Al Jazeera was not knocked off air in the UK.
They were briefly off air in Egypt, but have changed frequencies and are back on.
Yes, the channels themselves come from Qatar and just like any international broadcaster are uplinked onto many satellites over the world.
AIUI it was just the Arabic and Mubasher ('live') services on Nilesat that were taken off air. Whether this was by jamming them or by getting the uplink supplier to pull the plug I'm not sure. I suspect it was the latter as they're back on a Nilesat but haven't gone off again, I assume they found an alternative uplink supplier.
Their Cairo office was shut down, but that seems not to have slowed them down much.
There seems to be less stuff from the ground and fewer faces on screen from Egypt. The live shot looks isn't full video quality so it's probably coming via a 'videophone' type data connection, presumably via satellite
Last edited by Inspector Sands on 30 January 2011 11:59pm - 4 times in total
They've had reports from people on the scene all evening - filing from what sounds like their mobiles. One interesting aspect of AJE's coverage that the BBC and Sky either don't have the contacts for, or the skillset, or both, is that through the night Kamahl Santamaria interviewed figures within the ruling party and the opposition, including the Muslim Brotherhood - using real-time translation when the individuals did not speak English. I don't remember ever seeing that done live on any British network, with the exception of Tim Wilcox's on-camera Spanish translation during the Chilean miner rescue, and as in the latter case it really is quite effective in opening up voices that otherwise wouldn't get an airing in English-language media.
Regardless of how the interviews were handled, AJE's grilling of NCD party officials and other interested parties were of more value and insight into the future possible make-up of any Egyptian democratic government than what I caught of the BBC's chat to some British ex-pat chap.
Reports that at least 5 Al Jazeera journalists have been arrested in Cairo - including Dan Nolan, who has had a significant on-screen presence in recent days.
Note that Tim Willcox said it had taken him 36 hours to reach Cairo, whereas Andrew was presenting from London last night until 7. He's done pretty well to make it there that quickly by all accounts.
BBC NC seemed to opt-in to World News Today on BBC Four/BBC World News at around 7:05pm for the latest from Egypt. During that time the "World News Today" image in the bottom left briefly appeared on the News Channel.
Now they've gone their separate ways.
One interesting aspect of AJE's coverage that the BBC and Sky either don't have the contacts for, or the skillset, or both, is that through the night Kamahl Santamaria interviewed figures within the ruling party and the opposition, including the Muslim Brotherhood - using real-time translation when the individuals did not speak English. I don't remember ever seeing that done live on any British network, with the exception of Tim Wilcox's on-camera Spanish translation during the Chilean miner rescue
Carrie Gracie did something similar in connection with the Beijing Olympics I believe (she's fluent in Mandarin), and I think Luisa Baldini might have done some translation with Italian interviewees but I can't remember the occasion.
Many of the BBC journalists are listed on wikipedia as being fluent in various languages - notably Emily Maitliss who is fluent in Spanish, Italian and French.