17th OANA General Assembly to open in Seoul Thursday

SEOUL. KAZINFORM Yonhap News Agency, South Korea's key newswire, said Monday it will host a general assembly of the Organization of Asia-Pacific News Agencies (OANA), a gathering of 43 news agencies in the region, in Seoul this week, YONHAP reports.

The 17th OANA General Assembly will take place at Lotte Hotel Seoul from Thursday to Friday, bringing together representatives from 43 member news agencies in 35 Asia-Pacific countries, including Xinhua News Agency from China, Japan's Kyodo News and the Information Telegraph Agency of Russia (Itar-Tass), Yonhap said.

OANA, which was formed in 1961 on the initiative of UNESCO to promote regional news exchanges, has held its general assembly every three years.

Yonhap News will be formally elected as the new chair of OANA at the upcoming Seoul assembly and will lead the organization for the next three years, also serving as its secretariat to prepare the agenda of various OANA meetings, deliver notices to member companies and operate the OANA website.