FEBRUARY 2001
-
Wednesday, 28th February,2001
INTERVIEW WITH YOSSI MELMAN, ISRAELI AUTHOR
Mr Clinton has said that support for
Read more...
Marc Rich from Israeli Prime Minister,
Ehud Barak and other senior Israeli
politicians, weighed heavily in his
considerations. Israeli writer Yossi
Melman has been following the Rich
trail. -
Wednesday, 28th February,2001
INTERVIEW WITH MORRIS WEINBERG, CHIEF PROSECUTOR IN THE US MARC RICH CASE
What do all of these people have in
common? Ehud Barak, the King of Spain,
Shimon Peres and a Greek Princess? The
answer: along with many others, they
all lobbied president Bill Clinton for
the release of the fugitive American
financier Marc Rich. In the
early `80s, Rich fled to Switzerland
rather than face the long list of
fraud, tax evasion and racketeering
charges laid against him by US
authorities.
Marc Rich has since been pardoned by
outgoing President Bill Clinton.
Read more...
The Clinton pardon of Marc Rich has
certainly outraged many Americans.
Morris Weinberg, though, had a
particular reason to be shocked. As
the chief prosecutor in the Marc Rich
case, Mr Weinberg spent three years
accumulating evidence against him. He
spoke to us from Tampa, Florida. -
Wednesday, 28th February,2001
AIDS IN AFRICA - BLACK DEATHS, WHITE CONSPIRACY
According to the government of
Botswana, 27% of sexually active
people are infected with a virus. This
means that in a few years, unless a
cure is found, nearly one-third of
Botswana`s walking population will be
dead. Obviously a poor man is going to
die sooner from HIV by developing AIDS
much sooner than someone who is better
off.
Read more...
African-born reporter Alfred Mutua has
travelled back to his homeland to look
at the devastation caused there by the
HIV virus. Mutua travels to his native
Kenya as well as to Uganda, South
Africa and Botswana in search of
answers. Why has this disease struck
with such a vengeance, in the world`s
poorest continent? The answer is a
complicated one. But poverty, tropical
diseases, human genetics and multi-
national drug company profits, all
play a part in this international
catastrophe. -
Wednesday, 28th February,2001
THIS WEEK ON DATELINE: AFRICAN AIDS: BLACK DEATH - WHITE CONSPIRACY
On March 5 this year, 42
pharmaceutical companies, including
Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline and Bristol
Meyers Squib, will bring a case
against the South African government.
The case is an attempt to prevent
South Africa from importing cheap,
generic drugs not made by these
companies. The drugs include those
used to treat HIV infection.
On DATELINE this week, Kenyan reporter
Alfred Mutua visits South Africa,
Kenya, Botswana and Uganda to provide
an African perspective on why AIDS is
continuing its virulent spread there.
His report includes startling stories
of HIV sufferers dying due to the lack
of affordable anti-retroviral drugs
(ARVs) - available from countries like
Thailand at a fraction of the cost of
those manufactured by bigger companies.
Meanwhile, in Kenya continuing
exposure to HIV is believed to be the
reason why a group of women
prostitutes have developed immunity to
the virus. Dateline looks at the way
in which these so-called "resistant
women" are now being used in a vaccine
ttrial.
Read more...
Don`t miss Dateline, this Wednesday
February 28, 2001, at 8.30 pm. -
Wednesday, 21st February,2001
FRANCE FIGHTS FOR ITS CINEMATIC HERITAGE
There is French wine and there is
French cinema - both cultural
artefacts and both, say the French,
worthy of protection. So in the
interests of cultural preservation,
France has banned the sale of popular
new American films on DVD. From
January 1, the French were denied the
right to a sneak preview of American
box-office hits before they hit the
big screen in France.
Read more...
Sceptics have pointed out that such
drastic action is unlikely to work,
since fans still have the internet to
order new American films. But as far
as the French are concerned, the
barbarian is at the gate and only
constant vigilance will stop the
Hollywood invasion. -
Wednesday, 21st February,2001
INTERVIEW: RICHARD BUTLER, FORMER UNSCOM CHIEF
It has been two years since the last
United Nations arms inspectors left
Iraq. In 1998, Richard Butler`s UNSCOM
team was refused access to sites that
might have revealed the full extent of
Saddam Hussein`s weapons program.
The weekend strike on Iraqi targets
has turned up the heat, on the eve of
US Secretary of State Colin Powell`s
visit to the region. And General
Powell will have another issue to
contend with - National Missile
Defence, or NMD, the controversial
missile defence shield being promoted
by the new US administration.
Read more...
Jana Wendt spoke with Richard Butler
from New York about NMD and the
developments in Iraq. -
Wednesday, 21st February,2001
THE HUMAN COST OF SANCTIONS AGAINST IRAQ
The American and British bombing of
Iraq is facing mounting world
criticism. Few leaders have come out
in support of the action - even some
traditional allies are backing away.
Read more...
Now, the US and Britain have announced
they’re going to review the system of
sanctions on Iraq. When George W. Bush
and Tony Blair meet in Washington this
week, "smart sanctions" will be on the
agenda - that is, sanctions focused
more on banning arms imports and less
on controlling civilian supplies.
Iraqis blame existing sanctions for a
humanitarian disaster that they say
has claimed 1 million lives. -
Wednesday, 21st February,2001
THE MAD COW CRISIS SPREADS
Britain’s mad cow epidemic has spread.
Continental Europe, which defended the
health of its cattle for years, is now
in the grip of its own crisis, where
almost every day, a new case of mad
cow disease is discovered.
More concerning for Australia is the
fact that this deadly epidemic appears
to have gone well beyond Europe`s
borders already, with cases now
detected in South Korea and Brazil.
Read more...
In the past decade, potentially
infected cattle and animal feed were
exported to dozens of countries around
the world. So what responsibility
should Britain take for spreading mad
cow disease and its human variant? And
has the rest of Europe been negligent,
ignoring evidence of contamination for
years? -
Wednesday, 21st February,2001
THIS WEEK ON DATELINE:
MAD COW GOES GLOBAL
On Wednesday night, Dateline looks at
how practices in Britain and Europe
have contributed to the BSE crisis and
may still be risking its spread.
Britain has been blamed for exporting
the fatal cattle disease to dozens of
countries by knowingly selling
potentially infected meat and bone
meal. There are fears that exports
will lead to future epidemics of
Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE)
and its human counterpart Creutzfeldt-
Jacob disease (CJD), in some of the
poorest Asian and African countries.
The World Health Organisation (WHO)
says there is no doubt infected meat
and bone meal from Britain has spread
BSE to the rest of the world.
Read more...
Australia next? Find out on Dateline,
this Wednesday night, February 21,
2001, at 8.30 pm. -
Wednesday, 14th February,2001
MAFIA MAMMA
Women of the mafia have traditionally
been seen as innocent, standing by
their men and suffering in silence.
But as the mafia godfathers are being
jailed, or killed by rivals, it is the
godmothers who are taking over.
The latest to step onto the scene is
Maria Licciardi, and in Mafia terms,
she`s a great success. Licciardi now
controls most of Naples, Italy`s crime
capital, by means of murder and
intimidation. She has the edge over
her male predecessors because this
godmother is also a financial and
managerial genius.
Read more...
But since police have only seen her
once in eight years, catching
Licciardi is proving difficult. -
Wednesday, 14th February,2001
INSIDE THE LAO GEM MYSTERY
This story is about the shady world of
gem mining in
the jungles of Laos, and its link to
the mystery killing of a Melbourne
lawyer. Just what that link may be is
becoming clearer as pressure
intensifies for the release of
Australians Kay and Kerry Danes, the
couple arrested and imprisoned late
last year in the Lao capital,
Vientiane.
Read more...
The Danes were jailed for allegedly
stealing gems from a part Australian-
owned mine. The whole story is being
played out against a backdrop of
greed, deception and intrigue.
And Dateline can reveal the basis of
the Lao government’s case against the
Danes. -
Wednesday, 14th February,2001
THIS WEEK ON DATELINE: NAPLES’ NEW GODMOTHER
She controls half of Naples and its
lucrative heroin and cocaine trade.
In the last year she has been
responsible for 120 murders in a fight
to dominate the underworld. Soon
after the murder of her Mafia boss
brother, Maria Licciardi (known
as `the little one`) took control of
his clan and has evaded police ever
since. In fact it took investigators
six years before they even became
aware of her existence and they have
only ever seen her once.
This week Dateline reports on the
Naples`s authorities battle with the
local Mafia (known as the Camorra).
Licciardi`s rise to power came as the
police were finally about to claim
victory over organised crime in their
city. But Licciardi is proving to be
smarter than her male counterparts,
streamlining the Mafia into a united
and virtually unstoppable
organisation.
Read more...
That`s Dateline, this Wednesday
February 14, 2001 at 8.30 pm. -
Wednesday, 7th February,2001
RUSSIA’S HIDDEN NUCLEAR CATASTROPHE
In Russia, the toll of a terrible
nuclear accident is only just emerging
after years of official denial and
cover-up.
The truth of what occurred at the
Mayak nuclear weapons plant, at the
foot of the Ural Mountains, is by any
measure appalling. With radioactive
pollution far in excess of Chernobyl,
the countryside around Mayak,
including the village of Muslyumova,
has been poisoned. And the people
who`ve been forced to stay there as
guinea pigs for the Russian government
are dying.
Read more...
But for a long time, they didn`t know
it. The accident and its staggering
after-effects were kept hidden from
the villagers - and from the rest of
the world - until it was too late. -
Wednesday, 7th February,2001
INTERVIEW: BINYAMIN NETANYAHU, FORMER ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER
During the election campaign, Ariel
Sharon kept one eye on his political
opponent, Ehud Barak, and the other on
his Likud party rival, the former
Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu.
Mr Netanyahu made an unexpected return
to Israeli politics late last year
when polls showed that voters
preferred him over Ariel Sharon. But
Bibi Netanyahu elected to sit out this
election and wait in the wings.
Read more...
Jana Wendt spoke to Mr Netanyahu in
Jerusalem just before the election
results were confirmed. -
Wednesday, 7th February,2001
PROFILE: ARIEL SHARON, NEW ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER
Ariel Sharon has become Israel’s Prime
Minister by what’s expected to be the
greatest margin in the country’s
history, his uncompromising stance on
Israeli security putting a decisive
end to Ehud Barak’s peace initiatives.
Though the voter turnout was one of
the lowest ever, the Israeli people
have left no doubt that right now,
it’s ’the Hawk’ they trust.
Read more... -
Wednesday, 7th February,2001
THIS WEEK ON DATELINE (FEBRUARY 7, 8.30 PM)
Russia’s Nuclear Nightmare
and an interview with former Israeli
prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
Muslyumova, a village in Chelyabinsk,
Russia, is the most radioactively
contaminated place on earth. The level
of radioactivity is 200 times the
concentration present at Chernobyl.
The people of Muslyumova have not been
resettled and the source of the
original contamination, the Mayak
Chemical Combine, has continued to
operate. Mayak is now set to earn the
Russian government $39 billion as the
country’s sole reprocessing plant for
nuclear waste.
This week Dateline looks at how the
present Russian government is dealing
with its nuclear heritage.
The report also takes a look at
the Kola Peninsula, the base of the
Russian navy`s Northern Fleet, which
has the largest nuclear fleet in the
world. Dozens of ships and submarines
lie scuttled in the coastal waters;
their nuclear reactors are still on
board and in danger of melting down
and leaking. The US government is
funding the decommissioning of many of
the submarines but the process is
hampered by Russia`s deeply secretive
military and corrupt bureaucracy.
completely dismantled.
Read more...
That`s Dateline, this Wednesday
February 7 at 8.30 pm.
