Step Vaessen

Now based in Moscow, Step Vaessen previously reported on Asia for more than 20 years and was one of the most senior international journalists covering... more the region. After working in Southeast Asia for NOS-TV from the Netherlands she joined Al Jazeera in 2006. She witnessed first hand most of the major news events in Asia: the fall of president Soeharto in 1998, the violent aftermath of the referendum for independence in East Timor, the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004, the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar, the protests against Jakarta governor Basuki Tjahaya Purnama and major natural disasters in Indonesia, Pakistan, the Philippines and numerous religious and ethnic conflicts. She covered stories in China, Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Japan and South Korea. She made several documentaries for 101 East: Indonesia's killing fields about anti-communist massacres in 1965, Indonesia's Rock governor about the rise of president Joko Widodo and a film for the Correspondent series: Trail of Murder, Indonesia's bloody retreat from East Timor, which was nominated Best Documentary at the Asian TV awards in Singapore. For Talk to Al Jazeera she did several interviews with Indonesia’s president Joko Widodo and Jakarta's governor Basuki Tjahaya Purnama. She published a book, Jihad with Sambal, and won an Academy Award in 2005 for her reports on the Indian Ocean tsunami.