Malaysia has launched a news service created by the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), saying it said would provide an antidote to deceptive Western media reports.

Information Minister Zainuddin Maidin said the West was cynical about the creation of the NAM News Network (NNN) but people had lost trust in Western media outlets after their reports on the Iraq War.

"Before, people had a strong confidence, (they) wholeheartedly believed in BBC , believed in CNN , but now the situation has changed," he told reporters after launching the news service.

In contrast, said the minister, the NNN aimed to be an independent and balanced source of news that was not biased.

"We are giving the news fairly, we are not using the deceiving approach, just like the Western media are doing," he said, insisting NAM countries practised press freedom.

"If you want to know about what is press freedom, write about the coverage of the Iraq war by CNN, by the BBC ," he said.

"We don't want to practice that, we are trying to project ourselves as free, independent news."

The Internet-based NNN , run by Malaysia's state Bernama news agency, currently has contributions from 35 news organisations in NAM countries and aims to be an alternative information source about those nations.

News stories are freely accessible on a website although some articles are expected eventually to be available through subscription only.

The minister earlier called on NAM member countries to support the network and "prove the doomsayers wrong."

Lacking press frreedom

The 116-nation NAM includes amongst its members countries which have been listed by the global media watchdog Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF) as most lacking in press freedom.

North Korea, Eritrea, Turkmenistan, Iran, Myanmar, Libya, Cuba and Nepal were at the bottom of RSF's World Press Freedom Index listing for 2005.

Zainuddin insisted the nations practised their own brand of freedom.

"They are looking at our freedom through their own eyes. They must see through our own eyes," he said, referring to Western nations.

"There is no absolute freedom. We respect the democracy by giving more publicity to the government in power, because the government was ... elected by democratic ways," he said.

Zainuddin also called on NAM news organisations to raise their standards to match international agencies, saying they were better positioned to report on breaking news in their respective countries.

Malaysia is the current chairman of NAM, a grouping of mainly developing nations formed during the Cold War as an alternative to the Western and Eastern power blocs.

Since the collapse of communism the grouping has struggled to maintain its relevance. Zainuddin lauded the NNN as "another landmark event in our continuing revitalisation of NAM."