AUGUST 2007
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Wednesday, 22nd August,2007
IRAQ'S DEATH VALLEY
Earlier this year with great fanfare, George W. Bush as US commander-in-chief ordered an extra 30,000 American troops into Iraq. They were meant to spearhead his controversial surge strategy, with his initial efforts concentrated in Baghdad. Faced with this sudden hike in American troop numbers, insurgents in the city fled. The US military says they're now largely hold up in the Diyala River Valley in the so-called Sunni triangle to the battered Iraqi capitals east. Just a couple of weeks back, John Martinkus, on his first visit to Iraq since he was kidnapped there three years ago, got himself embedded with the Americans in what John quite justifiably describes as death valley.
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Wednesday, 22nd August,2007
DINO DOLLARS
With American farmers doing it tough in the drought, something farmers here in Australia can definitely relate to, some of them have come up with a novel, albeit controversial way to make a buck. Dino dollars is how reporter Ginny Stein teasingly describes their money-making plan.
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Wednesday, 22nd August,2007
ROBERT REICH INTERVIEW
The political bind that the Bush Administration is in is also becoming increasingly negative with the Republicans themselves squabbling over the need for an exit strategy. Recently in this country on a speaking engagement was Professor Robert Reich, formally a senior member of the Clinton Administration and now a sought after International commentator, and George Negus spoke with him from Adelaide, starting by asking him how come Iraq was such a boiling issue in the US right now but pretty much off the political radar here in Australia.
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Wednesday, 22nd August,2007
JOHN MARTINKUS INTERVIEW
John Martinkus embedded with a bunch of obviously war-weary Americans on the Iraqi front line. Since John filmed, seven of the guys in that 82nd Airborne unit have gone very public with their stories in the International Herald Tribune. Among other things, they say claiming US troops are winning the war isfar-fetched, and to suggest they were in control of the battlefields in Iraq was a flawed American Senate assessment.
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Wednesday, 15th August,2007
THE GOD PARTICLE
A few hundred feet below the mountains of France and Switzerland a gigantic and quite mind-boggling experiment is under construction to resolve one of the great unanswered questions of science. What gives matter its mass? By generating conditions similar to those that existed moments after the Big Bang a horde of some of the world's smartest scientists are hoping to locate what some scribes have called the God particle and through it, understand how the universe was born. Aaron Lewis visited their European site to see if they could explain it.
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Wednesday, 15th August,2007
IMRAN KHAN INTERVIEW
Pakistan is in political turmoil. Far from the dream of peace and harmony of its traumatic birth as a separate Muslim identity back in 1947, for six decades Pakistan has been an unholy mess that many fear with India remains a time bomb waiting to explode. Even as it rumbles towards a national election later this year, a military dictator ship under Pervez Mushareff since 1989, it's recent history has been punctuated by rising Muslim extremism. Some see it
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as the nursery of anti-western terrorism. Huge street protests against the increasingly unpopular dictator, the judicial backlash and threats of military intervention by its long time ally the US, if Pakistan won't take out al-Qaeda, it will or make for a particularly volatile mix. Now there is serious talk after a power sharing deal between Mushareff and the self exile former Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto. Acknowledged as one of world cricket's greatest ever all-rounders, Imran Khan is no slouch when it comes to politics. These days he is an MP and leader of his own Movement for Justice party. Lately he has been extremely vocal on his country's precarious future so George Negus spoke to the legendary Lion of Lahore from Islamabad. -
Wednesday, 15th August,2007IT'S NOT CRICKET
Here in Australia the race is on for the annual football finals but in cricket-mad Pakistan, even on that troubled nation's 60th birthday, the talk is about their new cricket coach,
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the former Australian Test bowler, Geoff Lawson. Lawson takes over from the late Bob Woolmer,the English man who died earlier this year in controversial circumstances, during cricket’s
World Cup in Jamaica. Initially local police declared Woolmer had been murdered and the international media went into a frenzy of speculation that his death was connected
somehow with persistent allegations of match fixing that swirled around the Pakistani team for years. Woolmer was later found to have died of natural causes. Even before Geoff Lawson has arrived in Pakistan, he too, is confronted by the match fixing allegations that simply refuse to go away. -
Wednesday, 8th August,2007
ISHMAEL BEAH INTERVIEW
In the West African nation of Sierra Leone, a special court recently found three members of the rebel armed forces guilty of war crimes. They each got 50 year sentences for the recruitment and use of child soldiers. The first convictions metered out by the UN backed tribunal for a hideous practice that's rife in conflicts around the world. Former child soldier Ishmael Beah is one of the lucky ones. He made it through the Sierra Leone conflict alive. His best selling memoir tracks his path to becoming, at 13, a drug-fuelled killer. Since his rehabilitation he has become something of a global poster boy for the UN and the whole issue. George Negus talked with Ishmael from New York along with Jo Becker, the Children's Rights Advocacy Director of International Body, Human Rights Watch.
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VIDEO: Watch the video here -
Wednesday, 8th August,2007
WHIRLING DERVISH
Recep Erdongan won a resounding victory in the Turkish elections. Throughout the campaign, Erdongan’s opponents tried to label him as a pro-Islamist likely to abandon Turkey’s traditional secular state. Interestingly, the tension between Islam and secularism in Turkey is reflected in an age old local tradition, the whirling Dervishes. The Dervishes of course have long been a tourist icon but as Mark Davis found out on his recent visit, they are quite hypnotic rituals place them at odds with both the Turkish Government and other Turkish Muslims.
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Video: Watch the video here] -
Wednesday, 8th August,2007FIJI: AFTER THE COUP
Cast your mind back for a moment. When troops took over the streets of the Fijian capital of Suva a collective groan went up around the south Pacific. This was, after all, Fiji's fourth military coup in 20 years. This time around when the army seized power they promised Fijians an end to corruption and what they saw as endemic racism in the island nation. But seven months on, don't bother scanning the media for coverage of life under the Fijian coup because there has been precious little. That was the case until Dateline’s Bronwyn Adcock travelled there last month.
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Wednesday, 1st August,2007
THE NUCLEAR RENAISSANCE
About 20 years ago, it would have been almost impossible to imagine nuclear reactors being seen as potential world savers. Back then of course the catastrophes of Chernobyl and Three Mile Island were fresh in our minds. Concepts like global warming certainly weren't. Now there is a nuclear plant building boom under way and John Howard of course is highly enthusiastic about the nuclear option. That said, even with the newest technology, nuclear is hardly a totally fail-safe option. The nuclear research reactor at Lucas Heights in Sydney was shut down for repairs after three uranium fuel plates came loose. For the latest on the pros and cons for the still contentious nuclear option, we sent reporter Aaron Lewis off on a whip around the world.
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Wednesday, 1st August,2007
DAVID O'SHEA INTERVIEW
Dateline contacted Peter Russo, Mohamed Haneef's in India. Mr Russo was emphatic that Dr Haneef had no link with al-Qaeda and during his record of interview, from memory, the word “al-Qaeda had” not been used. So what is this three and a half bit page document all about? How did David O'Shea come about it, and what, if any significance does it have?
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VIDEO: David O'Shea interview -
Wednesday, 1st August,2007AT HOME WITH MRS HANEEF
How many more twists and turns can there be in the case of Dr Mohamed Haneef? Material released by Kevin Andrews justifying his revoking of Haneef’s visa has been rubbished by his legal team. But federal police commissioner Mick Keelty said further charges could yet be recommended against Dr Haneef and a second Indian doctor interrogated last month remained a person of interest to investigators. Back in his home town of Bangalore, Haneef himself is now openly campaigning to get his visa back, holding press conferences and accusing the Howard Government of a conspiracy against him. As the story developed here in Australia spare a thought for Haneef's wife, Firdous back in India with a new born baby and wondering what might become of her husband. Dateline journalist David O'Shea was with Mrs Haneef in Bangalore. Apart from meeting the family, David came across an intriguing document.
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VIDEO: At home with Mrs Haneef
