Al Jazeera Media Network 1 November 1996 following the closure of the first BBC Arabic language television station, then a joint venture with Orbit Communications Company, owned by Saudi King Fahd's cousin, Khalid bin Faisal Al Saud. The BBC channel had closed after a year and a half when the Saudi government attempted to thwart a documentary pertaining to executions under sharia law. The Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa, provided a loan of QAR 500 million ($137 million) to sustain Al Jazeera through its first five years, as Hugh Miles detailed in his book "Al Jazeera: The Inside Story of the Arab
Al Jazeera and influence, some scholars including Adel Iskandar have described the station as a transformation of the very definition of "alternative media." Al Jazeera presents a new direction in the discourse of global news flow and shows voices underrepresented by traditional mainstream media regardless global imbalances in the flow of information. In 2011 Al Jazeera Media Network launched Al Jazeera Balkans based in Sarajevo and serving Bosnia and Herzegovina in Bosnian, Serbian and Croatian. The look and feel of the network is similar to Al Jazeera English. Al Jazeera launched a Turkish-language news website in 2014; it was shut down on