Ali Hashem

Ali Hashem during the Libyan war

Ali Hashem is a columnist for Al-Monitor. He is an Arab journalist serving as Al Mayadeen news network's chief correspondent. Until March 2012, he was Al Jazeera's war correspondent, and prior to that he was a senior journalist at the BBC. He has written for several Arab newspapers, including the Lebanese daily As Safir, the Egyptian dailies Al-Masry Al-Youm and Aldostor and the Jordanian daily Alghad. He has also contributed to The Guardian. Hashem resigned from the Qatari channel only one year after joining its office in Beirut in protest over "bias" reporting of the Syrian crisis,^[1] accusing the Qatari government of pushing Al Jazeera towards "media suicide".^[2]

On March 9, 2012, he announced his resignation on Twitter but didn't give reasons, but Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar published a story about the resignation.^[3][4]

Birth and student life

Ali was born in Lebanese capital Beirut in 1980 and raised up in the West African state of Sierra Leone. When 11 his family returned to Lebanon after the end of the civil war and the start of Sierra Leone's war. He graduated from the American University of Science and Technology majoring in Communication arts.

Journalism

Al Manar

At Al Manar TV Ali Hashem reported the 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel. He was based in the South Lebanese city of Tyre and covered several incidents that took place during the war. After the war Hashem came back to Beirut where he was shot by a sniper during riots but he survived with injuries.

BBC

In 2007 Ali joined BBC after a couple of months with newly launched Al Jazeera English language channel. At BBC Hashem reported from various locations and covered several stories, later on he produced and presented a weekly flagship program named the commission. ^[5]

Al Jazeera

With Al Jazeera Hashem covered the revolution in Libya from the start, and later the NATO strikes and the battles fought between the rebels and Gaddafi's brigades. After Libya he returned to Lebanon, where he had to cover Lebanese politics, and tension related to the Syrian uprising on the Syrian Lebanese borders. Later he was commissioned to cover Famine and drought in Somalia and Kenya, there he compiled several packages.

Al Mayadeen

At Al Maydeen Ali played a vital role in building the channel's assignment desk during the launch period, and then he went back to the field, covering stories from Syria, Egypt, Gaza, Venezuela, Iraq, and Sierra Leone. He's now the channel's bureau chief in Tehran.

Interviews

Mehr News Agency

He claims in an interview with Mehr News that Iran is going to be a super power in the Middle East.^[6]

References