KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia will start the ball rolling on the proposed Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) News Network (NNN) by organising a workshop within the next three months.
Information Ministry secretary-general Datuk Siti Balkish Mohamed Shariff said that interested NAM members would be invited for the discussions to find ways to establish a practical and workable mechanism for the NNN.
"The most important thing is for the project to start. We plan that when the NAM summit convenes next year, we will be able to report that the NNN is moving. That is our objective," she told reporters yesterday after chairing the two-day Senior Officials Meeting which ended here in the run-up to the Sixth Conference of the Ministers of Information of Non-Aligned Countries (Cominac VI) beginning today.
The proposed NNN is an Internet-based news exchange aimed at presenting accurate news on NAM.
Siti Balkish said the NNN initiative had received good response, with the senior officials expressing hope that it would be sustained and become comparable to other international news networks.
Bernama has been entrusted with the project, she said.
The proposal for the time being was for the NNN to be headquartered in Kuala Lumpur, she added.
Siti Balkish declined to reveal the budget for the project but said: "Malaysia is going to foot the bill, commit the personnel as we want to start this project on the right footing."
