Al Jazeera speech by the leader of Qatar, Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani. Staff members protested that the speech was not the most important aspect of the debate, and that it was a repetition of previous calls for Arab intervention. "The Guardian" also said in September 2012 that Qatar had taken steps in recent years to consolidate control of Al Jazeera English. A 13 August 2015 article in "The Independent" on poor BBC news reporting also made reference to the political bias in Al Jazeera from the Qatar government. Al Jazeera Al Jazeera (, , literally "The Island", though referring to the
Al Jazeera Balkans for Al Jazeera to settle in Sarajevo". The June 2011 revelation of Al Jazeera Balkans asking its job applicants to state their personal position/opinion regarding the international status of Kosovo with the answer potentially determining whether they get hired or not while at the same time making a takeover bid for Serbian nationwide television network TV Avala caused a lot of reaction in the country. Slobodan Reljić, former editor-in-chief at the "NIN" magazine, stated: "I'm not particularly shocked at the way Al Jazeera Balkans picks its staff because contemporary global media outlets have given up on objective journalism. AJB's going