JULY 2005
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Wednesday, 27th July,2005
RAY BOND - A CAUTIONARY TALE
When Australian expat businessman Ray Bond decided to go for a quiet drink one evening in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta, he had no idea that he was about to put his life at risk. This - to say the least - unusual story shows how even the most experienced traveller can fall prey to the unscrupulous, as Dateline's Chris Hammer reports.
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Wednesday, 27th July,2005
PROFESSOR OWEN HARRIES INTERVIEW
Still on the aftermath of the London bombings, Professor Owen Harries is an Australian intellectual. Once regarded as a conservative, he is now respected on both sides of politics. He is an expert in foreign affairs at the Sydney-based Centre for Independent Studies. In recent times, he's been seriously questioning the actions and policies of the US, as the world's sole superpower. It's rare for Professor Harries to put himself in the television spotlight. But, earlier today - with John Howard just back from Washington, London and Baghdad - he agreed to speak to Dateline about this country's involvement in Iraq.
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Wednesday, 27th July,2005
PRINCE HASSAN OF JORDAN INTERVIEW
Prince Hassan of Jordan - brother of the legendary Hussein - is a leading political voice in the Muslim world. Like his nephew - the current King, Abdullah - Hassan has forged unusually close links with the West and even Israel. Recently though, he's warned that the situation in Iraq has deteriorated into civil war and - at odds, starkly, with the Blairs, Bushes and Howards of this world - he maintains that the London bombers were politically driven. The Prince has been watching as Britain comes to terms with the bombings and George Negus spoke to him late yesterday from London.
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Wednesday, 27th July,2005
THE BEESTON BOYS
The Beeston boys - an intimate meeting with the neighbourhood friends of the young British Muslims named as suicide bombers. After those horrible attacks that left 57 dead, Dateline reporter Sophie McNeill jumped on a plane to the UK and travelled north to Leeds to see if she could throw some light on the whole ugly affair. Armed with just her video camera, lots of determination and journalistic nous, Sophie worked hard to win the confidence of young Muslim locals, who'd previously refused to talk to the media.
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Wednesday, 20th July,2005
THE SHERPAS' BURDEN
Reporter and aspiring mountain climber Jen Peedom with a behind-the-scenes look at the forgotten heroes of the Himalayas - the Sherpas. After weeks becoming acclimatised to Everest's demanding altitude, Jen took up her camera and captured a unique glimpse of the essential role that Sherpas play in helping foreign climbers to make it to the top of the world.
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Wednesday, 20th July,2005
RICARDO LAGOS INTERVIEW
Chilean President Ricardo Lagos is a rare beast - a socialist who's survived and prospered in a post Cold War world that's been moving inexorably to the ideological right. Seen as a natural heir to the violently overthrown president Salvador Allende, Ricardo Lagos took on Chile's notorious General Augusto Pinochet back in the late '80s, publicly criticising the military strongman for what he called Chile's "years of torture, murder and human rights violations". After Lagos won power in 2000, elated crowds took to the streets chanting for political revenge - court action against the ageing Pinochet. But, with the former dictator 89 and unwell, this dark episode in Chile's history is yet to be closed. Last week, President Lagos was here in Australia for a brief state visit, and George Negus caught up with him in Sydney.
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Wednesday, 20th July,2005
THAKSIN'S THAILAND
Thailand's Prime Minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, is the most powerful politician his country has ever seen. Earlier this year, he was re-elected with a massive parliamentary majority. Thaksin has always had a unique style. He's a self-made billionaire who says he wants to run Thailand like a company, casting himself as a firm and decisive CEO. But his crash-through-or-crash approach has recently started to fray. Dateline's Bangkok-based Ginny Stein has been following the fortunes of this intriguing regional player.
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Wednesday, 13th July,2005
GARETH EVANS INTERVIEW
Still on Darfur, but from a different perspective - remember Gareth Evans? How could you forget, you ask, garrulous Gareth, one of this country's most voluble Foreign Ministers? After leaving Australian politics back in 1999, the former senator Evans became the president and chief executive of the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based NGO, whose mission statement is, quote "work to prevent conflict worldwide." Darfur is high on the ICG's list of priorities and last week Gareth Evans sent a strongly worded set of demands on the African crisis to the G8 leaders. George Negus spoke to him from the ICG headquarters in Brussels.
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Wednesday, 13th July,2005
DARFUR'S DIRTY WAR
In the midst of the shocked reaction to the London bombings, it's not been easy to grasp what was finally decided by the G8 gathering of world leaders in Gleneagles. But one thing that did emerge was a 5-point communique on the unrelenting African crisis in Sudan's Darfur region where more than 2 million have been displaced by government forces and pro-government militia.
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Last year, independent English film-maker Philip Cox travelled to Darfur and gave Dateline a rare glimpse of this largely hidden conflict. Recently, Philip - not without considerable risk - returned to Darfur to give Dateline an update on that human disaster. A warning, though - you may find some of what you're about to see disturbing. -
Wednesday, 13th July,2005
AHMED RASHID INTERVIEW
To explore the questions of the so-called new al-Qa'ida and Australia's new troop redeployment to Afghanistan, George Negus spoke earlier from Lahore, in Pakistan, with Ahmed Rashid, a noted writer on Islamic terrorism and the author of two bestsellers on the subject - 'Taliban' and 'Jihad'.
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Wednesday, 13th July,2005
REDEPLOYMENT TO AFGHANISTAN
This time last week, like so many others, here at Dateline were busily previewing the G8 leaders' summit in Gleneagles in Scotland and the high hopes that it held. The focus was on how to eradicate poverty in Africa, but 48 hours later those horrific bomb attacks in London would divert our attention. Once again, global terrorism became our collective preoccupation. In the aftermath of London, the question being asked is, are we now faced with a new brand of terrorism - what some experts are calling a 'new al-Qa'ida'? In this context, is the Howard Government on the mark or not, with it’s decision to send Australian troops back to Afghanistan, a place described by Opposition Leader Kim Beazley again today as "terrorism central".
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Wednesday, 6th July,2005
THAILAND: SOUTHERN BEAT.
Mention the word 'insurgency' these days and the country that invariably comes to mind is, of course, Iraq. But in Datelines final report tonight, Ginny Stein brings us up to date on another deadly conflict that's claimed hundreds of lives over the past two years in Thailand's predominantly Muslim south.
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Wednesday, 6th July,2005
G8: WHERE TO FROM HERE INTERVIEW.
The much-heralded G8 talkfest soon begins in Gleneagles, and earlier this evening, George Negus spoke with author and 'Guardian' newspaper commentator, George Monbiot, in Edinburgh on his way to Gleneagles, and from our Melbourne studio, with noted Australian trade consultant Alan Oxley.
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Wednesday, 6th July,2005
MALAWI: AN AFRICAN TEST CASE
Unless you've been holidaying on Mars recently, you couldn't have possibly missed the massive Live 8 concerts last weekend, let alone those powerful finger-clicking TV ads, that, between them, have managed to put the plight of Africa and indeed, the world's poor in general, well and truly on the agenda. But the real action starts today in Gleneagles in Scotland where the leaders of the world's richest nations, G8, have given themselves three days to pull off the seemingly impossible and "make poverty history", as the two rock'n'rollers Bob Geldof and Bono put it.
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But how do Africans themselves see the problem? We sent reporter Nick Lazaredes to one of the countries right in the eye of the poverty storm, but one not included in the list of 18 nations that last week had their debts cancelled. And after that, two very contrary views on how to tackle what many regard as the most important issue facing the planet.
