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Qatar’s Al-Jazeera television network announces plan to launch a news channel in Britain while studies are at an advanced stage for a French-language channel.

“We are currently working to launch a news channel from the United Kingdom,” said the network’s Director General Sheikh Ahmed bin Jassim Al-Thani in Doha, adding it will be called Al-Jazeera UK.

The British channel will broadcast for five hours during prime time as a cut-in UK content aired on Al-Jazeera English channel, which was opened in 2006, said an Al-Jazeera official.

Al-Thani also said that studies were at an “advanced stage” to launch a French-language channel aimed at “building bridges with other cultures and peoples.”

The network which opened Al-Jazeera Balkan in Sarajevo in 2011 is readying to open Al-Jazeera Turkish, Al-Thani said.

In January, American television channel Current TV, co-founded by former US president Al Gore in 2005, said it was acquired by Al-Jazeera, providing the Qatar-owned network with a wide distribution platform in the United States.

Al-Thani said on Monday that Al-Jazeera has got “the right to broadcast nationwide in the United States.”