Somalia has the perfect ecosystem for endless war: European mercenaries, pirates, Al Qaeda jihadists, weapon smugglers, drought and hunger. We enter an absurd, anarchic reality where warlords will switch allegiances to gain security and stability, again to make profit and perhaps again for religious conviction.
Where do the soul-searching images of the First World War come from? Not merely telling the war, but seeing it, showing it in flesh and blood: this is what graphic novels offer us today. Exploring archives and history, the authors in this program converse with the depth of Time. They make First World War live again in our imagination: their drawings are more than strokes. These major artists have made the War the main subject of their graphic tales.
In the 1970s, a hit soap opera broadcast on the leading Russian state channel, "17 Moments of Spring", served up Soviet propaganda during the Cold War. Stierlitz, the hero of the series, became incredibly famous in Russia and was the antithesis of James Bond, who promoted Western values.
In 2014 Europe remembered the outbreak of the First World War. The fateful war, which raged for four years and cost 12 million lives, began a century ago in 1914. The catalyst of the disaster was the murder of the Austrian successor to the throne, Franz Ferdinand, and his wife Sophie on 28 June 1914 in Sarajevo. This astonishing documentary conveys the dramatic events on the eve of the First World War.
The Coming War on China, from award winning journalist John Pilger, reveals what the news doesn’t – that the world’s greatest military power, the United States, and the world’s second economic power, China, both nuclear-armed, may well be on the road to war. Nuclear war is not only imaginable, but planned. The greatest build-up of NATO military forces since the Second World War is under way on the western borders of Russia.
War/Peace tells the story of the radical student activists Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn who founded the anti-Vietnam war group "The Weathermen" at the University of Michigan in 1969 and who's members carried out two dozen bombings of government building including an attempt to bomb the United States Capitol, the Pentagon, several major banks and police stations through out the US.
Lest we forget what on Anzac Day? Mythology? Or history? Kate Aubusson goes on a quest asking is it just sepia-tinted anecdotes of ANZAC spirit and derring-do or the real stories of ANZACS and WW1 based on fact and evidence?
"They took us to a small house. There they tore off our clothes and raped my friend and me. I was only 17 years old and still a virgin”, says Joari. The shocking thing: Joari and her friend were allegedly raped by the people who were meant to protect her: UN peacekeepers. 20,000 UN peacekeeping troops were sent to bring stability to the Eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo, where a war is raging between rebels and government forces.
The documentary tells the story of the slow transformation of a man. Once democratic and pro-European, he is now a reactionary head of state with autocratic aims. From the abrupt cessation of Turkey's EU accession talks in 2010 to the colossal purges destabilizing the country today, we are studying the implementation of a ruthless strategy aimed at making the Turkish president the new Sultan of the Middle East.
Five years ago, in 2012, Russia was a second-rate power surrounded by the expanding NATO alliance. Putin was destabilized since his controversial reelection triggered waves of protest. Yet he turned out to be a brilliant strategist, exploiting the weaknesses of the West and positioning himself as the main player in international affairs.
