Huffington Post launches UK edition

The US blog-led news site The Huffington Post is launching its UK edition on Wednesday.

The Huffington Post was set up by Arianna Huffington in 2005 and bought by AOL earlier this year for $315m (£222m).It launched a Canadian version in May, but the UK edition will be the first one outside North America.Ms Huffington remains the president and editor-in-chief of Huffington Post Media Group.The Huffington Post features a combination of its own journalism, articles aggregated from other news sites, blogs and user-generated content.

She is expected to address a launch event on Wednesday, which will also feature former Sun editor Kelvin Mackenzie, spin doctor Alastair Campbell and civil rights campaigner Shami Chakrabarti.

When AOL bought the site, Ms Huffington said that one of the most exciting things about the sale was that it would allow them to launch international sites much more quickly.

AOL recently cut 900 jobs as it attempted to integrate the Huffington Post with its existing workforce.It is expected that the UK edition will mainly be staffed by the employees who previously produced AOL's UK news pages.The Huffington Post is also planning to launch a French edition.