By NNN-KUNA,
Beirut : The Federation of Arab News Agencies (FANA) wrapped up its two-day 36th meeting here Friday by determining to upgrade and boost news workers’ technological and informative capabilities and efficiencies.
Representatives from 17 FANA member news agencies were present in the meeting, which was held under the auspices of Lebanese Information Minister Tareq Metri.
In the final communiqu{ of the meeting, the FANA decided to hold training courses for economic editors in collaboration with international institutions involved, and to organise workshops on public relations, marketing, Internet and photography.
A center should be held for developing the infrastructure of Arab news agencies in Beirut in cooperation with the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).
The communiqu{ also stressed that Arab-European cooperation should be further promoted and reinforced in the domain of news agencies.
Bilateral meetings ought to be held in order to discuss ways and means of sharing news reports between Arab and European news agencies, and to consider a possible increase in the number of Arab reports on world news bulletins.
The conferees approved a proposal for holding the World Council of News Agencies in Beirut in May 2009. Furthermore, Arab news agencies were urged to pay their due contributions so that they could participate in forthcoming FANA meetings.
The conference was presided over by Director-General of the Jordanian News Agency (Petra) and FANA Chairman Ramadhan Al-Rawashdeh The FANA meeting kicked off here earlier on Thursday, with the conferees having been urged to show a spirit of Arab media integration and solidarity, to defend Arab issues and to condemn the arrest of journalists for alleged libel cases.