Interviews by Afshin Rattansi in 2008/9.
These are broadcast live on Sky Channel 515!
See http://www.counterpunch.org...

Afshin Rattansi has for more than a decade and a half worked in flagship broadcast and print media around the world. In the UK, he has worked at The Guardian, the New Statesman, for every regional and national outlet of the BBC and a host of award-winning Channel 4 production companies. In 1999, he helped to launch the developing world's first global financial news and current affairs channel (see articles).

He has reported on events across Africa and Latin America as well as the Middle East and Europe for fifteen years, covering the fall of the Berlin Wall, the resignation of Margaret Thatcher and working on the first UK primetime documentary to analyse human rights abuses by the then US and British-backed regime of Saddam Hussein.

Before working for the BBC's Business and Economics Units, he analysed geopolitical financial and environmental risk for Lloyd's of London after world markets crashed. Portfolio allocation was of the order of £1 bn.

Returning from the Middle East in 2002, he went on to produce for the BBC's top-rated radio show, the Today programme, on Radio 4. The programme was at the centre of the furore over claims that the Iraqi government possessed weapons of mass destruction. He left the programme amidst the events that led to the widely ridiculed Hutton Inquiry into the death of government scientist and Today programme source, David Kelly.

He was one of the first english-language employees of Al Jazeera and worked at the Arab satellite station's flagship programme, 'Top Secret' which uncovered the Al Qaida plot to attack Washington and New York in 2001.
He has since worked for the UK's top-rated breakfast television programme GMTV as well as CNN International.

He went on to edit news for Bloomberg Television.

He has been based in Tehran, Iran as a journalist and has returned to London to present and produce for Press TV.

Afshin Rattansi has written six novels that have been represented by A. P. Watt and Curtis Brown Literary Agencies. His quartet, "The Dream of the Decade - The London Novels" is published by Booksurge in the United States of America.

He is also a Fellow of the Asian Guild.

Coverage has included the major news stories of the past decade and a half including apartheid S. Africa under reporting restrictions, the fall of the Berlin Wall, BCCI, the Killing Fields of Cambodia, the collapse of Barings, the UN Millennium Conference in New York, UK-supported Saddam, the Thatcher resignation, WTO-Seattle, Al-Aqsa Intifada, Monsanto, US-Mujahideen support in Afghanistan, the Ethiopia-Eritrea war, The Colombia drugs 'war', El Salvador, OPEC under Hugo Chavez, Rwandan genocide, Kashmir and the Line of Control, the election of Vicente Fox in Mexico, the election of Sukarnoputri in Indonesia, the South-East Asian crash and the Bush campaign, the 2003 invasion of Iraq..

2007 Editor, Bloomberg Television

2004 Writer/Copy Editor, CNN International, London Bureau (Freelance)
Producer, GMTV (Freelance)
2003 Producer, Top Secret, Al Jazeera Satellite Television Channel - LONDON
2002-3 The Today Programme, BBC Radio 4
'The flagship Today programme alone is without equal. It is widely regarded as the most influential programme in the media'-The Guardian
1999-02 Business Editor, The Business Channel Startup and launch editor of the developing world's first global business television channel, broadcasting from the heart of the Middle East
1998 Producer, BBC Economics Unit
1995-7 Producer, BBC Daily Programmes- BBC Television Centre and Los Angeles World Business Report/Business Breakfast/Breakfast News on BBC1 and BBC World
1992-4 Chief Risk Analyst, Octavian Underwriting, Lloyd's of London
Involved in allocation of £1 billion in funds, employing state-of-the-art computer technology after the Lloyd's debacle in the analysis of geopolitical and environmental risk.
1991 Producer, TV-am (inc. production during the Thatcher resignation)
Journalist, Daily Journal based in Caracas, Venezuela and Havana, Cuba.
1990 Director/Producer, Rear Window, Channel 4
Weekly prime-time foreign political documentary series.
1989 Director/Producer/Researcher, Signals, Channel 4, Weekly, prime-time arts documentary series.
Assignments involved covering the fall of the Berlin Wall with Tim Sebastian. Press Corps, United Nations, Geneva - Sanctions Committee on South Africa
1987-9 Reporter/Director, Bandung File, Channel 4,
Award-winning weekly prime-time international current affairs series.Programmes analysing political situations in China, Palestine, Cambodia, Chile, South Africa, Afghanistan and stories in the UK. Broke stories on BCCI , Iraq etc.
1983-5 Deputy Editor, Arts and Computer Database, British Telecom's Prestel