Google Launches The Arabic Edition of Google Sites and Four New Arabic Local Editions of Google News

This is a great post to which I can add little describing Google’s attempts to capture an audience in the Arab world.  These are the first two paragraphs, but read on at ArabCrunch

Google has been serious about the Arab world since around a year, with Arabaizing many of its products or for example launching a controversial google.ps domain for Palestine. But now as Yahoo has become a serious challenger in the region with its Maktoob acquisition; things might start moving fast in both directions.
Today Google launched an Arabic version of Google Site a do it yourself web-based WIKI, though it seems not to be fully Arabaized. Google also launched today four new Arabic editions of Google News, for Egypt, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The Local editions of Google News enable user to access relevant and localized content in topics such as Politics, Business, Sports and Entertainment. Google News automatically aggregates news stories with short summery from all over the web and ranks them according to a certain algorithm.
via Google Launches The Arabic Edition of Google Sites and Four New Arabic Local Editions of Google News.