[1] In 1986, Brown joined Independent Radio News, covering major stories from superpower summits to the Hungerford massacre.

He joined BBC TV News two years later and was a Foreign Affairs Correspondent until 1991, reporting the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Gulf War, from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

He was appointed Moscow Correspondent in 1991, where he witnessed the final collapse of Communism and the fall of Mikhail Gorbachev.

He was at the Russian Parliament when troops loyal to President Boris Yeltsin stormed it in 1993, and the following year he was in Chechnya for the start of the civil war.

He wrote about his experiences in a book, The Battle for Iraq,[3] notably how a British soldier saved his life by opening fire on an Iraqi militiaman who was just about to shoot Ben in the back with a rocket-propelled grenade.