Biographies

Presenter, Six O'Clock News

George Alagiah is the presenter of the BBC Six O'Clock News.

He first started on the programme in January 2003.

George also presents World News Today on BBC World News, the BBC's international news channel.

Before going behind the studio desk, George Alagiah was one of the BBC's leading foreign correspondents, recognised throughout the industry for his reporting on some of the most significant events of the last decade.

Highlights of his reporting and presenting from abroad include live news programmes from the South Africa/Zimbabwe border, from Sri Lanka following the Asian tsunami, from New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and from Pakistan following the south Asian earthquake.

George is a specialist on Africa and the developing world.

He has reported on: trade in human organs in India; the murder of street children in Brazil; the civil war and famine in Somalia; the genocide in Rwanda and its aftermath; the plight of the marsh Arabs in southern Iraq; the civil wars in Afghanistan, Liberia and Sierra Leone; the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa; the fall of Mobutu Sese Seko in Zaire; the effects of Hurricane Mitch on Honduras; the Kosovan refugee crisis; the NATO liberation of Pristina; the international intervention in East Timor; the farm invasions in Zimbabwe; the intifada in the West Bank; and the aftermath of the terror attacks on New York.

Documentaries and features include reports on: why affirmative action in America is a 'Lost Cause', for the Assignment programme; Saddam Hussein's genocidal campaign against the Kurds of northern Iraq for Newsnight; and the last reunion of the veterans of Dunkirk.

Among prominent figures interviewed by George Alagiah are: Nelson Mandela; Archbishop Desmond Tutu; President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda; Kofi Annan of the United Nations; Yasser Arafat; President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe; and Tariq Aziz of Iraq.

In March 2002, George launched BBC Four's international news programme and, more recently, he presented his own compelling story of a continent in BBC One's News Special, Africa: Journeys Of Hope.

George Alagiah has won several awards including: the Critics Award and the Golden Nymph Award at the Monte Carlo Television Festival (1992); award for Best International Report at the Royal Television Society (1993); commendation from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (1993); Amnesty International's Best TV Journalist award (1994); the One World Broadcasting Trust Award (1994); the James Cameron Memorial Trust Award (1995); and the Bayeux Award for War Reporting (1996).

In 1998 he was voted Media Personality of the Year at the Ethnic Minority Media Awards.

In 2000 he was part of the BBC team which collected a BAFTA award for its coverage of the Kosovo conflict.

George first joined the BBC in 1989 after seven years in print journalism with South Magazine.

He has contributed to several British newspapers including The Guardian, the Daily Telegraph, The Independent and the Daily Express.

He has spoken at the Royal Geographical Society, the Royal Society for Arts and at the Royal Overseas League.

His appearances at literary festivals include Cheltenham, Keswick, Hay-on-Wye and London.

George is on the Board of the Royal Shakespeare Company.

His first book, A Passage To Africa, was published in September 2001. It won the Madoc Award at the 2002 Hay Literary Festival. A Home From Home, George's second book, was published in 2006. His essay Shaking The Foundations was published by the BBC in its book on the aftermath of September 11.

George Alagiah was awarded an OBE in The Queen's New Year Honours List in January 2008.

George was born in Sri Lanka in November 1955.

His primary education was in Ghana where his parents moved in 1961. He attended secondary school at St John's College in Portsmouth, England, and is a graduate of Durham University.