The US Postal Service has issued a souvenir commemorating Barack Obama's election as US president which features a portrait of the president-elect taken by an Agence France-Presse photographer.

The Philippine Center For Investigative Journalism has won Agence France-Presse's Kate Webb Award for its fearless work in the world's deadliest country for reporters, the agency announced Thursday. The PCIJ has for two decades braved the wrath of powerful interests in the Philippines to expose corruption, the dangers of which were highlighted last month when 31 Filipino journalists were killed in a political massacre.

The Philippine Center For Investigative Journalism was presented with Agence France-Presse's prestigious Kate Webb Award on Wednesday for its outstanding contributions to press freedom. The Kate Webb award is for local reporters or media organisations in the Asia Pacific who have produced exceptional work in dangerous or difficult circumstances, or have demonstrated moral or physical courage while reporting.

Global news agency AFP has launched a mobile news application for the Apple iPhone.

Agence France-Presse's Somalia correspondent Mustafa Haji Abdinur has been awarded the CNN Multichoice African Journalist of the Year Award in the Free Press category.

The international news agency AFP and leisure news service relaxnews joined forces Monday to launch the first global newswire devoted to leisure and lifestyle coverage at the Fondation Cartier in Paris.

Agence France-Presse and French agency relaxnews have launched a global leisure newswire in Asia that they hope will become the world's leading source for lifestyle news. Aimed at the media, industry brands, PR agencies and telecommunications companies, the service will offer stories and multimedia reports on tourism, home life, entertainment, health and well-being.

Agence France Presse is deploying a 100-strong team of text, multimedia and video reporters, photographers and graphics artists and editors for the month-long World Cup finals in South Africa which kicks off on Friday.

Vincent Amalvy, 50, has taken over as head of sports at Agence France-Presse. He is the first former head of the photo department to take the reins of a major general service at AFP.

Photographers from Agence France-Presse were Saturday awarded the top news and feature prizes at the prestigious Asian Human Rights Awards for outstanding coverage of riots in China's Xinjiang region and acid attack victims in Pakistan.