doubled the number of staff in its Dubai-based office, and on Wednesday opened a new office in Mumbai, tripling its staff.
 

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Arabian Business reports that Egypt’s army has been instructed to protect foreign media and journalists from groups in civilian clothes who have been attacking them. The US and Britain among others have condemned the intimidation following a number of harassments of foreign reporters from The New York Times, Washington Post, Reuters, and other news agencies covering the events in Egypt.

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Arabian Business reports that Iran has closed the Tehran office of a television channel partly owned by News Corp and operated by a Dubai-based firm and arrested five employees for “helping the anti-revolutionary movement”, the semi-official Mehr news agency said on Tuesday. Iranian authorities were in the past critical of the channel, saying its programmes were contradictory to Iran’s Islamic and revolutionary values and stated that they would close down publications that carry news of the opposition movement.

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Arabian Business reports that Rotana Holding’s chairman, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz Alsaud, has approved a decision to restructure the group’s management into four separate business units: TV broadcasting, audio, studios and Rotana Media Services (RMS). The digital media business and emerging business for each sector will be handled separately within by each unit.

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Arabian Business reports that Google has denied that it will provide Middle East versions of its new Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP), which was rolled out in the US last month. Local media had reported that the web giant would be providing localised versions of the Google Voice, according to the source, although Google described this as “pure speculation”.

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