MALAYSIA HANDS OVER COMINAC TO VENEZUELA

Malaysia will formally hand over to Venezuela Thursday the chairmanship of Cominac - the Conference of Ministers of Information of Non-Aligned Countries - a platform serving as a vehicle, among other things, to achieve decolonization of information and countering biased information against the 118 members of the grouping and other South countries at large. The Malaysian Minister of Information Datuk Ahmad Shabery Cheek, who is attending a Cominac meeting for the first time, arrived here Tuesday night to perform the customary diplomatic ritual of the chairmanship hand-over when he addresses the seventh meeting of Cominac at the outset of Thursday’s plenary session. Malaysia was the immediate past chairman of NAM for a three-year tenure during which, in keeping with the movement’s tradition, it also assumed the chairmanship of Cominac and hosted its sixth meeting in November 2005. Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi handed over the NAM chairmanship to Cuba through then acting head of state Raul Castro who deputized for his indisposed elder brother and Cuban president Fidel at NAM’s 14th Summit in Havana in September 2006.