Stephen Sackur

Infobox journalist


name = Stephen John Sackur
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birth_date = 9 January 1964
birth_place = Spilsby, England
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education = Emmanuel College, Cambridge University
occupation = Journalist
alias =
title =
credits = BBC, foreign affairs correspondent (1986-2003) HARDtalk, host (2004-present)
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Stephen John Sackur (born 9 January 1964) [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1025167/bio Stephen Sackur - Biography ] ] is a BBC journalist who presents HARDtalk, a current affairs interview programme on BBC World and BBC News 24.

Life

Stephen Sackur was born in Spilsby, Lincolnshire, England, and studied at Cambridge University and Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. He is married to Zina Sabbagh and has three children. [http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/biographies/biogs/news/stephensackur.shtml BBC - Press Office - Stephen Sackur ] ]

Career

Sackur began working at the BBC as a trainee in 1986, and in 1990, he was appointed as one of its foreign affairs correspondents. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/newswatch/ukfs/hi/newsid_3510000/newsid_3517000/3517090.stm NewsWatch | Profiles | Stephen Sackur ] ] As a BBC Radio correspondent, Stephen reported on the Velvet Revolution of Czechoslovakia in 1989 and the re-unification of Germany in 1990. During the Gulf War, he was part of a BBC team covering the conflict and spent eight weeks with the British Army. At the end of the war, he was the first correspondent to report the massacre of the retreating Iraqi army on the road leading out of Kuwait. Stephen was based in Cairo, Egypt between 1992 and 1995 as the BBC's correspondent in the middle east and he later moved to Jerusalem in 1995 until 1997. He covered both the death of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and the growth of the Palestinian Authority under Yasser Arafat. Between 1997 and 2002, he was appointed the BBC's correspondent in Washington and covered the Lewinsky scandal and subsequent impeachment of U.S. President Bill Clinton. He later covered the U.S. Presidential Election in 2000 and interviewed President George W. Bush. Stephen went back to Iraq in 2003 after the fall of Saddam Hussein and was the first to report Iraq's mass graves of victims of the regime.

HARDtalk

In 2004, Stephen Sackur replaced veteran journalist Tim Sebastian as the regular host of the BBC's news program HARDtalk. He has since interviewed prominent international personalities ranging from the French prime minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, President of Iraq, Jalal Talabani, and Vice President of the European Commission, Günter Verheugen, to writers such as Gore Vidal and Richard Dawkins.

References

External links

* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/hardtalk/default.stm HARDtalk Official Site]