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On Monday 19 January 2009, the Ö÷²¥´óÐã will enhance its multimedia service in Arabic by extending the Ö÷²¥´óÐã Arabic television broadcasts to 24-hours a day and introducing five new television presenters from across the Arab world.

Hosam El Sokkari, Head of Ö÷²¥´óÐã Arabic, says: "We have reinforced our presenter team with five new talents who will, no doubt, enrich our programming with new dynamics and style."

Tareq Naser

Jordanian-born Tareq started his journalism career as a writer and reporter, and later presenter and producer, at Jordan TV (1998-2002). In 2002 he joined the Dubai-based Middle East Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) as producer/presenter and reporter before moving to London in 2007 to join the Ö÷²¥´óÐã Arabic television team as writer, reporter and producer.

Makki Helal

Before joining the Ö÷²¥´óÐã, Tunisian-born Makki Helal was a news producer, journalist and presenter at the Moroccan news channel, Medi1Sat.  He started his career in journalism in 1995 as an editor at the weekly Al Arabi newspaper.  In 1997 he joined the Tunisian youth channel, Channel 21, producing and presenting a range of programmes.  After working as a news presenter at Tunisian National TV (1999-2002), he joined Qatar's Foreign Information Agency in Doha as journalist and editor (2002-2003) and then worked at the Al Jazeera TV channel, as news and script editor, reporter and, later, programmes producer (2003-06).  Makki has a number of MA degrees, including in Journalism, from the School of Media and Information Sciences, and in International Relations and Political Science, from the International Relations Institute in Tunisia.

Dima Izeddin

Dima started her career in broadcasting in 2005 when she joined the Syrian Sham TV launch team as presenter. In 2006 she became a presenter at the Russian TV channel, Russia Al Youm. She then joined Syria's private daily Al Watan as a political correspondent before moving back to broadcast journalism, in 2007, as news presenter at the Lebanese satellite TV channel, ANB. Dima joined Ö÷²¥´óÐã Arabic in November 2007 as a journalist and field reporter, covering the UK.

Malak Jafaar

Malak, who has a Master's Degree in Journalism and Communication from Lebanon's Saint Joseph University, worked as a news presenter at Russia Al Youm, the Russian TV channel (2006-08). Before that, she worked at Radio Canada as correspondent of the Arabic service (2005-06).

Nouran Sallam

Nouran joined Ö÷²¥´óÐã Arabic in 2001, starting in the news department as producer and, within a few months, reading the news on air.  She later became Acting Duty Editor in the Ö÷²¥´óÐã Arabic newsroom and also presented and moderated most of Ö÷²¥´óÐã Arabic radio programmes. She has moderated the Ö÷²¥´óÐã's interactive programme, Nuqtat Hewar, on radio; this flagship programme has since developed a multimedia presence.  Before joining the Ö÷²¥´óÐã, Nouran worked for the DPA (Deutsche Presse Agentur) in Cairo and, before that, the Egyptian daily, Al Alam Al Youm.

Ö÷²¥´óÐã World Service Publicity