CAIRO, Feb 29 (Aswat Masriya) - Aswat Masriya, a bilingual website with Arabic and English versions, has launched its new website on Monday, marking a new phase as an independent Egyptian organisation and media outlet that provides news and information about Egypt.  

The new website’s design includes a homepage that accommodates interactive multimedia content to better engage Aswat Masriya’s audience, while the site pages provide readers with more options and services. 

In its new phase, Aswat Masriya (Arabic for Egyptian voices), would be run by a new independent Egyptian company, Aswat Digital Services, signalling its departure from operating under Thomson Reuters Foundation (TRF), which founded the website in 2011. 

At the time, Aswat Masriya was created as a project to cover the Egyptian elections in accordance with the journalism standards applied by the Reuters news agency.

While the project was extended year after year to meet the demand of its readers, the brand was always linked to Thomson Reuters. 

The relaunch, which aims to assert the independence of Aswat Masirya, has thus seen the removal of the Thomson Reuters Foundation logo from the new website’s design.  

Nicolas Bellet, director of journalism and media programmes at TRF, welcomed the redesigning of Aswat Masriya. 

"In recent months, Aswat Masriya has consistently increased its ranking among the most visited websites in Egypt and this is a true testimony to the quality of its coverage,” he added. 

ADS will also work on a commercial basis providing services such as training, translation and media packages to clients in Egypt and other countries.