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4 Episodes 2002 - 2003
Episode 1
Thu, May 23, 2002 60 mins
Topics include suicide bombing in Sri Lanka; arms trafficking in Sierra Leone; and the arrival of television in Bhutan (it was only several years ago). According to series editor Stephen Talbot: "We see what happens when young Buddhist monks watch the World Wrestling Federation."
Episode 2
Thu, Oct 31, 2002 60 mins
This "Frontline" offshoot opens its season with reports on Cambodia's Khmer Rouge; the value of Dracula to Romanians; and efforts by one Indian computer executive to close the digital divide. In Cambodia, one-time Khmer Rouge officials control a town near the Thai border, but there's nothing socialist about it. Rather, says series editor Stephen Talbot, "it's a low-rent Vegas." Next, writer Andrei Codrescu explores efforts to market the legend of the 15th-century bloodsucking count to Western tourists. Then, New Delhi exec Sugata Mitra is seen installing computers in public places in poor neighborhoods. Kids, he has found, teach themselves how to use them.
Episode 3
Thu, Nov 7, 2002 60 mins
Topics include executions (and freedom of movement for journalists) in Iraq and the civil war in Colombia. In "Truth and Lies in Bagdhad," British newspaper reporter Sam Kiley probes reports that Iraqi women have been publicly beheaded. But Kiley's story, says series editor Stephen Talbot, is also about "how much intimidation and censorship [Kiley] encounters." Then, in "Colombia's Oil War," London-based producer Saira Shah, explores how an oil pipeline co-owned by the Colombian government and U.S.-based Occidental Petroleum is "feuling the three-sided civil war" there, Talbot says.
Episode 4
Thu, Jan 16, 2003 60 mins
Included: a report on Nigeria in the wake of the November 2002 Miss World fiasco and the controversy over the death sentence given to a woman convicted of adultery under the Islamic Shariah law imposed in the northern part of the country. Reporters Alexis Bloom and Cassandra Herrman interview the woman, Amina Lowal, and visit the northern city of Kaduna just as rioting that eventually killed 200 people was taking place. Also: the BBC's Ben Anderson tours North Korea, accompanied by two ever-mindful (if unthreatening) government "minders"; and Public Radio International's Marco Werman explores Iceland's pop-music scene to determine "why it's so hot," as series editor Stephen Talbott puts it. Werman follows a group known as the Operat Organ Quartet (it's actually a quintet).