APRIL 2003
-
Wednesday, 30th April,2003
DR DAVID HEYMANN (WHO) INTERVIEW
The World Health Organisation today lifted its SARS travel warning for Toronto. While there are signs that the virus has peaked in some countries, the situation in China remains grave and the prognosis for the rest of the world is still mixed. One of the key figures coordinating the worldwide fight against the virus is Dr David Heymann, head of the Communicable Diseases Division at the World Health Organisation. Mark Davis spoke with him in Bangkok.
Read more... -
Wednesday, 30th April,2003
NEWT GINGRICH I/V
Last week, Newt Gingrich brought the tensions in Washington to a head, when he called for Colin Powell’s department to be dismantled after what he calls six months of abject failure of US diplomacy. I spoke with Newt Gingrich a short time ago.
Read more... -
Wednesday, 30th April,2003
NEWT GINGRICH BACKGROUNDER
The war in Iraq is won, but the battle continues in Washington over the future path of American foreign policy. It’s rumoured that the hard right surrounding Donald Rumsfeld are sharpening their knives for Colin Powell. There’s long been tension between the two key administration players over what’s seen by Washington hawks as Powell’s overly diplomatic ways. We’ll be speaking with Newt Gingrich, one of Rumsfeld’s policy advisers, about this in a moment. The issue came to a head recently when the Bush Administration turned up the heat on Syria.
Read more... -
Wednesday, 30th April,2003
SLOVAKIA - THE STERILISATION OF ROMA WOMEN
In the central European nation of Slovakia, women from poor Roma, or gypsy, communities are entering hospital to give birth, only to find that when they return home that they’ll never have children again - sterilised, they claim, without their consent. Slovakia’s doctors angrily reject the charge, but when Bronwyn Adcock visited the Roma communities, she found the practice was widespread.
Read more... -
Wednesday, 30th April,2003
COERCED STERILISATION OF GYPSY WOMEN
On DATELINE this Wednesday, April 30 at 8.30pm Bronwyn Adcock reports on how women in the central European country of Slovakia are being sterilised without their consent.
Read more...
The women belong to the Romany population or Roma, gypsies who have suffered institutional discrimination in Europe for hundreds of years. In World War II an estimated half a million Roma were sent to the gas chambers. Under communism in the former Czechoslovakia they continued to live in poverty with unequal access to education, employment and health care, a situation which has not changed with the creation of the Slovak Republic in 1992.
Now Roma women allege that after giving birth to children in hospital they have been sterilised without their consent or with consent given under duress. Women in labour, usually already on the delivery table, are told that another pregnancy would endanger their lives and that of their next baby. Some medical files for these women show only an hour elapsing between the time they arrived in hospital and the time they agreed to a sterilisation.
Barbara Bukovska, a Czech lawyer who led a team which compiled a report on the sterilisations, says the files never record the reason for sterilisation or that any offer of alternative contraception was discussed.
Roma women who have publicised their allegations have been targeted by the government and police. Now the Slovak government is threatening to prosecute any woman who cannot prove her claim of forced sterilisation.
That’s DATELINE this Wednesday, April 30 at 8.30pm -
Wednesday, 23rd April,2003
FIJI - BOMB GONE
When Britain and America were testing their own weapons of mass destruction back in the 1950s, their testing ground of choice was the Pacific. Britain exploded nuclear weapons in Kiribati that were 200 times more powerful than the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 300 Fijian servicemen who worked alongside the British to monitor the tests are now seeking compensation for health problems they say were caused by exposure to radioactive fallout. Their most serious allegation is that they were used as guinea pigs - deliberately exposed to radiation without any protective clothing - a claim that Britain vigorously denies. Olivia Rousset has this report.
Read more... -
Wednesday, 23rd April,2003
IRAQ DEBATE
So could Iraq become an Islamic state ruled by religious leaders and would the US stand by and allow this to happen? To answer those questions, I’m joined by Ayatollah Hakim’s representative in London, Hamid Al Bayati from the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq. And in New York, Maurice Sonnenberg, from the Council for the Liberation of Iraq - one of the key think tanks set up to advise the Bush Administration on Iraqi matters.
Read more... -
Wednesday, 23rd April,2003
IRAQ BACKGROUNDER
Saddam’s secular socialist state has gone but no-one’s too sure exactly what’s going to take its place. In the current political vacuum, the only powerful group to emerge are Shia Islamic clerics - some of whom are more interested in creating an Islamic theocracy than any Western-style democracy - hardly what the Americans were imagining. After decades of repression, Iraq’s majority Shia population are now openly practising their faith and their politics.
Read more... -
Wednesday, 23rd April,2003
JORDANIAN OPPOSITION
As the US takes the first steps towards establishing its administration in Iraq, neighbouring countries are counting the cost of supporting the war. Jordan’s government publicly opposed the invasion but then quietly allowed American troops to enter Iraq from their territory - a move that outraged many of its people and the political shock waves are still breaking. David O’Shea has more.
Read more... -
Wednesday, 23rd April,2003
FIJI VETERANS
On Dateline on Wednesday, April 23 at 8.30pm Olivia Rousset reports on the forgotten contribution made by a tiny outpost of the British Empire when 300 Fijian servicemen attended hydrogen bomb tests on Christmas Island in 1958.
Read more...
Fiji was Britain’s most loyal colony at the time and the men were sent to assist during the tests in the Kiribati Republic. The men were told they were being sent for training. The British government had already conducted H-bomb tests in the region (off Malden Island) but they decided to test much more powerful bombs at Christmas Island. The most powerful of the tests was “Grapple Y” - when a bomb 200 times more powerful than that dropped on Hiroshima was exploded.
Rousset interviews some of the men who claim they have suffered health problems from their original exposure to these powerful explosions and that their families have also been affected.
The Fijian government is now supporting their demand that an inquiry be held into their claims for compensation from the British government, which denies there is any case to answer.
That’s Dateline, this Wednesday April 23 at 8.30pm. -
Wednesday, 16th April,2003
AFGHANISTAN - UNFINISHED BUSINESS
If America is hoping to achieve radical change in this region, they may have just been handed a golden opportunity. The next move in this diplomatic chess game is theirs. With the world’s attention focused on Iraq, events in Afghanistan have slipped from view. But it was that country that America’s new foreign policy vision was first put into play. As with Iraq, US forces invaded Afghanistan, promising to oust the regime and build a democracy. But today, Ginny Stein reports the US-backed government has little influence outside of the capital, Kabul.
Read more...
-
Wednesday, 16th April,2003
FAROUK AL-SHARAA INTERVIEW
In a Dateline exclusive, Syria’s Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Farouk Al-Sharaa officially answers America’s charges and makes an extraordinary announcement.
Read more...
-
Wednesday, 16th April,2003
GUNNING FOR DAMASCUS
The intensity of Washington’s attacks on Syria in recent days has caused a lot of consternation here in Damascus, both for the government and the people. Post Iraq, America’s words have military meaning. Not only is Syria accused of harbouring remnants of Saddam’s regime, they are also accused of having terrorist groups and hiding weapons of mass destruction. Alan Hall has this report on why Syria is now in the firing line.
Read more...
-
Wednesday, 16th April,2003
WATCHING THE WAR FROM JORDAN
On DATELINE this Wednesday, April 16 at 8.30pm reporter David O’Shea looks at how the Iraq conflict is being viewed in Jordan. Squeezed between Israel and Iraq the politics of this country are crucial to Western interests in the Middle East. 60 per cent of Jordanians are of Palestinian origin and while the Jordanian government pursues pro American and Israeli policies it is not just Islamists who have opposed the war in Iraq but wealthy, Western educated Jordanians. O’Shea looks at the public outcry over the death of Jordan Times and Al Jazeera correspondent Tareq Ayoub who was hit by an American shell. He also interviews the brother of a 23-year-old Jordanian Jihadi who was killed in Iraq.
Read more...
Also on DATELINE this week
Meanwhile back in Afghanistan
"Our people who worked with them believe only bad has come from trying to do good." Afghan warlord Pacha Khan comments on cooperating with the Americans.
On Dateline on Wednesday, April 16 at 8.30pm Ginny Stein reports on how, despite America’s military victory in Afghanistan, the war has not yet been won.
In post-war Afghanistan the government has little influence outside the capital, Kabul, and the biggest challenge it faces comes not from terrorism but from powerful warlords, many of whom helped oust the Taliban.
Typical of the threat is the warlord Pacha Khan, once a valuable American ally in the war on terror but now a wanted man for his attacks on the government. Pacha Khan controls much of the countryside surrounding Gardez - a town about two hours south east of Kabul. When the government failed to keep a promise to appoint him governor he responded by shelling the town - killing 25 people, many of them children.
Pacha Khan has this warning for US special forces running operations in the area, "If they keep interfering like this they will pay the price. It will not be to their benefit. They are increasing the number of their enemies and I am the enemy of their enemies…I told the Americans they (should) not come here to interfere in our internal affairs. You have come here for al-Qaeda. You must not interfere in our internal affairs."
Afghan rebels - remnants of Taliban and al-Qaeda forces - stepped up their attacks on foreign forces as the looming conflict in Iraq became a growing distraction for America.
Now, after months of relative calm, a steep rise in violence and lawlessness in southern and eastern Afghanistan has greatly increased the threat to aid work and aid agencies have pulled foreign workers out of the south. In March a Red Cross worker was murdered near Kandahar and some parts of the country where aid is most needed have been declared no-go areas.
That’s Dateline, this Wednesday April 16 2003 at 8.30 pm. -
Wednesday, 2nd April,2003
THAILAND - SPEED KILLS
Now to another war - the war on drugs launched by Thailand’s Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra in February. He threatened his police chiefs with the sack if they didn’t wipe out the nation’s booming amphetamine trade in three months. With a death toll now of over 1,500 drug users and dealers since the campaign began - there’s growing evidence that the police took the Prime Minister’s edict a little too literally. David O’Shea has more.
Read more... -
Wednesday, 2nd April,2003
SYED HAMID ALBAR INTERVIEW
Mark Davis spoke earlier with Malaysia’s Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar for his views on the state of our diplomatic relationship.
Read more... -
Wednesday, 2nd April,2003
MALAYSIAN BACKGROUNDER
Despite saturation coverage of Washington’s views, there’s another perspective we’ve heard relatively little of - the views of our nearest neighbours. Malaysia has emerged as one of the most outspoken opponents of the war and Australia’s involvement in it.
Read more... -
Wednesday, 2nd April,2003
JOHN PILGER
The Americans and the British are getting their news angle. The Arab world is now getting its own, but how well are we being served by our media. A war is the most serious endeavour a nation can undertake, yet the national debate seems to be occurring more in lounge rooms and on the street than, with the exception of talkback radio, in our national media. One of the harshest critics of the Australian media is John Pilger. Well known and widely published in Britain he’s virtually invisible in the Australian press. His forum in Australia is the public meeting. We spent a day with him recently in Sydney.
Read more... -
Wednesday, 2nd April,2003
ARABIAN KNIGHTS - AL-JAZEERA
It was said that the first Gulf War was CNN’s. That war turned that network into a global force. This current conflict is giving rise to a new media star - Al-Jazeera. The Bush Administration has tagged the Arab broadcaster a propaganda tool, but its popularity and subscriber base grows by the day. Every war throws up charges of bias - but what is it about Al-Jazeera that produces such strong reactions? Alan Hall has this report.
Read more... -
Wednesday, 2nd April,2003
LICENCE TO KILL - THE BATTLE AGAINST DRUGS IN THAILAND
On Dateline on Wednesday, April 2 at 8.30pm David O’Shea reports on the Thai government’s crackdown on drugs in which over 1500 people have died since January. The victims include a one-year-old child and a pregnant woman.
Read more...
The frontline in Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawat’s war on drugs is the Thai police who are under threat of dismissal if they do not meet government targets.
The success of the campaign is being measured in statistics – which means numbers of addicts arrested or killed. O’Shea attends a crisis meeting of a provincial police force in Chiang Rai, held in response to government criticism of its poor performance. Twenty-four hours later the force’s performance has “improved” – six people associated with drugs have been shot dead.
Opposition senator Kraisak Choohawan and forensic scientist Dr Pornthip claim police are fabricating evidence to hide their involvement with the killings – including planting pills on corpses. Even the deputy commander of the Chiang Rai police admits that some of his force are involved in the killings, but says that it is justified as self defence.
To effectively stop the drug trade the government will have to tackle two main roots of the problem – the involvement of large sections of the Thai establishment in the trade and the manufacture and supply of drugs from Burma. Prime Minister Thaksin has spoken of a black list of powerful Thai figures – including military, police and government – which has 700 names on it. He insists he will act on the list but so far no serious action has been taken.
That’s Dateline , this Wednesday April 2 at 8.30 pm.
