A/HRC/7/34 page 10 II. DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC INFORMATION 41. The Department of Public Information (DPI) publicized the work of the United Nations in the field of human rights using the various tools of communication and information dissemination at its disposal. New technologies have accelerated the dissemination of information through electronic means. In support of the Plan of Action of the High Commissioner’s Office, the Department continued its close working relationship with OHCHR. A. Activities of the Department of Public Information 42. The Department continued to cover the human rights-related work of the intergovernmental bodies of the United Nations, including the General Assembly, the Human Rights Council and the human rights treaty bodies. It applied a multimedia approach to information dissemination, with information materials distributed to the media through press conferences, press briefings and other media outreach activities, on the United Nations website, in radio and television programmes, at exhibits, special events and in connection with activities with educational and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and through services for visitors as well as responses to inquiries from the general public. Information materials were produced in the six official languages of the United Nations and disseminated worldwide, including through the network of United Nations Information Centres and Services and United Nations regional offices. Many materials were also adapted in local languages. 43. The main activities undertaken by the Department from January to December 2007 are summarized below. 1. Media products and coverage 44. Human rights remained a key theme on the Department’s UN News Centre portal (www.un.org/news), one of the most heavily visited areas on the United Nations website. Stories by the associated UN News Service covering all major United Nations activities, events and issues related to human rights appeared regularly on the news portal in all official languages and, in addition, were distributed to more than 50,000 subscribers to the UN News Centre’s e-mail news alerts service (English and French). Further expanding the reach of this coverage, human rights-related stories from the UN News Centre received heightened visibility on search engines and were continuously republished on an increasing number of websites, including those of media outlets, popular news aggregator sites as well as NGOs and educational institutions. With the expanding use of the UN News Centre’s RSS (Real Simple Syndication) feeds, its human rights-related stories also received ever-wider circulation in non-traditional online outlets, such as web logs (blogs) and personal pages. 45. The United Nations webcast team has been providing live and on-demand webcast coverage of all sessions of the Human Rights Council, since its inception in June 2006. Furthermore, the webcast team has developed a comprehensive website (www.un.org/webcast/unhrc) where all Council sessions are available and at which they have been updated on a continuous basis.