LatAm Journalists Meet in Ecuador

Quito, Aug 31. -Leading journalists from nine news organizations are holding Wednesday in this capital the first official meeting of the Latin American Union of News Agencies (ULAN).During the first session of the meeting, organized by the Ecuadorian news agency, Andes, the ULAN Executive Board will meet at the capital�s Dann Carlton Hotel.

On Thursday, delegates will participate in the talk "Freedom of Speech," also in the presence of authorities from the Ecuadorian Communication Secretariat (Secom) at the International Center of Advanced Communication Studies for Latin America (CIESPAL).

The ULAN is presided over by Sergio Fernandez Novoa, of the Argentine news agency, Telam, Freddy Fernandez, director of the Venezuelan news Agency, AVN, is the vice president, with representatives from Notimex (Mexico), Prensa Latina (with headquarters in Cuba), and EBC (Brazil) sitting as the other members of the executive board.

Also attending are delegates from IP (Paraguay), ABI (Bolivia), AGN (Guatemala) and the host Andes (Ecuador).

The ULAN was officially created on June 2 in Caracas, Venezuela, with the objective of bringing together news agencies from the region to share information, support each other, train journalists through international seminars and workshops and, especially, contribute to break the hegemony imposed by the big news multinationals. (Prensa Latina)