Reports from China suggest journalists at a newspaper embroiled in a censorship row are returning to work after an agreement was reached.

Staff at Southern Weekly had demanded that a top propaganda chief step down after a New Year message was changed.

Reports said that the provincial Communist Party chief, high-flier Hu Chunhua, had intervened to defuse the situation.

The row was a rare public clash between journalists and the authorities.

It provoked reaction online, leading to small protests outside the paper's Guangdong headquarters and an apparent show of support by several other news portals and publications.