ريز خان Rizwan Khan |
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Born | April 1962 Aden, South Yemen |
Education | University of Wales |
Occupation | Journalist, television host |
Years active | 2006–2011 |
Notable credit(s) | Author |
Rizwan "Riz" Khan (Urdu: ريز خان; born April 1962) is a British television news reporter and interviewer.
From 2006 until April 2011 he hosted his own eponymous television show on Al Jazeera English. He first rose to prominence while working for the BBC and CNN.
Khan was born in Aden, South Yemen, to a Pakistani Punjabi father and Indian Gujarati mother. His father was from Amritsar and migrated to Pakistan during the partition, while his mother's roots go back to Kathiawar, Gujarat. Khan moved with his family to London, at the age of four. He identifies himself as the first BBC newscaster of South Asian origin. Khan is a Muslim by religion.
He attended both Springwell Junior and Hounslow Manor Comprehensive Schools and joined the Air Training Corps. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science with Honours in Medical Physiology from the University of Wales, and then took a postgraduate course in Radio Journalism at the University of Portsmouth.
In 1987 he was selected for the BBC News Trainee scheme - a two-year BBC training system, usually taking only 6 people per course. Khan progressed to jobs as a BBC reporter, producer, and writer, working in both television and radio, and would later become one of the founding News Presenters on BBC World Service Television News. He hosted the news bulletin that launched BBC World Service Television News in 1991. In 1993, he moved to CNN International, where he became a senior anchor for the network's global news shows. Events he covered included the 1996 and 1999 coverage of elections in India; the 1997 historic election in Britain; and in April 1998 the unprecedented live coverage from the Muslim pilgrimage, the Hajj.