MARCH 2004
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Wednesday, 31st March,2004
PAUL KRUGMAN - THE FLY IN BUSH’S OINTMENT
Now to one of George Bush’s most persistent critics. Until the emergence of Democrat leader John Kerry, Paul Krugman had virtually become the leader of the opposition in America, an unusual position for an academic economist. His column on business and economics in the ’New York Times’ soon broadened into a scathing critique. Not only did he attack George Bush’s economic record, but unusually in the US media, until recently, he became known as a vocal critic of the Bush social and political agenda as well. Paul Krugman has been speaking with our economics correspondent, Peter Martin.
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Wednesday, 31st March,2004
DARFUR - SUDAN’S LATEST WAR
For almost 21 years Africa’s longest-running war has been fought between Sudan’s Muslim government and Christian rebels in the country’s south. Now, a separate conflict has flared in the west of the country with the UN estimating 10,000 dead in the past 12 months. It’s a war that has been virtually unseen by the world’s media. Independent film-maker Philip Cox travelled with rebel forces for a rare glimpse of this hidden conflict. And a warning - viewers may find some of these scenes disturbing.
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Wednesday, 31st March,2004
ALAN DERSHOWITZ INTERVIEW
It is often said that the world changed after September 11 and so it seems did one of America’s most renowned civil liberties lawyers Alan Dershowitz. He’s now calling for tougher laws in the war on terror - ID cards, new powers of arrest and detention and, most controversially, legislation to legalise torture. He’s in Australia putting his views and was in Canberra today meeting a swag of politicians. Mark Davis spoke with him earlier from Dateline’s Canberra studio.
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Wednesday, 31st March,2004
LAST MAN ON MANUS ISLAND
The last time Dateline sent a reporter to investigate Australia’s immigration detention centre on remote Manus Island, he got as far as Port Moresby before being marched back to the airport by PNG officials. Like Nauru, Manus was clearly off limits to the media and anyone else wanting to pry into Australia’s island detention system. Now, there’s only one detainee left on Manus, but the Australian Government is still paying a small fortune to keep it open. The PNG Government has now allowed Olivia Rousset to visit the centre’s lonely inmate.
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Wednesday, 31st March,2004
THE LAST MAN ON MANUS ISLAND
On DATELINE on Wednesday, March 31, Olivia Rousset reports on a man who has officially been granted refugee status but remains completely alone in an Australian detention centre without any hope of being granted asylum in Australia. The refugee, Aladdin Sisalem, is being kept on Manus Island, Papua New Guinea at a cost to the Australian taxpayer of $23,000 a day. He has been on the island for 15 months and has spent the last seven months alone. Reporter Rousset is only the second visitor he has received in that time.
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Sisalem was born in Kuwait but as the son of a Palestinian refugee he did not have an automatic right to residency. Unable to work legally and harassed by police, his three year odyssey began when he received a tourist visa to Indonesia. When he arrived he applied for asylum with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees – but after a year of living on the streets of Jakarta and no progress with his application he went to Papua New Guinea. He travelled overland from West Papua to the PNG border where he was jailed for entering illegally and where he claims he was beaten in prison.
He then made his way by fishing boat to Australia’s Saibai Island in the Torres Strait just before Christmas 2002. After being interviewed by Australian officials he was taken to Manus Island where he thought his case would be processed. It was two months before any official spoke to him about his case.
The Department of Immigration says that Sisalem did not actually request asylum – or rather that he did not ask for the correct form to apply for a visa – when he was in the Torres Strait and therefore Australia has no responsibility for him. Sisalem insists that he did ask for asylum: “I didn’t risk my life to enter some remote Australian island because I am an economic migrant or something. I needed help. If the Australian government does not consider me as an asylum seeker then why do they ask me about the harms and persecution I suffer in Kuwait?” -
Wednesday, 24th March,2004
SOUTH AFRICA - DEMOCRACY'S WINNERS AND LOSERS
And now to South Africa, where campaigning has begun for elections to be held next month. A decade ago apartheid was swept away as Nelson Mandela took power. His government promised to tackle the apartheid legacy - mass poverty and unemployment - but that’s proving far harder than ever imagined. And now AIDS is wreaking havoc on the nation as well. As the African National Congress seeks its third term in office, Geoff Parish reports on the winners and losers in the country’s first decade of democracy.
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Wednesday, 24th March,2004
SHIMON PERES INTERVIEW
Shimon Peres was prime minister of Israel in the 1980s and again in 1995 to ’96. He played a key role in negotiating the Oslo accords between Israel and the Palestinians and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts. Currently he is leader of the opposition Labour Party and has criticised the government for the assassination of Sheikh Yassin. He claims it will cause more terror, not end it. Mark Davis spoke to him this afternoon from his office in Jerusalem.
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Wednesday, 24th March,2004
MAHMOUD AL ZAHHAR INTERVIEW
Dr Mahmoud Al Zahhar is the newly appointed deputy leader of Hamas’s political wing in Gaza. Although an extremist in Israeli eyes others have seen him as one of the more moderate voices inside Hamas. He is now certainly a target for the assassinations that Israel is threatening, particularly Hamas leaders, including as was stated today, "those who appear on television". He joined Dateline a short time ago from a studio in Gaza.
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Wednesday, 24th March,2004
SHEIKH YASSIN’S LEGACY
The assassination of former Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmad Yassin has left the Middle East on edge and the rest of the world holding its breath. Islamic groups are pledging revenge not only against Israel but against America and its allies. Israel held Yassin responsible for the death of hundred of its citizens. Irene Ulman has this report on the militant movement in the spotlight.
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Wednesday, 24th March,2004
SOUTH AFRICA - 10 YEARS AFTER APARTHEID
This year marks the tenth anniversary of a momentous turning point in South African history –the end of apartheid and the beginning of majority rule. Reporter Geoff Parish reported on the election of the African National Congress (ANC) in 1994 and lived in South Africa for the first years of the government. Now, on DATELINE on Wednesday, March 24 at 8.30pm, we watch him return to find out how well the ANC has been able to deliver on its original election promise of “A Better Life For All”.
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Wednesday, 17th March,2004
DUTCH SCHOOL - IN BLACK AND WHITE
In all of Europe, the Netherlands has traditionally been seen as the most open and tolerant towards immigrants. But is it a multicultural success story? Not if the education system is anything to go by. Schools in the Netherlands are becoming segregated along racial lines, leading to charges that classroom apartheid is replacing multiculturalism, as Nick Lazaredes reports.
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Wednesday, 17th March,2004
DR ROHAN GUNARATNA AND TARIQ ALI DEBATE
Mark Davis spoke earlier with Dr Rohan Gunaratna, the author of "Inside al-Qa’ida", and writer and political commentator Tariq Ali, who is a critic of the current war on terror.
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Wednesday, 17th March,2004
DEBATE BACKGROUNDER
Over the past three weeks, a string of bombs in Iraq and Spain have not only shaken hearts around the world, but shaken governments as well, from Washington to Baghdad, Madrid to Canberra. It’s been a murky wave of terror, with no clear claimants and no stated motives to which many governments have been trying to bring their own version of clarity, perhaps for their own purposes. In a moment Mark Davis will be speaking to terrorism specialist Dr. Rohan Gunaratna and author and political commentator Tariq Ali for their divergent views on who is behind the attacks, the reasons for them and the threats posed to the world.
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Wednesday, 17th March,2004
BALI - DANGER ISLAND
Following the bombings in Madrid, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has reviewed its advice to Australians visiting Spain, suggesting that travellers should now "exercise caution". That alert is not as severe as the current warning for Bali. Foreign Affairs is advising Australians to defer all non-essential travel there - advice that is essentially being ignored by thousands of holidaymakers returning to the island. Are Australian tourists being foolhardy or is our Government overreacting? Dateline’s Ginny Stein reports.
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Wednesday, 10th March,2004
GILBERTO GIL - DIVINE AND MARVELLOUS
On Sunday night Australia’s Brazilian community packed the Sydney Opera House for a rare visit by one of their idols - the charismatic singer and musician Gilberto Gil. After decades of social activism he’s recently been made a leading member in a government that speaks for millions of Brazil’s poor. Prior to his Australian tour, Bentley Dean caught up with Gil in his hometown of Salvador, in Brazil’s north-east.
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Wednesday, 10th March,2004
MAJOR MICHAEL MORI INTERVIEW
Yesterday’s release of five British prisoners from Guantanomo Bay has renewed focus on the plight of Australians David Hicks and Mamdouh Habib. Leading David Hick’s defence is his US military lawyer, Major Michael Mori. As a US military appointment, Major Mori has surprised many here and in the US with his damning condemnation of the legal process that David Hicks will be facing. Major Mori is currently in Australia and Mark Davis spoke with him a short time ago in Adelaide.
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Wednesday, 10th March,2004
THE FOUR BILLION DOLLAR MAN
A mystery billionaire with a multibillion-dollar company opening a bank branch in Malaysia for a non-existent Australian bank and with a series of fake addresses to boot. It’s the sort of scenario that should have Australia’s corporate watchdogs swinging into action. But as Dateline found while trying to track him down, our regulators don’t seem too interested. Peter Martin has more.
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Wednesday, 3rd March,2004
JAMES BAMFORD INTERVIEW
James Bamford is the author of two of the most revealing books about America’s most secretive intelligence agency, the NSA. He was a specialist producer on intelligence investigations for the American ABC TV network for almost a decade, and he is currently a visiting professor at the University of California. Mark Davis spoke with him from Washington.
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Wednesday, 3rd March,2004
BUGGING THE WORLD
The revelation that private conversations of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan were recorded, by either the British or the Americans in the lead-up to the Iraq war, has sparked outrage from some and a philosophical shrug from others. Few may object to the monitoring of criminals or terrorists, but how widespread has illegal surveillance of individuals like Kofi Annan become? And what role does Australia play? In a moment Mark Davis will be putting these questions to a US intelligence expert. But first this background report from Irene Ulman.
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Wednesday, 3rd March,2004
ROGUE WEAPONS ROGUE STATE
It may sound like a fictitious country from a satirical novel, but the tiny eastern European enclave is being taken deadly seriously by security analysts. It has a growing reputation for organised crime and weapons trafficking, which is ringing alarm bells in the West. It seems that in Transnistria the nightmare scenario of terrorists obtaining ’dirty bombs’ could become a reality. Nick Lazaredes has more.
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