One of the world's richest men says he is setting up an international news network to rival Al-Jazeera.
Alexander Machkevitch, a Kazakh-Israeli mining mogul, says he and unnamed partners are in the early stages of developing the venture.
Machkevitch is pitching the idea at an annual meeting of Jewish leaders in Washington on Wednesday.
He told The Associated Press that he had not yet decided what the for-profit venture would be called, or where it would be based, however, he ruled out Kazakhstan.
Machkevitch said that he has had a long-time interest in creating media that will be less divisive than some of what is offered. He is motivated in part by his view that Israel is not given fair coverage in much of the international media.
Although he hopes to rival Al-Jazeera's reach in the Middle East, he went out of his way to praise the pan-Arab television news network based in Qatar, saying he was considering a multi-language and multimedia format that could include Arabic and Farsi programming.
He said that his biography as a Jew, who grew up and succeeded among Muslims, has motivated him to look for ways to bridge the divide.
Machkevitch said he wants a network with editorial direction independent of any government or special interest and that his own interests in Kazakhstan would not influence the coverage of the network he hopes to create.
Machkevitch made his fortune as co-founder of Eurasian Natural Resources Corp., whose reach he has expanded around the world.
In its most recent list of the world's richest people, Forbes magazine ranked Machkevitch as 297, with an estimated fortune of $3.7 billion.
