OANA Executive Board convenes in Bahrain, AzerTAc representative attends the event
Manama, June 17 (AZERTAC). The Executive Board of the Organization of Asia-Pacific News Agencies (OANA) has held its 37th annual meeting in the capital of the Kingdom of Bahrain under the chairmanship of the Russian news agency ITAR-TASS.
A representative of Azerbaijan State Telegraph Agency (AZERTAC) attended the event.
The meeting, which was organized by the OANA jointly with the Bahrain News Agency (BNA), took place at the country’s main business center Sofitel.
OANA President, ITAR-TASS Director-General Sergei Mikhailov has sent his welcoming address to the forum’s participants. The message was read out by OANA Secretary-General, ITAR-TASS First Deputy Director-General Mikhail Gusman.
During the meeting, representatives of major news agencies from more than 20 countries participated in the work of the Executive Board and the organization’s special technical committees.
A joint session of the OANA and the Federation of Arab News Agencies (FANA) is planned to take place. During the first part of the meeting, its participants approved the decisions adopted at the organization’s General Assembly in Moscow in 2013.
The forum’s participants also decided that the next meeting of the OANA Executive Board will take place in Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia, on February 12-15, 2015.
The heads of major news agencies focused on the problems of cross-media communications, changes on the information market and the role of the media in the process of globalization. The forum heard reports on the prospects and basic principles of the development of modern media institutions. The forum’s experts will focus on elaborating and approving a uniform code of work of OANA member agencies, including measures to protect journalists’ rights and freedoms, contribute to the unbiased coverage of events, especially in countries with a tense situation.
As part of the OANA Executive Board’s meeting, an opening ceremony of the photo exhibition of the news agencies’ best works was held.
The Organization of Asia-Pacific News Agencies was established on the UNESCO initiative in 1961 to promote alternative points of view on global developments and uphold the idea of a multi-polar world. The OANA incorporates 44 news agencies from 35 countries and is the biggest media organization in the world. The OANA member countries account for two-thirds of the world news flows.
AZERTAC joined the Organization of Asia-Pacific News Agencies in 2004.
The OANA General Assembly in Moscow last year saw the re-election of AZERTAC Director General Aslan Aslanov as an Executive Board member for the third time in a row and his election as the OANA Vice-President. It also elected AZERTAC as the chair of the organization for 2016-2019.