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Afshin Rattansi, is an award-winning journalist and host of the groundbreaking ‘Going Underground’ news and current affairs programme. For over 1000 episodes of the programme he has covered the most seismic events in the news as well as those not covered by the mainstream; interviewing some of the biggest names in international politics, culture and science including current and former world leaders.
He began his journalism career at The Guardian in London as one of their youngest journalists before working for 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.
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.
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 Qaeda plot to attack Washington and New York in 2001.
Afshin has reported on events across Africa and Latin America, as well as the Middle East and Europe, 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 Saddam Hussein. 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.
His coverage has included the major news stories of recent times 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.
He has interviewed some of the biggest names in international politics, culture, and science including current and former world leaders from Nelson Mandela after the fall of apartheid in South Africa, Bashar al-Assad amid the Syria War, to President Lula of Brazil after his release from prison, to Bolivian President Arce after US-UK coup attempts, and former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan. His long-form interviews with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange alone have been viewed tens of millions of times. Episodes on the Going Underground YouTube channel had a total of 32 million views worldwide.
Afshin Rattansi and Editor-in-Chief Collette Valentine moved to Dubai and created Ghaf TV Productions to continue producing Going Underground with the show returning to international television in December 2023. The show is now uploaded on Rumble.com, with all previous episodes available on the Going Underground Archive channel on Rumble.
Collette valentine
Going Underground Editor-in-Chief Collette Valentine has worked in primetime UK and international television for over thirty-five years. Just some of the talent she directed and produced given her special access included global personalities like David & Victoria Beckham, Elton John, Liz Hurley, Dame Joan Collins, David Attenborough (Planet Earth), Duchess of York, The Spice Girls, Frankie Dettori, Vinnie Jones, Rod Stewart, Lionel Richie, the Beegees, Sharon Stone, Imelda Marcos, David Tang, Lucy Liu, the Thai Royal Family and Andrea Bocelli - who she introduced to a global televised audience for the first time. She has wide-ranging political, cultural and TV talent connections in the UK having worked for all major channels at the highest levels including BBC, ITV, Channel 4 producing and directing the highest-rated television programmes in the history of UK broadcasting.
At Alternate Reality Productions, she advised the RT UK news and current affairs operation and was responsible for bringing on all lawyers, technical crew, and talent to create the new RT UK channel. With her extensive network of connections that included British Prime Ministers such as David Cameron (later Foreign Secretary), and leaders of political parties such as Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond, who Collette brought onto RT UK to have his own show. It was Collette who made RT UK a force in the British parliament. Like with the TV shows she produced, she raised the profile of RT – becoming the foremost foreign-owned TV channel in Britain.
In 2022, she moved to Dubai to launch Ghaf TV Productions with Afshin. She re-constructed the Going Underground operation from scratch in the UAE as Editor-in-Chief. She has been instrumental in forging a relationship now with the largest broadcaster in the Arab World, MBC where Going Underground is now produced.