Director General of the Rome-based Inter Press Services (IPS) Mario Lubetkin visited Thursday the National Media Council (NMC) and met with the officials there.

During his visit, Lubetkin held extensive talks with the NMC officials on ways to strengthen cooperation between the Emirates News Agency (WAM) and the IPS.

Lubetkin underlined the excellent level of relations between WAM and IPS and their close cooperation during the last decades through specific cooperation agreements of mutual benefit..

“It is important to tackle the new realities in the field of communication and information, in view of the geopolitical changes that are taking place in the world,” IPS Director General stressed.

“The media should have the ability to analyse these phenomena in a context, especially media in the South, which means that they must explain to their audience how our situation is changing.”

Lubetkin explained why IPS news agency decided to devote all its professional work to generating the indispensable interpretive analysis of these and other phenomena.

“This is the way we believe can help people better understand the events and interpret them,” he added.

IPS international news agency was set up in 1964 and since then it has been leading the information on development issues, civil society and the emerging South realities.

With more than 500 journalists from 140 countries, IPS reports and analysis have a strong impact on the Internet, as more than a million and a half readers follow IPS analysis, especially the decision makers.

IPS has more than 50 million pages read per month and more than 6000 costumers (print and digital). It works in 21 languages.

WAM Director General Ibrahim Al-Abed referred to the directives of Sheikh Hamdan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, Minister of Public Works and Chairman of the NMC to increase UAE s exposure worldwide through continuous cooperation with international media organisations.