KUALA LUMPUR: The Information Ministry has praised The Star senior writer Shahanaaz Habib for her courage and resourcefulness in covering the war in Iraq from Baghdad.
“I salute and congratulate The Star for its courageous journalist who is way ahead of the others (Malaysian journalists),” Deputy Information Minister Datuk Zainuddin Maidin told reporters yesterday at Angkasapuri after launching an anthology of poems called Citra Kurnia by Lim Swee Tin.
 |
Click on icon to go to Flashpoint Iraq site. |
“She (Shahanaaz) has become our top journalist now, and people are talking about her,” he said, wishing her a safe return home.
Zainuddin also praised The Star for being a forward-looking organisation in its coverage of the war.
Shahanaaz managed to enter Iraq by car on April 3 from Amman, Jordan where she and regional associate editor (Sabah and Sarawak) P.K. Katharason first arrived from Malaysia.
On Thursday, a team of Malaysian journalists from other media organisations, known as the Joint Media Team Malaysia, finally made their way into Iraq.
The Information Ministry had put together the team to cover the war from a Malaysian perspective and from a humanitarian angle.
The team would also evaluate whether Malaysia would be able to play a peacekeeping role in post-war Iraq.
