Dear Colleagues,
As the President of OANA (Organisation of Asia-Pacific News Agencies), it is my most
pleasant duty to send you my warmest wishes in the approaching New Year.
As this year ends and a new one begins,
the dream of 'Peace on Earth' can still seem very distant. In the past year, we
have witnessed ongoing wars, horrific violence and suffering in many countries.
Internationally, tens of thousands of children, women and elderly are on the
move, living precarious existences in the refugee camps, as conflict, military
occupation and disasters continue to force people to flee from their ancestral
homes.
The humanitarian situation of millions of vulnerable people is still
awaiting an adequate global response.
In 2017, you continued your noble mission
of obtaining information, producing and delivering to your societies the most
accurate, unbiased and honest stories dealing with not only economic growth,
political and social successes, but also poverty, hunger, homelessness and
powerlessness, miserable conditions of migrants — including infants and
children — as they wait, not knowing what the future will hold for them.
Along
with your commitment to professional integrity and ethics, we continued to face
another challenge that is rapidly becoming an alarming issue and ever more
frequent topic in many conferences on media — fake news, copyright violations,
and plagiarism.
Many of these issues were discussed at the 5th World Congress
of News Agencies, which took place in Baku in November, 2016, and was also
attended by OANA members.
My personal conclusion made from the forum was that
two days of debates and exchange of opinions cannot be sufficient to address
all these growing and, at times, troubling issues. Only our continuous
cooperation and joint work can let us see a light in the end of the tunnel.
As we now face into a new year, we need
courage and more energy and inspiration to double our efforts in tackling these
challenges, both new and old.
Our professional solidarity and bonds are
stronger than we think, much stronger than differences between us.
My wish, before we say good-bye to 2017,
is that, together, we will continue to seek to build our strong OANA home of
which our founding fathers dreamed in 1961, embracing the values, possibilities
and responsibilities contained in that dream.
I wish each and every member-agency as
well as your sovereign nations a blessed and happy New Year of restored hope
and peace in Asia's and the Pacific's truly pacific future.
Aslan Aslanov
President, Organization of Asia-Pacific
News Agencies
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