Robert Holloway

Robert Holloway's appointment as Director of the AFP Foundation caps a career in journalism spanning more than three decades and four continents. One of his first assignments as a junior reporter was to cover the 1974 revolution in Portugal; while serving as UN correspondent, he coordinated the team of AFP journalists and photographers in New York covering the 9/11 attack.
Between those events, he spent six years in the Middle East and four years in Australia. He lived in Beirut from 1978 to 1981, reporting on the war in Lebanon for The Irish Times and other publications. He was in the city during the Israeli siege in the summer of 1982. He was Cairo correspondent for The Times of London until 1984.
After a three-year spell working for the OECD in Paris, he joined AFP in 1988. He was appointed bureau chief in Sydney in 1990, and deputy chief editor for foreign news four years later.
He has also served as AFP's editor in chief and deputy managing editor.
Mr Holloway has wide experience in media training. He was a member of the editorial board of the Paris-based Journalists in Europe programme for several years. He has taught at schools of journalism in France and at the United Nations and has trained AFP's own staff in the Middle East and Africa as well as in Paris.
in memoriam : Peter Mackler
J.S. Tissainayagam, a Sri Lankan reporter, is the first winner of the Peter Mackler Award for Courageous and Ethical Journalism, which honours the memory of one of the original board members of the AFP Foundation.
On August 31, Mr Tissainayagam was jailed for 20 years on charges of supporting terrorism.
The award was made by the Paris-based organisation Reporters Without Borders (RSF), which issued a statement saying:
"This country (Sri Lanka) needs journalists who are determined and concerned with finding the truth. J.S. Tissainayagam is one of those and should never have been imprisoned. Sri Lankans have the right to be informed about what is happening on their island."
more