Universities award Guerin degrees

Orla Guerin was awarded an honorary doctorate for services to broadcasting at Queen's University

BBC journalist Orla Guerin has been awarded honorary doctorates for services to broadcast journalism by both Northern Ireland's universities.

The Dublin-born reporter is the BBC's Pakistan correspondent and has recently taken up her appointment in Islamabad.

She has spent the past 20 years working as a foreign correspondent.

Guerin was awarded a doctorate from the University of Ulster on Friday and received a similar award from Queen's University on Monday.

She has reported from over 50 countries, and has been based in Jerusalem, Johannesburg, Rome, Moscow and Los Angeles.

Guerin began her broadcasting career with RTE before moving to the BBC in 1985.

She was a BBC Middle East correspondent between 2000 to 2005, where she covered the second Palestinian uprising, the death of Yasser Arafat, and the Israeli pull-out from Gaza.

She travelled widely, reporting from Jordan, Kuwait, Iraq, Egypt, Syria and Lebanon.

During her stint as Africa correspondent between 2006 and 2008, she reported from conflict zones including Darfur, Eastern Congo, and Zimbabwe - which she entered undercover.

In the 1990s, Guerin reported extensively on the collapse of the former Soviet Union, and war in the former Yugoslavia, reporting from Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia and the besieged Bosnian capital, Sarajevo.

She covered the Kosovo conflict and the refugee crisis in Macedonia.

Guerin is a journalism graduate from the Dublin Institute of Technology and holds a Masters Degree in Film Studies from University College Dublin.

She has received a number of awards for her work and her documentary on the Basque separatist organisation, ETA, was nominated for a BAFTA.

In 2002 she was awarded the Broadcaster of the Year Award by the London Press Club.

She won the News and Factual Award from Women in Film and Television in 2003 and in 2004 she was awarded an MBE for services to broadcasting.