While not on the air yet, Telesur has already been dubbed by some as Al-Bolivar -- a combination of Al-Jazeera and Simon Bolivar, the 19th century South American revolutionary leader.

Some excerpts from the BBC story:

"It's a question of focus, of where we look at our continent from," says Mr Botero, Telesur's news director from Colombia.

"They look at it from the United States. So they give a rose-tinted, flavour-free version of Latin America. We want to look at it from right here.

Mr Botero (centre) says the channel will be independent - but not neutral

"We want our cameras to get into places that their cameras have never been, to give a real, street-level view - like the girl said: 'The true face of Latin America.'" ...

Most of the money for Telesur comes from Venezuela. But the governments of Argentina, Uruguay and Cuba are also backing it.

Talks with Brazil are stalled, partly because the government there is trying to get its own continental TV project off the ground.

Telesur's president, Venezuelan Communications Minister Andres Izarra, sees the channel as an essential pre-requisite for closer political and economic links across Latin America.

"We're launching Telesur as an initiative to integrate through communication the different countries of the region," he told the BBC.

"It's a window, so we can get to know each other better." ...

Last year, the chairman of the US Senate's foreign relations committee, Richard Lugar, referred to the planned channel as a vehicle to spread President Hugo Chavez's authoritarian message around the region.

[Telesur staff] are all in one political position, and that's the political position of our president Alberto Ravell Globovision

Alberto Ravell, the head of Venezuela's main private news channel, Globovision, agrees.

"You're going to have a view of Latin America, but you're going to have the view these governments want you to have, not an impartial view," he said.

He told the BBC that all the people working at Telesur are leftist.

"They're all in one political position, and that's the political position of our president that wants to be not only the president of Venezuela but the leader of Latin America."