JANUARY 2003
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Wednesday, 29th January,2003
JOURNEY TO BAGHDAD
On a day when Washington was ringing with the words of war - a growing number of activists are pushing equally hard for peace, prepared to defy the US and travel to Iraq to voice their opposition to any attack. Australian Dean Jeffreys is a veteran peace activist who was in Iraq during the first Gulf war. Now he’s returned to Baghdad and this is his story.
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Wednesday, 29th January,2003
ROBERT HILL INTERVIEW
A few hours ago President George Bush delivered his State of the Union Address, setting out amongst other things his reasons for an invasion of Iraq - with or without UN support. If America is locked into a war - does that mean Australia will automatically follow? Earlier, Mark Davis spoke to Defence Minister Robert Hill.
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Wednesday, 29th January,2003
INSIDE NAURU - PACIFIC DESPAIR
For John Howard the so-called ’Pacific Solution’ was a dream come true - asylum seekers could be detained and processed away from prying eyes. But now that solution is in deep crisis. In an event that has gone virtually unreported, asylum seekers in one of Nauru’s two detention centres have now seized control, and driven out their Australian guards. Dateline’s Bronwyn Adcock has managed to get inside one of those camp, where the conditions are grim. It’s the first time a journalist has gained independent access to any of these camps.
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Wednesday, 22nd January,2003
BOB WOODWARD INTERVIEW
And Bush’s War is the subject and title of a new book by American journalist Bob Woodward. Woodward is best known for breaking the Watergate scandal which brought down President Richard Nixon. It would appear the current president has a far more friendly relationship with Woodward. He’s been given unparalleled access to personal notes and minutes from Bush’s war cabinet in the days and months following September 11, as well as direct access to the President himself and his closest advisers. The book’s been criticised as a sanctioned history. But unquestionably it gives insight into the internal workings of Bush’s inner circle as they seek to shape and influence what the President calls his ’gut instincts’ on international matters. I spoke with Bob Woodward a short time ago.
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Wednesday, 22nd January,2003
US-IRAQ
Next week looms as a critical period in George Bush’s push for war against Saddam Hussein. On Monday, UN weapons inspectors will deliver their report to the Security Council. The US President appears increasingly frustrated with the inspection process and what he regards as Saddam’s breach of UN resolutions to disarm. Bush now says the situation is like a bad movie that he doesn’t want to watch anymore. There’s intense speculation that he’ll now disregard the weapons inspectors and go to war without the backing of the United Nations. Ginny Stein has been charting the President’s road to Baghdad and some of the consequences of toppling the Iraqi dictator.
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Wednesday, 22nd January,2003
SONAR VICTIMS
Authorities in Western Australia are at a loss to explain the death last weekend of three beaked whales and the beaching of another four. This rare species died in the vicinity of a US/Australian naval training exercise. Marine biologists will soon examine one of the whales to try to determine the cause of death. Curiously, members of the same species have also died in the Bahamas and the Canary Islands, where the US Navy have been trialling a new sonar system designed to locate enemy submarines. Environmentalists believe the long-range sonar is killing the whales and say they have the evidence to prove it. Nick Lazaredes has more.
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Wednesday, 22nd January,2003
US NAVY THREATENS WHALES
Reporter Nick Lazaredes looks at a battle to save the world’s marine life from the impact of a deadly new American technology.
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In August last year Jean Michel Cousteau, the son of Jacques Cousteau and a famous marine environmentalist in his own right, took on the US Navy and won. Cousteau, together with a number of environmental groups, took the navy to court over the use of long range sonar. This high intensity sonar is being developed as a failsafe way of detecting enemy submarines. Last year the US fisheries service authorised the introduction of this “global surveillance system” into 75 percent of the world’s oceans.
Even as the Cousteau case was being heard, fresh evidence of its threat to marine life was seen in the Canary Islands. Tourists, who flock to the islands every year to watch whales, were distressed to become eyewitnesses to a mass stranding of whales. With the tourist industry under threat the Island authorities reacted with alarm, immediately mounting a criminal investigation and halting the NATO exercises that used the sonar. Experiments conducted on the dead whales supported earlier proof, following a similar incident in the Bahamas in 2000, that military sonar can kill whales and dolphins.
Whales and dolphins are acoustic animals that use sonar to do everything – locate food, mate or simply find their way. In the last 25 years human generated sound has increased the noise level in the ocean tenfold. The increase in noise from the new long range sonar is believed to deafen the whales causing them to beach. Joel Reynolds, an environmental attorney, says it is not only marine mammals that are at risk but all life in the ocean, including fish, turtles and even humans – “The navy has conducted tests on its own divers and found the system is potentially very harmful to divers as well. So there is no question that this system if deployed will do harm.”
In October Cousteau and his associates had a significant win. A US federal court judge made a decision, which sent shock waves through the Pentagon. She issued an injunction stopping the navy from proceeding with global deployment of the new sonar. The final legal battle will be fought in June.
That’s Dateline this Wednesday January 22 at 8.30pm. -
Wednesday, 15th January,2003
ZIMBABWE - THE MUSIC CHIMURENGA
In Zimbabwe, as Robert Mugabe’s government seeks to push ahead with its controversial land reform program, the nation’s popular musicians have been enlisted to help deliver the message. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but now some of Zimbabwe’s musical stars have found their once enthusiastic fans are simply staying away. Eugene Ullman has more.
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Wednesday, 15th January,2003
MARK GWOZDECKY INTERVIEW
As America, Britain and Australia continue to beat the drum of war, the rest of the world is still waiting for evidence that Iraq possesses or is developing chemical, biological or nuclear weapons. In 12 days, Chief Weapons Inspector Hans Blix will deliver his interim report to the UN Security Council. I spoke earlier with Mark Gwozdecky from the International Atomic Energy Agency, whose inspectors form a key part of the UN team searching for any sign of a nuclear weapons program in Iraq.
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Wednesday, 15th January,2003
JAMAL KHALIFA - OSAMA’S BEST FRIEND
Terrorism experts call him "the Godfather of al-Qa’ida in South-East Asia”. Jamal Khalifa stands accused of plotting and financing a range of deadly attacks. But far from being a fugitive from America’s war on terror, he lives openly in Saudi Arabia, now running a well-known restaurant. He also heads a number of Islamic charities - three of which Western intelligence agencies suspect are terror fronts. And that’s the difficulty facing the US - money for terror networks is flowing not only from rogue states but also, it seems, from oil billionaires in Saudi Arabia - supposedly a close American ally. However, proving that is easier said than done. Matthew Carney reports.
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