The Arab media experts in charge of Electronic media have called at the end of their two-day meeting concluded in Cairo yesterday for holding another meeting at the headquarters of the Arab League in October 2007 to reconsider the view points of Arab countries on the technological and political developments at the international arena in a way that contributes to setting up the Arab E-media Committee which was approved by Arab Information ministers. In remarks to the Saudi Press Agency on the meeting, Saudi Arabia's leader of the delegation Dr. Abdulaziz bin Sultan Al-Melhem, who is also Assistant Undersecretary of the Ministry of Culture and Information for Planning and Studies and Supervisor of Information Technology at the Ministry, said that the Arab media experts agreed on the broad lines of the working papers presented by Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Tunisia and the view points raised during the meeting by representatives of Syria, Qatar and Algeria to serve as guidelines for establishing the Arab E-media Committee, noting that the Kingdom will host the committee's formation meeting in October 2007 in Riyadh. He highlighted the outcome of the meeting as recognizing a new role for the media which, he said, acquired an absolute sovereignty in terms of proliferation and over passing place borders and time restrictions. The experts also underscored the importance of forging a definition of this kind of information and media and portrait its types, characteristics, problems and challenges facing it. Dr. Al-Melhem said the experts also proposed, among others, that the Arab E-media committee puts a mechanism for coordination with other commissions in charge of electronic media including the security and educational authorities who are in charge of communications. He said the Arab experts team also agreed to put a number of issues on the agenda of the joint meeting of Arab Ministers of Information and Arab Ministers of Communications including the infrastructure of communications and information.
