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News round-up: The Wadah Khanfar affair 26 June 2007

Wadah Khanfar – who has been dropped from the al-Jazeera board of directors – remains in the position of ‘Director General of al-Jazeera’. That, at least, is the title the Qatari press continue to give him. Khanfar put in an appearance yesterday on behalf of the channel at a ceremony to underwrite closer cooperation with Qatar University.

Egyptian online daily al-Mesryoon claims there is discontent and confusion among al-Jazeera staff since the new General Manager Ahmad al-Kholeifi has assumed many of the responsibilities previously held by Khanfar. It says the management reshuffle has favoured the US-friendly ‘liberal’ faction at the channel. (Some commentators have identified three competing ideologies within al-Jazeera: the Arabist, Islamic and liberal factions)

Nuri Yalcin cites a former al-Jazeera employee saying: “There will definitely be policy changes: Fewer veiled women employees and fewer Bin Laden tapes, for example.”

The following is an article that appeared in the Jordanian weekly al-Majd from 4 June (The original Arabic article is here) as translated by BBC Monitoring:
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