NAM countries to start news agency

NAM countries to start news agency

Agence France-Presse, Kuala Lumpur

Ministers from the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) of developing
nations will meet on Monday to discuss a proposed news agency to
counter what officials called "discriminatory and distorted"
Western reporting.

The possibility of setting up a Kuala Lumpur-based NAM News
Network (NNN) to be run by Malaysia's national Bernama news
agency will top the agenda for the two-day ministerial meeting of
NAM information ministers.

The NNN, to be operational by 2007, would be an Internet-based
news outlet, using contributions from agencies and selected
newspapers of member countries, according to a draft document
discussed by senior officials at the weekend.

"While developing countries have been complaining in the past
of Western media domination, the NNN is a platform for us to
muster our strength and present our perspective to the world,"
the draft said.

"There is no way that news agencies in the developing world
can ever compete with their Western counterparts, let alone to
effectively counter negative reports about their countries on
their own."

The NNN would help counter "the dissemination of
discriminatory and distorted information of events taking place
in developing countries" by the Western media, said the document,
which was distributed to the press.

Information ministry secretary general Siti Balkish Mohamed
Shariff pledged Malaysia's commitment to the future agency,
saying: "We are willing to steer it, pay for it and make sure
that it lasts."

Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi will open the
conference on Monday, which will bring together delegates from
over 80 member states including Afghanistan, Indonesia, Myanmar,
North Korea and Zimbabwe.

Security will be tight with more than 250 police deployed for
the event.

Malaysia is the current chairman of the Non-Aligned Movement,
a grouping of more than 100 mainly developing nations formed
during the Cold War as an alternative to the Western and Eastern
power blocs.

In recent years the grouping has turned its attention to
social issues as it struggles to maintain its relevance in the
modern world.