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Uganda:
Malaria Town
Afganistan:
Child drug addicts
Manila:
The city with too many people
Mexico:
Indians Rebellion
Zimbabwes:
Blood Diamons
Pakistan:
After The Flood
Central
African Republic:Wiches on Trial
India:
Love on the run
Senegal:
School for beggars
Thailand:
Red fever |
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Apac in northern Uganda has been dubbed "the malaria capital of the
world". Its mosquito-infested swamps mean that the town's residents are
like a living blood bank for the insects, with people bitten on average
six times a night. Reporter Oliver Steeds and director Will West find
that the local hospital can't handle the 5,000 malaria patients that
turn up each week and has run out of medicine despite Uganda receiving
£ 20m of antimalarial drugs from the international community. They
discover many of the drugs are sold on the black market. A stark
assessment of the situation comes from the hospital's pharmacist: "If
you can't pay for the drugs, you die." Meanwhile, local farmers are
caught in a hideous bind: spraying crops with mosquito-repelling
insecticide will help save lives, but it also renders their crops
unsellable to European supermarkets.
'Nothing, it seems, is ever simple, and as ever Unreported World made a
fine job of showing us how'
The Guardian
'The first in a new run of the fine foreign affairs strand'
Telegraph
While the world's focus is on the fight against the Taliban, Unreported
World reveals a hidden result of the conflict in Afghanistan: a huge
rise in the number of children addicted to opium and heroin.
Afghanistan is now believed to have the youngest drug addicted
population in the world. Reporter Ramita Navai and director Matt Haan
discover the epidemic is a direct consequence of the war. In Kabul,
children orphaned by the fighting turn to heroin to blot out the
psychological impact of their loss. In shantytowns, refugees from
Helmand feed their wounded children opium to relieve the pain. Navai
also visits families of addicts in the remote mountainous region of
Badakhshan. Here, villagers smoke opium to suppress their appetite.
It's cheaper to buy drugs than food.
'Just when you think you can't be shocked by anything coming out of
Afghanistan anymore, along comes Ramita Navai's documentary’
Independent
'Remarkable’
The Guardian
Manila, the capital of the Philippines, is one of the world's most
overpopulated cities. Reporter Jenny Kleeman and director Richard
Cookson find the Philippine capital stretched to breaking point, with
mothers four to a bed in maternity wards, primary schools with a
thousand children in each year, and graveyards with no more room to
bury the dead. As the world faces an overpopulation crisis, Manila
provides a vision of what might become ordinary in the not too distant
future.
‘Extraordinary scenes…Reporter Jenny Kleeman gets thoroughly involved
as usual - marching bravely into places, spending the night with a
family in a precarious shanty town, doing proper journalism. In a way,
it's a kind of holiday - she's usually in a war zone. I wonder if
Kleeman ever goes on a spa break, or a beach holiday. I hope so.'
The Guardian
'A shocking exploration of where the world is going'
Observer
Reporter Evan Williams and director Alex Nott undertake a dangerous
investigation into a largely unreported conflict in the mountains of
south eastern Mexico. Members of the Triqui Indian community, fed up
with years of conflict and government corruption, are attempting to
break away and set up their own mini state, but locals tell Williams
that those supporting the movement face extreme violence. It's such a
hazardous region that no Mexican journalist will take him there - two
aid workers were recently killed en route - and there are frequent
gunshots in the background as he explains the origins of what is
essentially a bloody, self-contained civil war.
'It's a sobering look at brutality and corruption, and a fascinating
reminder of the courage of journalists like Williams and his director,
Alex Nott'.
The Guardian
Despite claims that all is well in Zimbabwe under the coalition
government, reporter Ramita Navai and director Alex Nott find a country
still gripped by terror and violence when they film undercover to
investigate claims that gems from one of the world's biggest diamond
fields are being used by Robert Mugabe's Zanu PF party to entrench
their hold on power by buying the military's loyalty. This is against a
backdrop of human rights abuses, which victims say are being
perpetrated by the military and the police. Filming covertly, the team
experience a climate of fear reminiscent of the pre-coalition Mugabe
years.
'Mugabe ‘buying army’s loyalty with blood diamonds’ '
Times
The flood waters may have receded but Pakistanis are still dealing with
the devastating consequences of the recent tragedy. Peter Oborne and
director Simon Phillips travel to a devastated Punjabi village to find
that state help is slow or non-existent. Many locals believe the
flooding is not simply a natural disaster, claiming that landlords
manipulated the flow of the Indus to protect their own lands from
flooding, and that officials in charge of defences are either
incompetent or corrupt.
‘Oborne is forthright in his views …there is no doubting his compassion
for the victims of the disaster’
Daily Telegraph
Seyi Rhodes and director Julie Noon report from the Central African
Republic, a country obsessed with black magic, where every year
hundreds of people continue to be attacked, tried and imprisoned for a
crime that is neither defined nor clearly understood. They meet
villagers convinced that one of their number has deliberately turned
into a rat, a snake or a dog in order to commit murder. Since 1960 in
CAR it has been illegal to "use charlatanism and sorcery to harm
others" and so it is that more than half the country's prison
population is made up of so-called "witches".
‘Scandalous and very sad’
The Observer
‘Anyone who believes that the problems of West Africa can be solved by
an act of political will should watch this shocking programme'
Times
As more young couples reject arranged marriages in modern India,
Unreported World investigates a wave of violence that's left hundreds
dead across the country's northwest states.
Reporter Annie Kelly and director Katherine Churcher reveal that,
despite Indian law giving everyone the right to marry who they want,
increasing numbers of young couples are facing death at the hands of
their own families for defying centuries of tradition.
'Another eye-opening documentary from this investigative series.'
Daily Telegraph
‘A shocking first-hand account of a generation struggling to break away
from old customs.’
The Observers
Reporter Seyi Rhodes and director Simon Phillips film in Senegal to
investigate the systematic abuse and exploitation of thousands of
children in the West African country's Islamic schools. Rhodes
discovers many students are forced to beg for money to support the
schools and their teachers - with beatings meted out to those who fail
to hit targets. Starting in Dakar, he meets victims, journalists and
social workers who blame the power of the religious elite and the
breakdown of traditions.
'Terrifyingly harsh childhoods…'
Observer
‘Another shocking story from the global margins..” ’
Sunday Telegraph
Reporter Aidan Hartley and director Matt Haan visit Thailand, a country
sliding towards political disaster following a series of bomb attacks
and violent demonstrations. Hartley travels from Bangkok into the
countryside, where he speaks to the rural power base for the 'Red
Shirts' responsible for many of the attacks. They want to depose the
current political elite: until recently ordinary Thai people have been
unwilling (or afraid) to question their monarch. Now that he lies ill
in hospital, they are starting to speak out and take action.
Executive Producer: Eamonn
Matthews
Series Editor: George Waldrum
Unreported World is a Quicksilver Media Production for Channel 4.
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