Speaking of world news, Ajeeb.com, a Middle Eastern Internet portal, offers a free online ArabicEnglish translation service which you can use to read, e.g., Al Jazeera.
For comparison, part of the purported bin Laden audiotape/voicemail broadcast today on Al Jazeera –
AP newswire: “By God, the youths of God are preparing for you things that would fill your hearts with terror and target your economic lifeline until you stop your oppression and aggression.”
Al Jazeera website, translated by Ajeeb: “Then he addressed the Americans saying Muslim youths ‘Prepare you what fills your hearts with terror and target your economic interests till you give up oppression and aggression or your tyrant dies’.”
As a user interface guy, it was interesting to see the translator flip the Al Jazeera page layout horizontally, to match the flip in text direction. For instance, the graphical navbar that was on the right side of the page in the original ended up on the left in the translation.
The funny thing was the scroll bar on my web browser. It was on the standard right-hand side for the original; the translator dutifully swapped it, and it ended up on the left side of the window, where it took me a few seconds to find it. :)