Featured Program

For over 70 years, BBC World Service has been the globe's most comprehensive source for news. No other news source has a network of international correspondents, reporters and producers to rival BBC. When news breaks — anywhere, anytime — BBC is there.

 

BBC is far more than just breaking news, though. It offers a wide variety of information programming, including programs on arts, sports, science and business. 

 

Listeners count on BBC to provide superior news and information programming because they know they can trust BBC World Service — the world's most respected news source.

 

Anu Anand — "World, Have Your Say"
Anu Anand was born in Indian Kashmir and raised in the American south. Her career in journalism began in North Carolina, where she covered big local news, e.g., the annual hog barbecue contest and the state's most famous pickle factory, appropriately located on the corner of Cucumber and Vine Streets.

 

In 1996, she returned to her native India. For three years, she travelled throughout the subcontinent, covering major stories, including the India-Pakistan nuclear tests and Mother Teresa's death, for Associated Press Television News. In 1999, she moved to London and began working for BBC World Service. Most recently, she's covered post-war Iraq, the 2004 U.S. presidential election and the Asian tsunami. Off air, she divides her time between Kashmir, America and East London, where she lives with her husband, author and journalist Tarquin Hall.

 

George Arney — "The World Today"
George Arney joined the BBC in 1981 as a commentary writer for then BBC Eastern Service. After two years as a correspondent in Pakistan, he returned to London as the presenter and editor of South Asia Survey and acting head of the World Service's Urdu section and Eastern Topical Unit. Returning to London again in 1996, having worked as a correspondent in Sri Lanka since 1994, Arney has been a regular presenter on"The World Today" and "Newshour." He is heard regularly on the BBC World Service when Asian affairs are being discussed. Story highlights include coverage of the Sri Lankan elections of September 2000 and reporting from Pakistan immediately after the 9/11 attacks on the U.S. Off air, he has worked as a freelance journalist, written a book on Afghanistan and tried his hand in farming.

 

Ros Atkins — "World, Have Your Say"
Ros Atkins is a relatively new arrival at the BBC World Service, having made the move from the BBC's domestic news and sports radio station, Five Live. He's been passionately involved in "World, Have Your Say" from its beginning in 2005, and has taken a central role in developing the art of placing listeners at the heart of the program. BBC fans also hear him on "The World Today" and "The Ticket."

 

Though he hails from Cornwall in the far southwest of England, Atkins also lived in Nassau and Port of Spain when growing up, and he began his career in Johannesburg. There he co-authored a report on democratization for the Centre for Policy Studies and investigated policing methods for the South African Institute of Race Relations. On returning to the U.K., he focused on arts and travel, editing "Time Out" magazine's website before producing for BBC radio news in 2001.

Atkins' knowledge of Africa and the Caribbean has been used on BBC reporting trips to cover Kenyan corruption, Trinidad and Tobago carnival and Ghana's progress in the 2006 football World Cup. He also anchored one of "World, Have Your Say's" first on-location broadcasts, live from a restaurant in downtown New York.

 

His interest in the world is far from restricted to the news. Outside of the studio, he DJs African and Caribbean dance music, and has appeared at festivals such as Fruitstock and WOMAD in the U.K., and OppiKoppi in South Africa.

 

Claire Bolderson — "Newshour" and "The World Today"
Bolderson joined the BBC in 1985 as a trainee talks writer before moving on to the newsroom. In February 1990, she moved to Jakarta as correspondent for the BBC. On her return in 1992, she became Foreign Affairs correspondent. A year later, she was appointed Washington correspondent, where she spent three-and-a-half years. Since 1997, she has been a presenter of "Newshour."

 

Dan Damon — "World Update"
Dan Damon began his BBC career as a technical operator in the radio control room at Broadcasting House. He moved on to commercial station LBC in 1982 where he presented a nightly phone-in. In 1989, he freelanced with his wife, Sian, a camera operator, covering wars and revolutions in countries as far apart as Mongolia and Albania for a variety of media. He returned to work for Radio Four and BBC World Service in 1996, where he fronted the environment and development program "One Planet" for 18 months, covered the U.S. election campaign in 2000, and reported from Coalition Central Command in Qatar during the war in 2003.

 

From 1998 to 2000, Damon devoted part of his time to two master's degrees in nationalism and international law. He used that knowledge in a special World Service series in 2002 on human rights, post-9/11. Dan most recently presented PM on Radio four and reported regularly on cultural and political issues for Sunday morning's Broadcasting House program.

To date, Damon cites the following as career highlights. Reporting from among the crowds calling for the revolution in East Berlin, Bucharest, Tirana, Prague, and Budapest. Covering first post-Communist elections from Estonia to Mongolia. Walking with villagers on a ten-kilometer journey, collecting water in remote Ethiopia, one of the few places in the modern world where he found he was trusted as a journalist because the people have never watched television. Best of all, surviving being shot at, shelled, or frequently threatened with guns in a long list of places that he nevertheless remembers with great fondness.

 

Lyse Doucet — "Newshour"
Doucet was the BBC's Jerusalem and Kabul correspondent and was a regular voice on all BBC Radio and Television networks. She can also be heard on PRI's "The World."

 

Doucet left her native Canada to work in a village in the Ivory Coast. From there, she joined the BBC as a stringer in the first West Africa office in 1983. After four years, Doucet moved to Kabul to report on the Soviet troop withdrawal from Afghanistan and then became the BBC's Pakistan correspondent where she stayed for three years. She then moved to the Middle East where she worked for four years.

 

Fred Dove — "Outlook"
Dove was born in Germany and worked as a teacher in Sudan before joining the BBC. He joined World Service as a production trainee in 1989 and since then has produced World Service news programs, like "Newshour," and presented "Europe Today." Dove started regularly presenting "Outlook" in 1997. He is a keen sportsman and captain of England's Disability Cricket Team.

 

Julian Keane — "The World Today"
Julian Keane was born in Britain, but France claimed him as its own. A dual national, he has always had more than just one home. From his school in London, he headed off to the banks of the Seine; Paris is where he studied and first got a taste for the media game. But then it was back across the Channel, or as he likes to call it, "la Manche." He insists that a voice in his ear said, "If it's a career you need, I know of just the place: Bush House, the global voice of the Beeb." Served for eight years in the French service, afterwhich he joined "Europe Today," and then"Newshour." Since then, he's been with "The World Today," where he presents the morning show. He has reported in London for French radio, and has even smiled a bit on TV.

 

Tim Luard — "The World Today"
Luard was Beijing correspondent for the BBC World Service from 1987-89, reporting on the events leading up to the Tiananmen Square protests and their brutal climax. He joined the BBC in 1980, as a sub-editor in the World Service and national radio newsrooms in London before becoming a correspondent. For the past nine years, he has worked for the Asia and the Pacific region of BBC World Service as producer, presenter, and latterly editor of the current affairs program "East Asia Today." Luard presents "The World Today" alongside Iain Simpson and Carrie Gracie.

 

Robin Lustig — "Newshour"
Originally a print journalist, Lustig has worked in the Middle East, Spain, Uganda, France, and Italy. No stranger to the quick thinking required of a top-flight broadcast journalist, he has hosted live programs from Washington, Moscow, Berlin, Paris, Jerusalem, Sarajevo and Hong Kong. Lustig is joined by other key hosts, Alex Brodie, Claire Lyse, Judy Swallow and Julian Marshall.

 

Tim Marlow — "Culture Shock"
Tim Marlow is a writer, broadcaster, art historian and director of exhibitions at White Cube in London. In 1993 he founded "Tate: The Art Magazine." From 1991 to 1998, he presented Radio 4's arts program "Kaleidoscope," for which he won a Sony Award.

 

He presented a documentary on JMW Turner for BBC ONE and numerous arts programs for Five. Other television work includes presenting the now notorious "Is Painting Dead?" debate for Channel Four, in which artist Tracy Emin swore and shouted her way into British television history.

 

Marlow is the author of various books, including monographs of the French sculptor Auguste Rodin and the Austrian expressionist Egon Schiele, as well as a survey of great artists published by Faber. He has written extensively on art and culture in the British press, including the "Times," the "Guardian, " the "Independent" on Sunday, and "Arena, Art Monthly" and "Blueprint" magazines. He is visiting lecturer at Winchester School of Art, an examiner on the Sculpture MA and former creative director of Sculpture at Goodwood.

 

Viv Marsh — "Europe Today"
Marsh has both lived and worked in France and Germany, and has been with the World Service since 1986. Fluent in German, French, and Russian, she has had a variety of roles during this time, from editing various radio and television news programs to being a German Service reporter in Berlin. Marsh has been with "Europe Today" since 1997.

 

Fergus Nicoll — "The World Today"
Fergus Nicoll joined the BBC in 1988 as a producer for the BBC African Service, where in 1991 he won the Sony Award for Best Breakfast Show for his "Network Africa." Moving from production to reporting, he pursued his interest in Sudan, Libya and Egypt by transferring to the BBC's Cairo Bureau in 1992. The lure of television drew him to BBC World TV for several years, including six months with the short-lived BBC Arabic TV channel. Returning to news-gathering as a World Affairs correspondent, he filed from the rainforests of Cameroon and the fireworks of the Hong Kong handover and covered hostage rescues in Yemen and refugee resettlement in Sarajevo. A year away from the BBC, spent at U.N. headquarters in New York, gave him the energy needed to take on night shifts at "The World Today." Off air, he travels regularly to North Africa and the Middle East for pleasure as well as work. In 2004, he published a biography of the Mahdi of Sudan and has started a new book on the life of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan. He has a Sanskrit degree from Oxford University and plays his drums left-handed.

 

Heather Payton — "Outlook"
Born in Melbourne, Australia, Payton has spent most of her life in London, eventually working as a business journalist for the BBC. She has presented "Europe Today" and still presents business programming on BBC's domestic speech station, Radio 4. She has traveled the globe with "Outlook," from the Champagne fields in France to Australia's harsh and inhospitable outback, to report some of the world's most fascinating human-interest stories.

 

Max Pearson — "The World Today"
Pearson is a familiar voice to the World Service listeners and has a wealth of experience in many areas of journalism. He has been broadcasting for the past 16 years, working on many of the BBC's flagship programs and traveling extensively to report from Europe, the Middle East, the Persian Gulf, the Far East and South America. He was one of the World Service's front-line presenters on "Newshour" and "Newsday" for several years. In 1997 he won the SONY Radio Award for News Presentation.

 

Candace Piette — "Europe Today"
Piette was born in London although she spent much of her early childhood in Latin America. She has a degree in Hispanic Studies and speaks fluent Spanish and Portuguese. She has worked for the BBC World Service news and current affairs department for eight years and was Brazil correspondent from 1993 to 1995.

 

Mark Reid — "Europe Today"
Reid is a veteran member of the "Europe Today" team, making his debut with a profile of the Dutch nation ahead of the EU's Maastricht summit in 1991. He has reported from many parts of Europe, from Dresden to Denmark and from Cyprus to Lisbon.

 

Steve Richards — "World, Have Your Say"
Steve Richards is the chief political commentator for the "Independent" newspaper and writes a weekly column. He's no stranger to the BBC as he spent five very successful years in the early '90s as a political correspondent. He was the political editor for the "New Statesman" from 1996–2000 before joining the "Independent" and "Independent on Sunday."

Richards anchors GMTV's "Sunday Programme," has fronted documentaries on Channel 4, and is a regular host of a light hearted quiz show on Radio 4.

 

His most recent series, "Look Back at Power" on BBC Radio, was described in the "Daily Telegraph" as "useful, in telling you about the way government has been run since 1997, and rather beautiful, in being so elegantly structured it answers the questions you, sitting listening, are just getting ready to ask."

 

Iain Simpson — "The World Today"
Simpson joined the BBC in May 1991, and in August 1994, was appointed Southeast Asia Correspondent, based in Singapore. He reported on the beginning of the financial crisis in Thailand and covered the collapse of the Barings Bank in Singapore and the trial of Nick Leeson. In March 1997, he returned to World Service in London to work on "Newshour" and "East Asia Today."

 

Andrew Whitehead — "The World Today"
Whitehead spent five years in Delhi for the BBC, most of that time as the World Service correspondent. He reported from across the South Asia region — from all seven nations and from almost every Indian state — covering everything from riots and cyclones to changes of government and new film releases, for both radio and television.

Prior to his India posting, Whitehead was the World Service political correspondent for four years, covering both the downfall of Mrs. Thatcher and the 1992 general election. He has at various times held senior editorial positions in both radio and TV newsrooms. Hosts George Arney and Lyse Doucet join Whitehead.

 

Laurence Zavriew — "Europe Today"
Born in Switzerland of French Armenian and Swiss/ Romanian parentage, Zavriew grew up in Rio de Janeiro, London, Rome, and Paris. After several years as a development and health journalist for an NGO, she joined the BBC's French service for Africa as a producer in 1995, and has been with "Europe Today" since 1997.