BREAKING. Emma Hurd leaves Sky News and returns to South Africa to work freelance; Sky News makes other correspondent appointments.

The brilliant international TV correspondent Emma Hurd has left Sky News (DStv 402) and is returning to South Africa after she was moved to the Middle East in April of last year after covering South Africa and Africa before that. Emma Hurd will now be working freelance.

Emma Hurd is being replaced on Sky News by Sam Kiley (right) who will become Sky's new Middle East correspondent based in Jerusalem. He joins Tom Rayner who has recently been appointed to a new role as Middle East news editor. Sky News is making other appointments as well.

In other foreign bureaux moves, Mark Stone has been appointed by Sky News as the British 24-hour news channel's Asia correspondent. Mark Stone will be based in Beijing.

In America Hannah Thomas-Peter has been made New York correspondent.

"It has been a remarkable couple of years for international news with foreign stories dominating our coverage like never before," says Sarah Whitehead, the head of international news for Sky News. "The quality of our journalism has been recognised with an array of awards that is testament to the excellence,passion, creativity and bravery of our teams covering stories across the world."