Canada: 9 new TV stations licensed

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The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission has approved licences for nine new television stations, including Al Jazeera Arab-language news and public affairs service. It has also denied six others.

Al Jazeera comes with some conditions. Distributors have also been given strict rules requiring them to guard against the channel's broadcasting of abusive comments - meaning that they may be required to edit or delete some content. They must also record Al Jazeera programming and keep the recordings for a specific length of time.

Particularly upset by the approval are various members of Canada's Jewish communities who will be closely monitoring it for anti-Jewish comments.

However, the CRTC is finding itself the centre of controversy, not only for licensing Al Jazeera. Last week. In a rare move, it also pulled a radio station's licence, mainly because of offensive comments, personal attacks and harassment by two programme hosts. And the denial of the RAI International Italian language licence has upset some sectors of the Italian community after 100,000 Italian Canadians and others had signed petitions supporting the licence application. The RAI application faced strong opposition from the existing Telelatino which broadcasts various programming from RAI.

Some Canadians feel that the CRTC is taking on more responsibility than its mandate requires. And the controversies are fuelling comments in some sectors about the value of the CRTC at all.

All services approved offer non-Canadian, third-language programming. They include, in addition to Al Jazeera:

* German TV: German-language general interest service
* Canal SUR: Spanish-language predominantly news and non fiction service with programming by independent broadcasters from Latin America
* CineLatino: Spanish-language movies from Mexico, Argentina, Spain, Colombia, Chile, Venezuela and Peru
* Grandes Documentales de TVE: Spanish-language documentaries
* Utilisima: Spanish-language programming service originating from Argentina directed to women
* Eurochannel: Spanish and Portuguese subtitled European movie service
* Romanian Television International: Predominantly Romanian-language general interest programming service
* ART Movies: Arabic-language movies.

Denied licences, in addition to RAI International's Italian-language general interest service, are:

* Azteca 13 International: Spanish-language general interest service
* GOL TV: Spanish and English-language soccer programming service
* LBC America: Arabic-language general interest service
* TV Chile: Spanish-language general interest service
* TVE Internacional: Spanish-language general interest service