Yalda Hakim

Since March 2014, she has made several appearances as the presenter on Impact, ultimately becoming the programme's main presenter later that year.

Born in Afghanistan, Hakim's family fled Afghanistan during the Soviet–Afghan War when she was six months old. The family travelled on horseback overland to Pakistan with the help of people smugglers. After two years in Pakistan, the family settled in Australia as migrants in 1986, when she was three years old.

In October 2013, she interviewed Hamid Karzai, the President of Afghanistan, for Newsnight.

In December 2012, it was announced that Hakim would join the BBC. Hakim had been in talks with BBC executives since April 2012, after being approached at a broadcasting conference in Brisbane. Subsequent meetings took place in New York, Dubai, and Afghanistan. She first appeared on BBC World News and the BBC News Channel in March 2013.

Beginning in 2011, Hakim co-hosted Dateline with fellow video journalist Mark Davis, the two taking it in turns to present the programme in approximately six-week blocks, while the other was away on assignment.

She was awarded the United Nations Media Peace Prize for best Australian Television News Coverage in 2009, and has also been a finalist for the Walkley Young Australian Journalist of the Year Award.

Hakim returned to Kabul for her first Dateline report in 2008, and from then reported from across the world for Dateline and SBS World News Australia.

In 2005, Hakim obtained a Diploma in Journalism at Macleay College, Sydney, and graduated with a journalism degree via distance education from Monash University in 2007, in addition to a cadetship at the Special Broadcasting Service.

Hakim went on to study for a Bachelor of Arts in Media from 2002 to 2004 at Macquarie University, where she was also a board member of the Macquarie University Union.

Yalda Hakim (born 25 or 26 June 1983) is an Afghan-Australian broadcast journalist, news presenter, and documentary maker.