FEBRUARY 2007
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Wednesday, 28th February,2007
CHINA'S STRUGGLE STREET
Over the last 10 days, more than a billion Chinese have been celebrating the lunar New Year as their country continues its phenomenal transformation from old communism to free-market capitalism. As this has been happening Dateline has heard a lot about China's new brand of millionaires, but what about those at the bottom of the heap? Chris Hammer went to Shanghai to find out how they're faring.
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Correction: Instead of saying that the Zhangs made "200 yuan - that's about $16", Dateline should have said "200 yuan - that's about $16 each.
The transcript has been amended. -
Wednesday, 28th February,2007
PRIME MINISTER FOUAD SINIORA
Think back about six or seven months, it is pretty hard to forget Fouad Siniora, the Lebanese Prime Minister, publicly breaking down as his people were being killed in large numbers and his country reduced to rubble during that month-long war against the Israelis. These days, as Dateline saw in Sophie McNeill's piece, Lebanon, particularly the capital, Beirut - a la Iraq - looks as though it's teetering on the brink of a civil war between its Sunnis and Shi'ites. Earlier today, George Negus spoke with Prime Minister Siniora from Beirut.
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Wednesday, 28th February,2007
LEBANON - SECTS IN THE CITY
Since that dreadful pounding during last year's 33-day war with Israel, the Lebanese have been battling to literally rebuild their country, especially Beirut, yet again. But of late, their efforts have pretty much come to a screeching halt, with the powerful Shia Muslim organisation Hezbollah - self-proclaimed heroes of the war against the Israelis - again flexing its military and political muscle. Why? Well, Hezbollah accuses the Sunni Muslim Prime Minister Siniora of leading a government that's a "puppet of the Americans". Tit-for-tat, many Sunni Lebanese claim that Hezbollah is simply doing the bidding of Iran. Sophie McNeill went onto the streets of Beirut and found the two Muslim sects facing off in an increasingly deadly confrontation.
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Wednesday, 21st February,2007
PNG - WILD BOARDS
It was in Hawaii in fact - the 51st state of this nation - that the popular sport and pastime of surfing probably originated. But Mark Davis recently discovered that you can find that same go-for-it spirit in a most unlikely surfing location - Papua New Guinea.
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Wednesday, 21st February,2007
RWANDA - QUESTIONS OF MURDER
Now to Ginny Stein's special investigation. Would you believe that it is 13 years now since that genocide that shocked us in Rwanda back in the 1990s. Since then, some of the perpetrators have been brought to justice but, quite incredibly, many others are still roaming free. Recently, Ginny got a tip-off that just had to be followed up, so she did.
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Wednesday, 21st February,2007
REVEREND JESSE JACKSON
There is absolutely no doubt that the rave name in US politics right now is Barack Obama. The cynics here in the national capital refer to the 45-year-old Democratic contender for the White House as the rock star politician. And then suddenly, out of the blue, last week he also became John Howard's worst best friend. So who and what is Barack Obama? Could he be the first non-white American to take up residence in this very familiar piece of real estate behind me? Who better to ask than the still politically very active Jesse Jackson who himself tried to pull off that audacious trick twice back in the 1980s?
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