How I Negotiated With al-Qaeda

Available for over a year

Stephen McGown was held hostage in Mali by al-Qaeda for six years. Today we can reveal how his release was negotiated. We hear from Stephen's father Malcolm and from Dr. Imtiaz Sooliman who supervised the negotiations with the hostage takers. In 2011 Stephen McGown set off to travel from the UK to South Africa on his motorbike. He was staying in a hotel in the Malian city of Timbuktu when he was captured Wayne Dixon is a man on a mission: he's trying to walk the whole coast of Great Britain - more than 7,000 miles - picking up litter as he goes along.Wayne has been struggling with depression all his life - and this project is helping him as much as it's helping others. Christy Krobroth is an alligator wrangler who lives in Texas. Following Hurricane Harvey many parts of the city have been flooded and many wild alligators have sought refuge in people's gardens and driveways. Christy has been busy trying to rescue them. Viggó Sigurðsson is a rescue man in the Icelandic coast guard. It's a treacherous job - facing roaring winds, rolling seas and ferocious blizzards. And it's Viggo's job to go out in this weather - he drops out of the side of a helicopter and attempts to save people from the sea, the tops of volcanos and cracks in glaciers. Image: Dr Imtiaz Sooliman, chairman of the South African charity Gift of the Givers Credit: Alex Housing