The government is paying for 30 local journalists to travel to the Middle East and cover the war in Iraq because of biased reporting by Western media, officials said today.

An information ministry spokeswoman told AFP that 30 journalists representing Malaysian television channels, major newspapers and the official Bernama news agency would participate in the government-sponsored trip.

"We want Malaysians to know the truth about the situation in Iraq. We don't want to rely o­n the foreign media as the reports are not based o­n neutral ground," Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar was quoted as saying by the New Straits Times .