“The journalists who turned the world upside down. Voices of another information” is the title of a book published recently in Italy telling the story of the Inter Press Service (IPS) news agency.

It is a patchwork story told by over one hundred journalists and key global players of the last 50 years. Long-time IPS correspondents, Heads of States and Nobel Prize Laureates among others give personal memories of the distinctive story of IPS, which today is the world’s leading news agency on issues such as development, environment, human rights and civil society.
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IPS held its 2011 annual meetings in Helsinki, Finland from the 13th – 16th October.

A public seminar on the theme of “Migration and Communication: Re-balancing information flows and dialogue”, jointly organised with the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the International Organization for Migration (IOM), took place on the morning of October 13th.

Latest estimates from IOM suggest that international migrants could number 405 million by 2050 if migration continues to grow at the same pace as during the last 20 years. In the context of these projections much of the public discourse around the issue has been negative. Read more »

Opening of the 10th Annual CIVICUS Assembly in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Credit: CIVICUS.

Montreal welcomed more than 800 civil society leaders to the 10th CIVICUS world assembly, 10 – 12th September. IPS is a longstanding member of CIVICUS and was well represented at the event – providing news coverage, participating in the debates and taking the chance to meet old and new friends and partners from civil society in all regions. Read more »

Soraya Rodríguez and Mario Lubetkin. Credit: AECID.

The meeting ‘Cooperation with the Arab world: a new scenario for communication’, held in Madrid (September 7-8, 2011) as part of the Week of Spanish Cooperation, analyzed the effects of the revolutions and process of transformation in the Arab World – Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Syria, Bahrain – on development aid. It also looked at how communication can help build bridges of understanding between citizens and institutions in the Mediterranean region. This is the second workshop organized by the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation for Development (AECID) and Inter Press Service (IPS), which brought together Spanish journalists and colleagues from other regions. Read more »

The high-level seminar on “Communication, pluralism and the role of new technologies; The Latin American scenario: a view to the future” in Montevideo, this past 24 June, was an important opportunity to debate on the many questions that have emerged about media, pluralism and democracy, the role of media in society, their relations with political power, among others, in recent years. Read more »