JUNE 2006
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Wednesday, 28th June,2006
THE NATIONAL INTEREST?
Back here in Australia, Parliament has introduced some controversial legislation of its own. The new anti-terrorism laws recently introduced by the Howard Government are beginning to bite in the courts. Thom Cookes asks how far do these laws go, and what could they mean for our civil liberties.
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Wednesday, 28th June,2006
INDONESIA - PORNOGRAPHY AND POLITICS
When radical Indonesian cleric Abu Bakar Bashir walked out of his Jakarta jail cell a couple of weeks ago, he called for the immediate introduction of Islamic or sharia law, and he is not alone. Since its foundation, Indonesia has proudly maintained a strongly secular tradition. This appears to be changing rapidly. In the past few years, 20 municipalities have enforced by-laws based on sharia law, and a new bill - the so-called 'anti-pornography bill' - is to be presented to the national parliament in the next few weeks. It could radically alter the nature of Indonesian law and society. Amongst other things kissing in public, short skirts or tight clothes could bring a jail term of up to 10 years. Bronwyn Adcock has more.
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Wednesday, 21st June,2006
PAKISTAN - DOING IT FOR ALLAH
According to US, Australian and Pakistani intelligence services and the UN, they are terrorists. David Hicks, still in Guantanamo Bay, allegedly trained with them, along with a number of Australians. And just two days ago in Sydney another Australian, Faheem Lodhi, was convicted on terrorism-related charges. Well, they may have changed their name these days but the militant Islamic jihadists Laskhar-e-Taiba are still plying their trade right under the noses of both the UN and the Pakistani authorities. Here's Ginny Stein.
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Wednesday, 21st June,2006
KLAUS WOWEREIT INTERVIEW
You don't really think of Berlin and modern buildings and water, do you, but there's actually a lot of both. But a few days ago, across town in what used to be East Berlin, in his office in the Rathaus - the City Hall - I interviewed the Buergermeister of Berlin, Klaus Wowereit. The 51-year-old mayor is one of this country's most influential politicians, in fact as power goes, he's arguably the second or third most powerful politician after Angela Merkel, the new Chancellor-designate herself. Not only that, the left-leaning Social Democrat is gay and, as he puts it, that's OK.
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Wednesday, 21st June,2006
GERMANY'S NEW POWER
In Australia, John Howard provoking a debate on nuclear power, politically motivated or not, has actually forced Australians to think about where they stand on the whole contentious issue of global warming. Here in Germany, they’ve already gone further than anyone in encouraging renewable energy – solar hydro, you name it – but at what cost? And what can we learn from the German experience? Dateline’s Chris Hammer reports.
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Wednesday, 14th June,2006
YUSHCHENKO V TYMOSHENKO
And now to another country dealing with its dark Soviet past - Ukraine. Two years ago that country had its own Orange Revolution that promised a Western-leaning democracy. But after an election in March that revolution soured with its leaders turning on each other, leaving an intriguing young politician, Yulia Tymoshenko, waiting in the wings.
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Wednesday, 14th June,2006
HEINTZE FAMILY INTERVIEW
When the Berlin Wall, that divided Germany into east and west, came crashing down 16 years ago, it was replaced by a new era of hope. A few days ago in Berlin, I met three generations of one former East German family whose lives actually span the entire 38 years of the wall's infamous existence. Grandma, Margarete Heintze, is revelling in her newfound freedom, particularly the freedom to travel abroad. Her son, Gerd, has achieved his dream of a comfortable house in the Berlin suburbs. And grandson, Philip, has embarked on a promising academic career and will soon do postgraduate studies at Oxford. So how do the Heintzes add and subtract the pluses and the minuses of a reunified Germany? How do they compare their life now with the one they led behind the wall? Well, I met with them last weekend, in what was old Berlin, literally in the shadow of the few hundred metres of the wall still standing.
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Wednesday, 14th June,2006
TIMOR GAP WIDENS
Three weeks ago our man David O'Shea got caught right in the middle of the cross-fire in East Timor. He survived that hairy ordeal to tell the tale you are about to see. What the heck is the fracas in East Timor all about? As David tells it, what we are witnessing right now in the world's newest nation, is a good old-fashioned political power struggle.
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Wednesday, 7th June,2006
AFGHANISTAN - BAPTISM OF FIRE
By the end of next month, another 240 Australian troops will be deployed to Afghanistan, bringing the Australian total commitment to 540. All of the troops will be stationed in the south, in the towns of Kandahar and Tarin Kot. It just so happens that this area is the hottest part of a country, rapidly descending into full-scale war. The former rulers, the fundamentalist Taliban, have regrouped and, in the last few months, have launched major attacks against coalition forces on a daily basis. The south is now the most dangerous part of Afghanistan and Dateline's John Martinkus managed to get on the ground there to reveal just what the diggers will be up against.
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Wednesday, 7th June,2006
WEST PAPUA - FLIGHT TO FREEDOM?
West Papua and Papua New Guinea, despite being our nearest neighbours, are places we often turn a blind eye to, you would have to say, at our peril. When those 43 West Papuan refugees arrived on Cape York Peninsula early this year, suddenly politicians here, and in Jakarta, stood up and took notice. In a long list, the granting of temporary protection visas to the West Papuans is up there with Australia's intervention in East Timor as an irritant in our bilateral relationship with Indonesia which, these days, to say the least, is frosty. So cool, in fact, that John Howard will soon visit Indonesia to pacify our giant northern neighbour. That said, what if more boats were to come? What impact would that have? We could soon find out. In his report tonight, Mark Davis joins a group of West Papuans fleeing their homeland - en route to what they believe will be a better life in Australia.
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