NEWS presenter George Alagiah will be speaking at Launceston Town Hall on Saturday, as part of the Charles Causley Festival.

George is one of the country’s most respected news presenters. Before going behind the studio desk, he was one of the BBC’s leading foreign corres­pondents, reporting on issues as diverse as the trade in human organs in India, the murder of street children in Brazil and the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan.

He has won several awards for his work including, in 2016, the Charles Wheeler Award for outstanding contributions to broadcast journalism. He was awarded the OBE in 2008.

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.

In 2011 he was voted TV Personality of the Year at the Asian Awards.

His first book, ‘A Passage to Africa’, was published by Little, Brown & Company in September 2001. It won the Madoc Award at the 2002 Hay Literary Festival.

George (pictured) was born in Sri Lanka. His primary education was in Ghana where his parents moved to in 1961.

He attended secondary school at St John’s College in Portsmouth, England and is a graduate of Durham University. He is married, has two sons and lives in north London.

The event, which starts at 1pm, will bring this year’s festival to a close.