KEY POINTS:
The long-awaited English-language version of al-Jazeera, which takes to the airwaves on November 15 after a year of technical delays, appears to have pulled off a coup by securing Tony Blair as its star launch interviewee.
At lunchtime on Friday, November 17, the British Prime Minister is scheduled to walk through the foyer of al-Jazeera International's London bureau in Knightsbridge.
The veteran broadcaster Sir David Frost will then interview the Prime Minister for the first edition of his new show on the network, Frost Over the World.
The hour-long programme will air that evening at 7 o'clock.
Frost is expected to ask Mr Blair about the deteriorating conflict in Iraq - which is increasingly seen to be his unwanted legacy - although Sir David has a famously "friendly" approach with subjects, one he believes secures franker, less defensive responses.
Controlling events through the production crews' earpieces will be the former BBC Question Time editor Charlie Courtauld.
He refused to confirm the interviewee, saying only that Sir David and the production team hoped for a "significant" inaugural guest.
A separate source said Mr Blair was "all but absolutely certain" to be in the studio.
Mr Courtauld was, however, willing to explain the thinking behind the new station, which breaks convention by not continually broadcasting from one city.
"Al-Jazeera International is going to move with the sun, rotating around the Earth through the day," he said.
"It starts in Kuala Lumpur, then goes to Doha [in Qatar, where Arabic-language al-Jazeera is based], before moving to London and later Washington. It will be the first truly global channel."
Sir David, in his show, "will be on the sofa interviewing top honchos by link from around the world".
There will also be a "global conversation" feature, where correspondents in each of the four cities have a group discussion about the week's hot news from their region.
The network craves the presence, and resultant added kudos, of Western leaders in its studios, and hopes Mr Blair will be the first of many world leaders to sink into Sir David's sofa.
The sort of guests he aims to secure through his legendary contacts book include Russian leader Vladimir Putin, US President George W. Bush, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, China's Hu Jintao and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni.
There will, apparently, be an emphasis on important political players who are currently under-reported.
For example: leaders from Africa, South America and Southeast Asia.
"He is one of the few people who can pick up a phone and achieve what would take a team of researchers three weeks," said Mr Courtauld.
"Sir David has back channels everywhere."
The Blair interview would also be a landmark event for al-Jazeera after years of hostility from senior British and American officials.
Last year, a leaked memo appeared to show Mr Blair talking President George W. Bush out of bombing the channel's Doha headquarters, at a meeting in April 2004 between the two men in Washington.
Mr Blair also resisted pressure from former home secretary David Blunkett to bomb the station.
In August, several al-Jazeera International journalists said they had a separate concern: this time about editorial independence from the government of Qatar.
Here is the news
* Al-Jazeera claims to be the only politically independent television station in the Middle East, with an estimated 50 million viewers.
* Funded in part by the Emir of Qatar, who gave it US$150 million to start in 1996, it draws revenue from advertising, film sales and cable subscription fees.
* Gained profile in the West after the September 11, 2001, attacks, when it broadcast videos of Osama bin Laden, leading to criticism in the United States that al-Jazeera was engaging in propaganda on behalf of terrorists.
* In 2004, al-Jazeera was voted by brandchannel.com readers as the fifth most influential global brand behind Apple Computer, Google, Ikea and Starbucks.
- INDEPENDENT
