The Australian reports Vision Times Media Australia has made a formal complaint to the ABC over what it said was unethical behaviour and defamatory reports linking the company to spiritual group Falun Gong. Vision Times said the ABC had wrongly tied the company to a US publisher of a similar name and secretly recorded conversations, and said the reports on Foreign Correspodent and Background Briefing had endangered the safety of local staff and family members still in China.
Foreign Correspondent producer Bronwen Reed took redundancy from the ABC in late August.
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The show will move to Thursdays in 2021 and share the 8pm timeslot with Back Roads.
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SERIES RETURN
Tuesday 2 February at 8:00pm
Despite global lockdowns and halts to international travel, Foreign Correspondent returns in 2021 to o the world as the ABC’s network of international journalists uncover stories and meet people you won’t see elsewhere.
The multiple award-winning show that has been running since 1992 will bring you more reports from around the globe, highlighting a variety of issues faced by different countries and looking at ways we can learn from them.
Huh? Did the ABC change its mind and keep the show on Tuesday nights?
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Foreign Correspondent 2021 series return
After a wild ride in 2020, our mission is to tell you what’s happening in the world this year, and why.
From political tumult in the US, Asia and eastern Europe, to the global fallout of the pandemic, to water wars in New Zealand and Israel, our teams are working hard to capture the extraordinary events and meet the incredible people shaping our world.
In the US, we take you to the southern state making political history. In Georgia, we hit the road with the community workers who’ve spent years restoring voting rights to the tens of thousands who’ve been dropped from electoral rolls. They helped finish Trump but can they reshape American politics nationally?
In Hong Kong, we meet the activists risking everything to keep democracy alive in the face of China’s threats to crush it. Filmed during a time of mass arrests and political crackdowns, we tell the story of young pro-democracy campaigners sacrificing their freedom, their families and their country for their beliefs.
In the dictatorship of Belarus, it’s a great-grandmother who’s leading the charge for democracy. With many male dissidents in jail, 73-year-old Nina has become the pin-up girl of a dangerous revolution powered by women.
As the pandemic rages on, we travel to Spain with a young reporter returning to her grandparents’ country for the first time, only to find it grappling with a third wave of the virus. Elsewhere, the pandemic is having surprising effects. In beautiful Bali, we explore how the tourist exodus is making the “Island of the Gods” rethink its future.
In the Middle East, our correspondent visits the Dead Sea to unravel the secrets of its vanishing water. Closer to home, in New Zealand, we investigate whether the nation’s dirty waterways are tarnishing the country’s clean, green image.
In Japan, we travel to the Great Wall being built along the north eastern coast. It’s meant to protect villagers from tsunamis but many locals worry it could be putting them in greater danger.
With an expanded season in 2021, we’ll take you to places you can’t go, and bring you the stories you need to know.
Give Us the Ballot
Tuesday 2 February at 8pm
Meet the formidable women in Georgia who fought for democracy and won. They battled generations of racism and voter suppression, inspiring record black voter turnout. Now their sights are set on the American South.
In Foreign Correspondent’s season return, we meet the formidable women in Georgia who fought for democracy and won.
In last November’s presidential elections, black women in the southern US state of Georgia pulled off the unthinkable. They delivered a staunchly conservative state to Democrat Joe Biden.
Their secret? Record voter turnout.
Now they want to do it again in the Senate run-off elections.
“This vote is a hammer and you can use it. Or maybe it’s a flashlight and you can see your way out of this,” says Deborah Scott from Georgia Stand-Up, a non-partisan voting rights group based in the capital Atlanta.
Deborah and her team are part of a movement which has campaigned tirelessly for more than a decade to mobilise minorities to vote.
It’s an uphill battle. Activists believe the state government has been illegally purging tens of thousands off the electoral roll – a tactic they call ‘voter suppression’.
But this just adds fuel to their fire. “The more you suppress us, the more we are coming for you,” says Deborah.
Our US-based reporter Karishma Vyas goes to the Deep South as Deborah and her team gear up for the crucial Senate poll which will decide control of Congress.
We hear from voters who have been purged from the roll, from white militia members who question the validity of their vote, and from the volunteers mobilising young people to turn out like never before.
“It’s been an awakening,” says 25-year-old Georgia Stand-Up organiser Ariel. “It’s a great fearlessness because you feel as though anything is possible.”
In a timely and inspiring story, we see the black women of Georgia successfully turn out record numbers of voters, even as powerful forces conspire to undermine their democratic rights.
For Deborah and her team, this is just the beginning. They have become a new force in US politics.
“As Georgia goes, so does the rest of the South. We see it as a tipping point,” says Deborah Scott.
Poking the Bear
Tuesday 16 February at 8pm
It’s a story Hollywood couldn’t make up. An epic tale of power and brinkmanship, corruption and courage.
In this battle of the titans, two men fight about the future of the world’s largest country, Russia.
One is Alexei Navalny, an anti-corruption campaigner and avowed democrat.
The other is the ruthless strongman – President Vladimir Putin.
In this battle of the titans, Navalny has been poisoned, almost blinded, arrested and jailed. But this isn’t stopping him.
Six months ago, Putin’s fiercest opponent lay on his death bed in a German hospital, poisoned by a nerve agent, a substance made by the Soviet military.
Down but not out, Navalny recovered and on a crazy-brave mission, returned to Russia to keep fighting.
As Navalny was arrested and hauled off to prison, his team upped the stakes, releasing a film documenting the existence of a one and a half billion dollar palace which they say belongs to Putin.
As people across Russia rise up to protest against Putin and his excesses, Navalny’s inner circle are directing operations outside the country.
“The ultimate victory from us would be Russia without Vladimir Putin…because we understand that absolutely the majority of our problems…they come from him personally”, says Maria Pevchikh, who heads up Navalny’s investigations unit.
In this exclusive report, former Russia correspondent Eric Campbell speaks to Navalny’s key advisors to find out what motivates their leader and what their next steps will be.
And we hear from the ordinary people of Moscow who are braving freezing temperatures and police to voice their opposition.
Watch Poking the Bear on Foreign Correspondent - Tuesday 16 February at 8pm on ABC TV + iview. You can catch replays on ABC NEWS channel Thursday at 12:30am, Saturdays at 9:30pm and Sundays at 6:30pm.
https://twitter.com/ForeignOfficial/status/1359073805558140929?s=20
Women of the revolution
Tuesday 23 February at 8pm
“If you’re scared, go home,” says 27-year-old Maria as she heads out on another freezing day to front the police and protest against Belarus’ long-time leader Alexander Lukashenko.
In the lead up to last year’s election, Lukashenko locked up the men who stood against him. The women stood in their place and won huge support in the national vote. But the dictator refused to yield, declaring he’d won by a landslide.
Protests erupted and there were mass arrests of men. Again, the women stepped up and have been protesting ever since.
The revolution’s icon is 74-year-old great-grandmother, Nina Baginskaya. Short but fierce, Nina’s confrontations with policemen almost twice her size have made her a social media star.
“She’s a really inspiring person,” says Maria about Nina. “She’s not scared of anything. She doesn’t give a flying f*** about all of the police and everything.”
Working with local crews, former Russia correspondent Eric Campbell gives us a rare insight into a country where most of the foreign media has been banned.
We meet the ‘president in exile’ Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, now living in Lithuania. She became the main opposition candidate after her activist husband was jailed.
“The government got rid of strong candidates. But they didn’t know every strong man has a strong woman who supports him.”
We visit Nina’s country house, where she sews the banned Belarusian flag, in preparation for another confrontation with the police.
“Evil cannot win, fascism cannot win,” she says.
Maria is arrested and charged and while she has no intention of stopping, she admits the police brutality is taking its toll.
“I don’t remember a day when I didn’t saw [sic] a dream with police,” she says. “I’m dreaming how they enter my apartment, how they detain me. So it’s some kind of huge national trauma.”
Lukashenko’s strategy is to belittle the women.
“Our constitution is not made for a woman,” he says. “Our society hasn’t matured to vote for a woman.”
But it’s not working, and the women just won’t stay at home.
“It’s scary to think of the future but it’s even more scary to think what will happen to us if we will stop”, says Maria.
Watch Women of the Revolution on Foreign Correspondent - Tuesday 23 February at 8pm on ABC TV + iview. You can catch replays on ABC NEWS channel Thursdays at 12:30am, Saturdays at 9:30pm and Sundays at 6:30pm.
The Great Wall of Japan
Tuesday 2 March at 8pm
When a massive tsunami engulfed the north-eastern coastline of Japan a decade ago, it wiped out everything in its path, flattening villages, killing nearly 20,000 people and triggering a nuclear meltdown.
The old seawalls which had been built along the coastline to protect villages and infrastructure offered little protection.
Today, the government’s solution to the next tsunami is to build an even bigger and longer seawall to protect Japan’s coastal communities.
Up to 14 metres high and 400 kilometres long, the new seawall is dividing communities, and some fear, placing them in greater danger.
Presented by former Japan correspondent Mark Willacy, The Great Wall of Japan ravels along the north-eastern coast of Japan’s main island to meet the fishermen and communities affected by one of the country’s biggest ever construction projects.
Oyster farmer Atsushi Fujita has mixed feelings about the wall, saying it’s destroying his community’s livelihood and culture.
“We’re all very sad that our former lifestyle has gone and we can no longer see the ocean from our windows. It’s really affecting us a lot.”
In the village of Akahama, fisherman Hiromi Kawaguchi has galvanised locals against the building of a giant wall. While he lost his wife and mother to the 2011 tsunami, he has no faith a new seawall will protect locals in the event of another great wave.
“In the last tsunami, the old wall was destroyed and its remains were left floating on the surface like cubes of tofu. Everything man-made is destined to be destroyed. It’s inevitable.”
But others support the wall, including construction executive Kazunori Yamamoto, who believes the old seawall saved his family in 2011.
“The breakwater earned us precious time, enabling a lot of people to escape. Without the breakwater, my whole family would have died.”
cientists are divided on the benefits. Some say the wall will slow a tsunami’s advance, allowing more time for people to escape. Others say it will do the opposite, providing a false sense of security, delaying departure and putting people in greater danger.
Some believe the $17 billion spent on the wall’s construction could have been better used moving more communities to higher ground.
As Japan commemorates the tsunami’s 10th anniversary, this is a moving and timely story from the region hardest hit by the 2011 disaster.
Watch Great Wall of Japan on Foreign Correspondent, Tuesday 2 March at 8pm on ABC TV + iview. You can catch replays on ABC NEWS channel Thursdays at 12:30am, Saturdays at 9:30pm and Sundays at 6:30pm.
Tomorrow Will Be Better
Tuesday 9 March at 8pm
Bali’s natural beauty and rich culture have made it a tourist magnet but since COVID19, the island is struggling to stay afloat. Locals are questioning their dependence on tourism and the over-development it has unleashed.
Marcello and the lifeguards of Kuta Beach rise bright and early for their morning meeting and surf sprints. But they know it’s going to be a quiet day. While the iconic beach normally attracts 50,000 visitors a day from around the world, today the head lifeguard expects only 50 people.
“Nobody makes a life on the beach”, says Marcello. “People who sell massage, or merchandise on the beach…I heard they all go back home to their village. It’s a very sad situation.”
It’s a common story across the island, even in its remotest corners. Off Bali’s east coast on the small island of Ceningan, Wayan lost his job at a hotel, and had to return to farming seaweed with his family. It’s the same story across Ceningan.
“Before we had 100 per cent tourism. Now 80 or 90 percent they are doing seaweed farms,” says Wayan who’s had to cop a 75 percent pay cut. “We had no choice but to return to nature.”
But some Balinese see the crisis as an opportunity. “This is a wake-up call for all of us,” says Christia, a young businesswoman. “We realised that we cannot just depend on one industry.”
In this visually stunning story, reporter and cameraman Matt Davis travels around Bali and discovers an island in the midst of some serious soul searching.
He meets locals who are questioning the unhinged development that’s accompanied the tourist boom and who want to chart a different course for the future.
“Bali tourism industry is based on two things, nature and culture,” says rock star Gede Robi, “and we cannot sacrifice them”.
Politicians and businesspeople want to fix the congestion, pollution and rubbish problems and encourage a different type of tourism. One that’s sustainable and benefits locals more.
“I think it’s a good time for reflection this year,” says Christia, “Go back to loving our island and make sure that people don’t abuse our island as well.”
“We hope that when the tourists come back, they are coming with a good energy, they are not littering, with more respect for the local rules,” says Marcello. “Come with a good vibe.”
Watch Foreign Correspondent’s Tomorrow Will Be Better Tuesday 9 March at 8pm on ABC TV and iview, or streaming on Facebook and YouTube.
https://twitter.com/ForeignOfficial/status/1366683447490609152?s=20
Troubled Waters
Tuesday 16 March at 8pm
It’s a toxic brew of dirty water and big business. And it’s jeopardising New Zealand’s ‘100% pure’ clean, green image.
New Zealand’s pristine landscapes and stunning vistas have made it a magnet for tourists and film directors. Its dairy exports have taken the world by storm.
But behind this success story lies a shocking reality. New Zealand has some of the most polluted rivers in the developed world.
Scientists blame the ‘white gold rush’ - the rapid expansion of the country’s hugely successful dairy industry, worth around $15 billion a year.
In a visually stunning report, correspondent Yaara Bou Melhem travels to the South Island of New Zealand to investigate an issue which is dividing communities.
There she finds rivers contaminated with high levels of nitrogen, run-off from intensive dairy farming practices.
In some cases, this run-off causes toxic algae blooms posing a danger to people and animals. It can make rivers un-swimmable.“When you have excessive nutrients and sediments coming into the system, these blooms can really take off,” says freshwater ecologist and local councillor Lan Pham. “It just fuels this disconnection with the river.”
The Ardern government, which was re-elected in a landslide last year, has promised to clean up.
“I want our waterways to be swimmable again,” said Ardern in the lead up to last year’s election. “We’re putting in place standards that…stop the degradation.”
The government has introduced limits on the level of nitrates allowed in freshwater but these reforms have left no-one happy. Ecologists warn they’ve set the level too high and that this could be damaging to life in the rivers.
Many farmers claim the levels are set too low and will destroy the dairy industry.
“We will have a dislocation of thousands upon thousands of people,” warns South Island dairy farmer John Sunckell.
“Do we want to get rid of agriculture? It becomes that blunt with the numbers.”
New Zealand’s wealthiest Maori tribe has stepped into the stalemate. The Ngai Tahu, whose territory spans a huge swathe of the South Island, has filed a landmark high court claim over the freshwater systems in its tribal lands.
“There’s been a failure of government, there’s been a failure of the market and the only one standing with any credibility on this is the Maori,” says the lead claimant in the case, Dr Tau.
It’s a huge battle over this most precious natural resource - freshwater - and there’s no end in sight.
Watch Troubled Waters on Foreign Correspondent - Tuesday 16 March at 8pm on ABC TV + iview. You can catch replays on ABC NEWS channel Thursdays at 12:30am, Saturdays at 9:30pm and Sundays at 6:30pm.
https://twitter.com/ForeignOfficial/status/1369220665551765504?s=20
Into the Outbreak
Tuesday 23 March at 8.00pm
A flamenco dancer with no stage, a restauranteur with no customers, a young woman who wouldn’t mind catching COVID and a young doctor pushed to the limit.
These are the people a young Australian reporter encounters when she moves to Spain, the country of her ancestors, in the midst of its worst upheaval since the civil war.
Spain has been hit hard by the pandemic. Over 70,000 people have died, it’s endured three waves of the virus and many lockdowns.
Australian Lily Mayers wants to find out how the famously sociable Spanish are coping with the crisis.
Filmed over six months, Into the Outbreak paints an intimate portrait of a country and people under pressure, struggling to survive through a once-in-a-lifetime crisis.
In the tourist town of Barcelona, Helena, a successful restauranteur, is fighting to keep her business afloat. She’s had to close down two restaurants, let go of 20 staff and is now relying on charity for school fees.
“Many businesses like me are going to die. It’s impossible to survive,” she says. “I think it’s time for me to stop fighting and reconsider my business.”
Karime is one of Spain’s most famous flamenco dancers. Now she’s at home with no stage, no audience and little income.
“Never before in my life have I had such a hard time,” she says. “I’ll never forget this time. It’s so tough.”
Mayers meets a group of young people who are happy to risk catching coronavirus so they can keep going out.
“We have to enjoy ourselves, but with a level of consciousness of course, but we have to enjoy our life,” says Elena.
In Madrid, Susana, a young doctor, feels like she’s been in a war zone.
“I cry on the subway, cry with my friends, with my parents,” she says. “We’ve found ourselves so overwhelmed we didn’t want to accept it any longer.”
But despite the hardship, all are managing to adapt and survive.
Karime begins to help other artists in need. Susana starts an industrial campaign to improve doctors’ working conditions. Elena catches COVID. And Helena creates a new business.
“In this terrible pandemic, where people are losing jobs and family members and just everything is going wrong, the Spaniards have inside of them, this amazing way of just … enjoying the moment,” says Helena.
https://twitter.com/lilymayers/status/1371766286800318468
This episode is the mid-season finale. The show will return later in 2021.
Season Return – Brand New Timeslot
Thursday 3 June 8.00pm
With COVID lockdowns easing, our team of correspondents are back in the field again bringing you the stories you need to know from around the world in a brand new timeslot.
From the US, Sarah Ferguson brings us an exclusive - the powerful story of a mother, separated from her children under Trump’s immigration policies, reuniting with her children after four years
apart.In Northern Ireland, UK correspondent Sam Hawley reports on how Brexit is reigniting old tensions and threatening a fragile peace.
We go inside Mexico’s biggest drug cartel and explore how their power and influence extends from the lowest to the highest levels of society and government.
Reporter Eric Campbell heads to Spain to report on that country’s transformation into a renewable
energy powerhouse.
In Africa, correspondent Linton Besser investigates how the West’s obsession with fast fashion is creating toxic clothes mountains.Bill Birtles presents a stunning two-part series with extensive access inside China to investigate its ‘tech war’ against America.
And in a visually stunning story from the Middle East, Eric Tlozek unravels the mysteries of the disappearing Dead Sea.
Production credits: Exec Producer – Matthew Carney; Series Producer – Lisa McGregor.
https://twitter.com/ForeignOfficial/status/1392750711159488515?s=20
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According to The Australian, it was the ABC’s general programming department which suggested that Foreign Correspondent be moved to Thursday nights to build up a “news fortress” with Q+A. Foreign Correspondent would get a five-month uninterrupted run from June.
Road to Reunion
Thursday 3 June at 8pm
In a world TV exclusive, Sarah Ferguson reports on the fallout of a brutal US immigration policy that tore families apart. She tracks the journey of one mother seeking to reunite with her children after four painful years alone.
“I begged them to please not take my mum. I told them that it would be better if they deported us to Mexico instead of separating her from me, but they told me…that I had to say goodbye.”
It was condemned as cruel and inhumane. But before the US courts struck it down, Trump’s policy of separating children from their parents at the US-Mexico border did its work. Over 5000 children were removed. While many children stayed in the US, hundreds of parents were deported.
Four years later, some families are finding each other again.
In a Foreign Correspondent exclusive, Sarah Ferguson tells the powerful story of the first family to reunite since President Biden took office.
The family of Honduran mother Keldy Gonzales Brebe was one of the first to be caught up in a secretive US immigration program run in 2017. Its aim was to deter would-be migrants by separating parents from children.
When Keldy crossed the US border into New Mexico in 2017, immigration officials separated her from her two sons, aged 13 and 15.
“They told us they were going to separate us from her, that they were going to take us to a juvenile detention centre. I begged the immigration officers to let us go with her, but they said…I had to be separated from her,” says Keldy’s son Patrick, now 19.
“From there I lost so many things from not seeing my children. I lost seeing their adolescence. I couldn’t be with them for four years,” Keldy tells Foreign Correspondent.
For four years, Keldy marked time in Mexico. Then, with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), she received the news she’d been waiting for.
We follow Keldy from Mexico to Philadelphia, where her children now live, for the unforgettable scenes of mother and child reunion.
We follow her story to Honduras to understand why she fled her home country, meet her family and friends on the Caribbean Coast and see first-hand the brutal violence that drove her to leave.
After organising the execution of her brother, the notorious Honduran gang MS-13 threatened to kill Keldy too.
We speak to lawyer Lee Gelernt from the ACLU who fought Trump’s immigration policy in the courts and is now helping to bring families back together.
“I wanted to be here to see this first reunification,” says Gelernt. “I think you can’t really understand until you see it.”
Watch Road to Reunion on Foreign Correspondent at a new time of Thursday 3 June at 8pm on ABC TV + iview. You can watch replays on Fridays at 1pm (local) on ABC TV, and on ABC NEWS channel on Fridays at 12:30am, Saturdays at 9:30pm, Sundays at 1:30pm and 6:30pm (all times AEST).
https://twitter.com/ForeignOfficial/status/1398085362392518661?s=20
The Sinking Sea
Thursday 10 June at 8:30pm
For millennia, its waters healed the faithful. Today they’re the source of conflict and tension. Eric Tlozek takes us on a spectacular journey through an ancient land to unravel the mysteries of the disappearing Dead Sea.
“This is a symbol of what man can do to the nature, without even knowing that he’s doing it.”
It’s the lowest place on earth. A sea in the middle of a desert. Fed by the waters of the Jordan River, nestled on the borders of Israel, Jordan and the West Bank, the Dead Sea has supported life and provided spiritual healing for millennia.
But today the Dead Sea is disappearing, its waterline receding year by year. And the fight over this diminishing resource is fueling tensions between Palestinians and Israelis.
In a visually stunning story, correspondent Eric Tlozek travels through this ancient land to unravel the mysteries of this vanishing sea.
Upstream in the Jordan Valley, the waters which feed into the Dead Sea have been diverted for agriculture and now there’s not enough to go around.
Zeyad, whose family lives in the Jordan Valley, says Palestinian farmers aren’t getting their fair share of water.
“They have a very big shortage of water. The water allocated for this village actually is less than 50% of the needed water.”
David, an Israeli farmer, says the Jewish settlers have used the water well, making an arid land productive and fertile.
“When we came to the Jordan Valley, we found a desert,” says David, a spokesperson for Jewish settlers in the West Bank. “Nothing was growing here. So now the Jordan Valley is green.”
Downstream, as a result of less water, the landscape around the Dead Sea is being dramatically transformed and is collapsing in on itself. It’s creating a strange phenomenon - ‘sinkholes’.
Highways which once teemed with traffic are now buckled and broken. Holiday resorts which once hosted families are abandoned and ruined.
“It’s a spectacular landscape that developed in a few years,” says an Israeli government geologist.
Meanwhile, the faithful still believe in the waters’ healing powers even though the water they bless now comes from sewage pipes.“Once the water of the river is blessed…anyone that has any kind of pain or any kind of bad feelings he can wash himself with this water and he can be healed,” says an Armenian Orthodox priest.
There’s debate about schemes which could halt the sea’s decline but there’s little political will.
“Who will pay the price for this water?” asks one geologist.This is an epic journey through a land with a rich history, a troubled present and an uncertain future.
“If our children will say that they wanted to save it, they can’t even do it because it’s too late. Everything that’s happening here, it’s because of us,” says Carmit, an Israeli hydrologist.
Watch The Sinking Sea on Foreign Correspondent – Thursday 10 June at 8pm on ABC TV + iview. You can watch replays on Fridays at 1pm (local) on ABC TV, and on ABC NEWS channel on Fridays at 12:30am, Saturdays at 9:30pm, Sundays at 1:30pm and 6:30pm (all times AEST).
https://twitter.com/lisa_gregor/status/1401792172320456710?s=20
Troubled Land
Thursday 17 June at 8:00pm
It’s called ‘the British betrayal’. Great Britain promised Brexit wouldn’t lead to the creation of a new border between the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland. It broke that promise.
Now the province’s Loyalists – those welded to the union with Great Britain – are feeling abandoned.
“It’s almost as if we have to be ashamed of being British citizens, ashamed of our heritage and ashamed of our identity”, says one Loyalist activist.
In the two decades since the Good Friday Agreement, Northern Ireland has kept a fractious peace but many are now wondering if this peace will hold.
“What we’ve witnessed over the past five to ten years especially is a more divisive, dividing political community”, says James, a social worker. “It’s about celebrating battles, it’s about celebrating death…conflict and rebellion.”
ABC London Bureau Chief Samantha Hawley reports from Northern Ireland where Catholic and Protestant communities are still deeply divided and traumatised by ‘the Troubles’ – the blood-stained civil war that tore Northern Ireland apart for three decades, from the 1960s.
Recently, sectarian riots broke out in Belfast, provoked by the new sea border.
“The whole area was completely filled by police in riot gear…and we had petrol bombs and everything,” says one local, who had to move his children out of the area to safety.
Across the capital, the so called ‘Peace Walls’ erected during the Troubles still play an important role in keeping hostile communities apart.
Also disturbing is the emergence of shadowy new paramilitary groups – small but violent.
Two years ago, one of these groups – ‘the New IRA’ - killed young reporter Lyra McKee who was on the streets of Londonderry during a riot.
“They’re criminals who wear a mask of Irish republicanism to try and hide the fact that they’re criminals,” says Lyra’s sister Nichola. “In some parts of Northern Ireland, even to this day, that sort of belief system gives them legitimacy.”
But the younger generation is determined to break free of the past. Many of the so-called ‘peace babies’ believe that ending social disadvantage is the key to breaking the grip of the paramilitaries.
“If we’re seriously tackling division, we need to tackle it head on…and operate on the growth of poverty,” says Josh, a Belfast student.
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American Deepfake
Thursday 24 June at 8pm
A new generation of “deepfake” videos has got Hollywood excited … and Washington worried. They’ve got the potential to change reality as we know it.
Deepfakes are synthetic media created by Artificial Intelligence - technology that can make real people say and do things they never actually did.
This week, reporter Hamish Macdonald does a deep dive into an emerging technology with explosive potential.
Until recently, deepfakes videos were mostly a staple of the dark web, their subject matter mainly porn.
Now the technology is coming out of the shadows and into the mainstream.
In Bangkok, we meet a video effects expert with a reputation as one of the world’s best deepfakers, who recently created a Tom Cruise TikTok video - that wasn’t Tom Cruise.
“I see the creative possibilities,” deepfaker Chris tells Foreign Correspondent. “I think we’re coming to a point where everything is synthetic, especially in the movie industry.”
“I think it’s a good thing I created these videos, because now I’m raising awareness and (people) realize… this is real…it’s coming!”
TikTok Tom was so convincing, he beat nearly all the latest deepfake detection technology, racking up millions of online views and becoming a global AI sensation.
But some US security experts see him as a harbinger of dangers to come, a technology that can now be weaponised; fake politicians declaring war…fake CEOs triggering the collapse of financial markets.
In Washington, we meet a former CIA officer, now a lawyer advising corporate America on how to combat the rising tide of digital disinformation.
“I think that we’ve only really started to scratch the surface of the bad things that can happen because of deepfakes,” says Matt. “In the national security context, there’s no end to the nightmare scenario.”
Recently the FBI issued an unprecedented warning to business and financial markets, declaring that that it was “…almost certain’ that in the next 12 – 18 months, (they) would be the victims of synthetic media (attacks).”
“I think deepfakes play into the hands of anybody, any state sponsor, any institution that wants to create confusion or deceive,” says Mounir, a former US diplomat, once based in Syria, where he attempted to visually distil fact from fiction.
So will TikTok Tom, born of neural networks and machine learning, be harnessed and regulated, to entertain us? - or will he usher in a real-world version of Hollywood’s “dystopian future”? Stay tuned.
Watch American Deepfake on Foreign Correspondent – Thursday 24 June at 8pm on ABC TV + ABC iview. You can watch replays on Fridays at 1pm (local) on ABC TV, and on ABC NEWS channel on Fridays at 12:30am, Saturdays at 9:30pm, Sundays at 1:30pm and 6:30pm (all times AEST).
Clash of the Titans (2 parts)
Part 1: Thursday 1 July at 8pm
This month China celebrates the centenary of the ruling Communist Party.
The CCP boasts it has delivered unprecedented prosperity to its citizens but under President Xi Jinping relations with rival superpower, the US, have sunk to a near all-time low.
Presented by China correspondent Bill Birtles, this timely two-part series gains special access to both nations to explore the deeper forces pushing US-Chinese relations to the brink.
The escalating trade war between the two countries, the bitter war of words over China’s human rights abuses against the Uyghur minority and the crushing of democracy in Hong Kong are all current flashpoints in the conflict.
But what are the historical causes underlying this widening rift?
We go inside China to hear about the ‘Century of Humiliation’ - a period during which a weakened, imperial China was colonised and exploited by mainly Western powers.
'We must all try our utmost to avoid any war", says cultural bureaucrat Yan He. “But if it comes to that, you must act in self-defence. You must protect what is yours.”
The sacking of the old Summer Palace by British and French forces during the Opium Wars has become a cautionary tale for Chinese school children.
“This is evidence that if China falls behind, we will be beaten up”, says author Karoline Kan. “The lesson for many Chinese is that we must develop the country and be self-reliant.”
In America, we look at how the loss of manufacturing jobs to China and economic decline in the “rust belt” states has led to an increase in poverty.
The Trump presidency ramped up the belief that China was the cause of America’s economic woes, also blaming China for the COVID pandemic, which caused the deaths of over half a million people.
“There is no end in sight in terms of the damage to the economy … China is a convenient scapegoat”, says Yukon Huang, a former World Bank executive.
Equally China has been whipping up anti-American sentiment, accusing it of meddling in Hong Kong and Taiwan, and trying to block its rise to superpower status.
“We will not move to the beats of villains and not put up with their wickedness”, says China’s Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, Le Yucheng, in a rare interview.
President Biden is increasing the pressure too. “We’re in competition with China…to win the 21st century”, he declared.
The tensions between the Titans are set to escalate.
https://twitter.com/ForeignOfficial/status/1408011147685490692
Part 2: Thursday 8 July at 8pm
By the end of this decade, China is expected to take over America as the world’s biggest economy.
The rivalry between the world’s two biggest superpowers has never been more intense.
“China and other countries are closing in fast. We have to develop and dominate the products and technologies of the future,” warns US President Joe Biden.
Both countries are still reeling from the fallout of the trade war. When Trump slapped a tariff on a list of Chinese imports in 2018, China responded tariffs on American products.
Presented by Bill Birtles, this second episode of Clash of the Titans explores the emerging, critical battleground of technology.
Traditionally the US has had the edge here, home to the most successful and innovative tech companies such as Facebook, Google, Tesla and Apple.
But China is catching up fast, investing heavily in such areas as robotics, Artificial Intelligence, 5G and 6G and surveillance technologies.
“In these difficult situations under sanctions, we still shipped 240 million smartphones, and became the world’s second largest smartphone maker,” says the CEO of Huawei.
The US has long accused China of stealing of its intellectual property, of copying not innovating.
But in Shenzhen, the Silicon Valley of China, the energy and creativity is on full display. China is now filing more patents that the US, many coming from the start-ups in Shenzhen.
“The common misconception of China is that it’s a big factory,” says US entrepreneur Garrett Winther. “In reality there’s a lot of expertise, knowledge, understanding.”
English engineer Xiong Chang, who’s developing a robot to help farmers kill weeds, says the speed with which things happen in Shenzhen gives him a huge business advantage.
If he needs a spare part, he can get it ‘in hours rather than waiting days.’
“It’s really true what they say. A month in Shenzhen is similar to four months anywhere else.”
The US is fighting to stay in the race, with President Biden supporting a bill which will invest in billions in technology research and the semiconductor industry.
“As other countries continue to invest in their own research and development, we cannot risk falling behind. America must maintain its position as the most innovative and productive nation on earth.”
“The US tried many times to contain and impose sanctions on China. We have not only survived but also thrived. And our way forward is brighter yet,” says Le Yucheng, China’s Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs.
https://twitter.com/ForeignOfficial/status/1410547227077099525
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Nomadland
Thursday 15 July at 8pm
Mongolia’s nomadic herders are as tough as they get. For centuries, the herders and their livestock have survived the harsh environment of the steppes – where summers are scalding and winter temperatures plummet well below freezing.
Now they’re facing the new and unpredictable threat of climate change. There’s less water and less fodder for grazing and with less food, the animals are struggling to survive through the harsh winters.
Presented by Eric Campbell, this visually stunning program tells the story of how these resilient people are adapting to a changing climate.
As summers get hotter and dryer, winters have become the biggest killers.
In 2010 nearly a quarter of the country’s livestock perished when temperatures plunged to minus 50 amid gale force winds.
Mongolians have a name for this white death: they call it ‘dzud’.
We spend time with the Soyolporev family who breed goats, cows and horses to make cashmere, milk and cheese.
“In the year 2000, there was so little grass in the country that millions of heads of livestock died. That year, I lost half of my 300 animals. 2003 was difficult too, and 2010 was catastrophic”, says Mr Soyolporev.
Mongolia’s National Agency for Meteorology says climate change is making dzuds the new normal.
“Previously, these only happened roughly every ten years”, says one scientist. But now, ‘in the central steppes, dzuds occur three to four times a decade, while in the snowy regions they happen four to six times a decade.”
To find a better life, many nomads are fleeing to the capital where they live in the slums on the outskirts of the city.
The members of global hit band The Hu are using their music – a fusion of traditional throat singing and Heavy Metal - to draw attention to the herders’ plight and calling for the country to preserve its nomad culture.
“We are scared of losing our culture and the heritage of our ancestors. Our national identity is entirely dependent on nomad culture”, says one band member.
https://twitter.com/ForeignOfficial/status/1413083438635159560?s=20
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Cartel Country
Thursday 22 July at 8pm
In Mexico’s Sinaloa state, violence has become a way of life.
Home to the country’s most powerful drug syndicate, the Sinaloa cartel, murders and disappearances are rife.
The police, meant to protect the population, are often the targets of violence. Over 500 officers were killed in Mexico last year.
They’re also often complicit, with corruption in the police force and government a major problem.
In this shocking portrait of a country caught in the grip of organised crime, reporter Ben Zand takes us where few have gone – inside the Sinaloa cartel in the Sierra Madre mountains where he witnesses the group’s operations up close.
From their hidden base, the group grows poppies and marijuana for export, fends off outsiders with guns and bribes visiting police and security officers with money and women.
“The government is the one in charge” say the local leader. “The cartel is only as big as the government wants us to be.”
A gun-wielding 13-year-old says that the violence stems from the drug trade. “If there weren’t any drugs people wouldn’t be killing each other over them.”
Commentator Ioan Grillo believes that the police and military used to have the upper hand with the cartels but says that’s now changed.
“Some of the cartels have become much more powerful,” says Grillo. “[now] the cartel is actually bullying and controlling elements of the security forces.”
It’s the community who’s paying the price for corruption and impunity.
Mirna Quiñones’ son disappeared suddenly seven years ago. When police refused to help her, she set out to find him herself.
She went on to set up the Trackers of El Fuerte group which helps parents looking for their children. In the last six years of searching, they’ve uncovered over two hundred bodies.
“There is no justice. We all know that. I have been threatened by the municipal police here. The government and crime are united.”
Interior Minister, Olga Sánchez Cordero, concedes there is corruption. “The trials, and the investigations, are deficient”, she says. “Lawyers are threatened. Judges are threatened. That is just the reality.”
But she maintains the government is doing its best to investigate the cartels and to undermine their support base.
Investigative journalist Anabel Hernández disagrees, saying she has no faith that the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, elected two and half years ago, will tackle the problem.
“He promised to do something different but….it’s just the same. Nothing changed. In some parts it’s worse."
Watch Cartel Country on Foreign Correspondent – Thursday 22 July at 8pm on ABC TV + ABC iview. You can watch replays on Fridays at 1pm (local) on ABC TV, and on ABC NEWS channel on Fridays at 12:30am, Saturdays at 9:30pm, Sundays at 1:30pm and 6:30pm (all times AEST).