Over the next three days, Baku will be hosting gatherings of the world`s influential media organizations - the 5th News Agencies World Congress, the 16th General Assembly of the Organization of Asia-Pacific News Agencies and the 22nd meeting of the CIS Council of Heads of News Agencies. These events will be attended by delegates from 80 countries. The Congress is bringing together 96 news agencies from 77 countries. It is attended by delegates from all the continents: 77 delegates from 39 news agencies of 31 Asian countries, 51 delegates from 30 agencies of 23 European countries, 25 delegates from 16 agencies of 16 African countries, 17 delegates from 9 news agencies in 7 countries in the Americas, and 4 delegates from 3 news agencies representing Australia. The slogan of the 5th News Agencies World Congress is “New Challenges for News Agencies”. The Congress features several sessions, including “The future of news consumption”, “News agencies - challenges and opportunities of new technologies and social media”, “News agency innovation”, “Training journalists for a multi-media future”, “Protecting the journalists’ mission: freedom, access, safety and conflict zones”. It also addresses problems facing journalism, which is now in experiencing rapid transformation, and forms of cooperation between news agencies and different social media platforms. --SPA 17:07 LOCAL TIME 14:07 GMT www.spa.gov.sa/w270774