Anderson, currently a reporter on BBC World TV, is one of the BBC's senior correspondents and has been a World affairs reporter for the last ten years, according to a statement from BBC.

Anderson gained much of his journalistic experience in the former Soviet Union and the Balkans. During his time as a correspondent in Moscow, the Ukraine and Belgrade, he covered the Chechen wars, the conflict in Macedonia and the decline and fall of Slobodan Milosevic. Since April 2002, Paul has been based in London as Europe correspondent for BBC TV's World Today programme.

Paul will be joining the Islamabad Bureau in the New Year to replace Susannah Price, who after covering Pakistan for the last three years, is now moving to New York.

The BBC has been expanding its South Asia news operations over the last few months because of the growing interest in the region from its global audiences, the release says. This is driven, in part, by a surge in new audiences in the United States where BBC World TV is now in 86 per cent of American homes. BBC News in turn has started to build up its resources in the region even more with further expansion planned in the New Year.