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Dispatches: 2001-2002 season

This is the archives of the September 2001-June 2002 season of of Dispatches -- in reverse order, with the season finale on top, and the first show on the bottom. To search for a name, location, subject or any key word, use <<Ctrl F>>. More past seasons are to the left.

June 12, 2002

Italy turns to the -- wait for it -- computer, hoping to make its notorious bureaucracy run on time; question is -- will that be in our lifetime?

And still with cyberspace: sex and the single computer. Our L.A. contributor is being spammed with e-mail porn. Unlike most guys, she thinks this is just not PC.

And you wait all your life for a story like this. Elvis Shmelvis -- a search for the King's Kosher roots. Dispatches looks into the soul of America.

The Italian Prime Minister has pledged to revolutionise the country's infamous bureacracy. Italy is to be transformed he says, into "an information society."

This in a country where it usually takes weeks to get a new passport, months to get a phone line, and years to get an income tax rebate.

No matter. Government services are all to be done with the click of a mouse, and millions of Euros have been set aside to see that they do.

Sceptical Italians suspect all this will likely require not so much a revolution as a miracle.

And sceptical Italian-Canadians -- like our contributor Megan Williams -- recently put it to the test, by daring to renew her passport.

The point is, our life-in-Los-Angeles contributor, Jennifer Westaway, seems to be getting Joey and Chandler's explicit e-mail.

Efforts to fix it have failed. She's beginning to suspect she just owns a computer with a dirty mind of its own.

We're not saying Elvis is dead. But just visit his and you can see that if the fried peanut butter-and-banana sandwiches didn't get him, the decor at Graceland surely did.

A lot of fans make that pilgrimage every summer on the anniversary of Elvis's death -- in a quest to recall the more innocent times, and the fundamental values he has come to embody.

This year is a big one -- the 25th anniversary of the day The King died on the throne.

Two summers ago, Montreal writer Jonathan Goldstein hosted a CBC-Radio show called Road Dot Trip -- and one of his trips was in a Winabego to Memphis, with a crew of Montreal filmmakers -- during pilgrimage week.

Among the candlelight vigils, the souvenir shops and the Elvis impersonation contests, Jonathan unearthed some inner secrets of the soul of America, and its King.

Tonight, something of a departure -- from "Dispatches" present to Dispatches" from the past.

We've put together what we think is some of the best frontline writing and reporting from years of human conflict.

We'll hear a dyspeptic Julius Caesar, absurd reasons to go to war in central America, and the absurd way one reporter's war ended in Vietnam.

So tonight; some of the first -- some of the finest -- dispatches from contemporary history.

The first written dispatches often begin as accounts of a battle, though they can be read now as chapters in the human struggle for Empire.

In the excerpts you're about to hear, my newsroom colleagues provide the voices except where otherwise noted.

And so, tonight, a tribute of sorts to some great "dispatches," a word the Duke of Wellington coined for his field reports published by a fawning press back in London.

1) "KING LEOPOLD'S GHOST: A STORY OF GREED,
TERROR AND HEROISM IN COLONIAL AFRICA"
by Adam Hochschild, published by First Mariner Books 1999

3) "MY WAR GONE BY, I MISS IT SO" by Anthony
Loyd, published by Doubleday 1999

4) "CHECHNYA, A SMALL VICTORIOUS WAR" by
Carlotta Gall and Thomas de Waal, published by Pan Books 1997

6) "FROM BEIRUT TO JERUSALEM" by Thomas L.
Friedman, published by Doubleday 1989

7) "IN HARM'S WAY: REFLECTIONS OF A WAR ZONE
THUG", by Martin Bell, published by Penguin, 1995

8) "THE PENGUIN BOOK OF WAR: GREAT MILITARY
WRITINGS", assembled by John Keegan, published by Viking 1999

"Follow the money" was Deep Throat's famous advice all those years ago but we think it still applies. Rhoda Metcalfe documents how Colombia's coke barons launder their drug profits, in Alice In Contraband-land.

But first; the threat of nuclear war, and the fears of a nuclear family in Pakistan.

With more than a million troops massing on their common border, India and Pakistan are poised to go to war for yet a fourth time.

The fact both sides now have nuclear weapons lends it just that extra frisson of dread this time around.

That's not a prospect anyone relishes, especially those on the frontlines as we hear in this family affair, a Dispatch from a Canadian, Affan Chowdhry, from Lahore.

Now, in Colombia, if the price seems too good to be true, it probably is, and it's probably illegal.

Smuggled contraband is the latest way the country's drug lords are laundering their dirty money.

They convert the cash to commodities, dump them on the market at fire sale prices and bingo; Roberto's your uncle.

So let's go shopping on the blackest of markets with reporter Rhoda Metcalfe, and, mind the mud.

From bargain heaven now, to a place that's no bargain at all. We're referring to Iraq, on the occasion of Saddam Hussein's recent birthday.

For Neil Macdonald, Middle East correspondent for CBC Television News, it was a little like working on the dark side of the moon.

The world's newest nation may be cash-poor, but it is language-rich. CBC correspondent Patrick Brown tells how East Timor hopes to sidestep a language trap.

Middle East madness; we'll track two psychiatrists, one Israeli, one Palestinian, and the trail of broken minds brought on by the decades of warfare.

So, the Bush Adminstration knew about al-Kaeda's skyjack plans but didn't tell the public. A former White House insider says at least when Clinton had secrets, he shared. Mostly. Sometimes. A bit. All right, half.

The challenges confronting the world's newest nation are formidable, and East Timor's new government is moving quickly to ensure language isn't one of them.

That's because the tiny country has four different languages, each with its own colonial baggage.

The leadership of the country has come up with what it hopes will be a solution. CBC correspondent Patrick Brown says you need only look to the streets, full of western volunteers and East Timorese, to understand why it has to work.

The White House gets reports of a potentially catastrophic terror attack in the works.

Terrorists plan to hijack a plane, and Osama's followers could be getting flight training in Florida.

We'll never know how Jed Bartlett might have handled it. But we know what the Bush Adminstration did. It decided not to tell the public.

To take us behind the scenes of the White House decision-making process in these cases, we've reached Joe Lockart. Now he's admittedly a big Democrat, a veteran of the White House wars, having served as Bill Clinton's Press secretary for two years.

A week ago critics were saying of the White House "How dare you not inform the public about these threats!."

To which the Bush Adminstration replied: "How dare you be so unpatriotic as to question the White House!"

In recent months the region has witnessed political paralysis, blindness, and convulsion on all sides.

Ironically enough, these are also textbook symptoms of hysteria that can unhinge the human mind.

Tonight we profile two psychiatrists who've seen lots of it lately, all brought on by the war raging 'round them.

One is a Palestinian, jailed by the Palestinian Authority. The other, an Israeli, finds herself reviled by HER own people.

That's what they get for sharing the same views, which are the subject of tonight's documentary by Darren Boisvert.

The witch of Nepal; a tale of evil plaguing the country's poor and superstitious.

The fantasy ends in Argentina; how the collapse of the economy is humbling the once-haughty nation.

But first -- the view from Basra; a survey of the ravaged city once known as "the Venice of Iraq."

In the Iraqi city of Basra, along the Shatt al-Arab waterway, stand more than fifty statues of Iraqi officers killed in the eight-year war with Iran.

They represent the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who died taking the strategic waterway from Iran.

Their sacrifice was for nothing when a few years later, Saddam Hussein voluntarily gave it back, and went on to invade Kuwait.

Basra went on to suffer airstrikes, both during the Gulf War and afterwards, when it harbored Iraqi missile batteries.

And like the rest of the country, it has suffered under U.N. sanctions meant for Saddam but diverted to the Iraqi public.

Those sanctions were loosened this week. But our contributor Hadani Ditmars recently returned from Basra with the impression of a city almost beyond saving.

From the "Venice of Iraq", to the "the Paris of South America now: Argentina -- chaotic, passionate, and broke.

Economic collapse would stun any nation. But Argentina -- the land of the tango, sexual tension and a haughty middle-class -- was never good at facing reality.

But these days, bankers are smart enough to leave their suits at home so they won't attract the mob's attention.

Others are thinking of leaving home entirely, as Argentine society convulses in financial shock.

It's the subject of tonight's documentary, a personal memoir from the CBC's Kathleen Goldhar.

The Kingdom of Nepal is among the world's poorest countries. Illiteracy and superstition are in full flower.

She was accused of being a witch. And for her crime, she was beaten and disgraced in the village where she's lived all her fifty-five years.

But her story reveals the real evil in Nepal, as our contributor Daniel Lak recounts.

The Condor vs. The Capitalist. Bolivians are going to the polls with a clear choice between two warring candidates.

Yugoslavia's Foreign Minister defends his government's record on rounding up war criminals.

And we have another postcard, this week from one of Uruguay's most desirable resorts. Sandy beaches, friendly locals -- so why are there no tourists?

They can be ill-tempered, foul-mouthed and class-ridden, and one of them will likely be the next leader of Bolivia.

From one corner comes the silky cooing of a career politician with the ear of big business.

In the other, an aboriginal who has traded in bombs for ballots, and wants to rule Bolivia by the old rural codes.

But colorful as they are, what's really being contested is globalisation, and Bolivia's racial divide.

Contributor Declan Hill reports from the marketplace in the capital city of La Paz.

What with all the unpleasantness in Afghanistan and the Middle East lately, it's easy to forget Yugoslavia was once among the world's big worries.

But the Balkans remain a crossroads of organised crime. And while Slobodan Milosovic left the scene to face trial in The Hague 18 months ago, Belgrade's co-operation with that War Crimes Tribunal has been called into question.

To talk about these issues Rick spoke with the country's Foreign Minister, Goran Svilanovic.

Let's turn to the powdery, white beaches of Punta del Este, in Uruguay -- a distant corner of spectacular beauty.

But Argentina's economy has a severe case of pneumonia right now, and Uruguay is catching cold.

Undercutting Castro; who's behind an underground media dedicated to bringing down the last Communist?

Scenes from a massacre; correspondent Bill Gillespie reports from the site of an alleged Taliban war crime in Afghanistan.

We'll have a postcard from Bolivia, about the solitary Tiger Woman of the Mammaray River.

But first, Jennifer Westaway on the legacy of the Los Angeles riots, and why we still aren't getting along.

Two of them went to jail, but two others went free, and East L.A. went up in smoke.

In this week's guest essay, we asked Dispatches contributor Jennifer Westaway to examine the legacy of the riots.

They are a small number of independent reporters fed up with Castro's headlock on the state-run media.

So they put out their own news -- despite harassment from the state -- which complains the Anti-Journalists are just a front for U.S.-funded propaganda.

Life in a Bolivian jungle holds the prospect of madness for some, but serenity for others. The line between them may not be all that clear.

Our contributor Nala Ayed accompanied a group of nuns who cruise the jungle rivers, with food and medical supplies for aboriginals in isolated spots.

She reports on a woman who killed the tiger that disturbed her dead -- but just wants privacy, and a little candy.

In the mountains of Afghanistan, locals relate detailed accounts of an ethnic massacre.

It's one of hundreds of incidents that Afghan leader Hamid Karzai wants to deal with in some sort of Truth And Reconciliation process, or even international war-crimes trials.

CBC's Bill Gillespie reports the accused Taliban killers are long gone, and still free.

Human rights in Egypt: a casualty of September 11. Our documentary highlights the latest crackdown on dissent in the land of the Sphinx and the secret police.

Later, a leading human rights advocate risks the repercussions to speak out against Egypt's military government.

The catastrophe of September 11 claimed many victims, but not all were in New York.

In faraway Egypt, it's been a terrific blow to the country's fledgling human rights movement.

But Egypt is the birthplace of radical Islam and the military government has often faced violent dissent.

Still, until recently, it offered more freedoms than most other Arab and Muslim states.

But on recent assignment in the Middle East, Rick found the crackdown on suspected terrorists in the U.S. -- combined with the crisis in Israel -- are enormous setbacks for civil liberties in Hosni Mubarak's Egypt.

The people Rick met in Cairo insist the decline of human rights in Egypt has been accelerated by the Middle East conflict, and the American response to September eleventh.

But critics also say President Hosni Mubarak has been tightening his grip on the country for several years.

None of which seems to trouble the inter-national community; it's been giving Egypt generous injections of foreign aid since it backed the anti-terrorist alliance last fall.

In our documentary, we heard one of the critics of the country's Emergency Laws.

Rick rejoined Hisham Kassem, President of the Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights, for some more insights.

Rick concludes with a short story -- from a week spent covering the crisis just over Egypt's border, in Israeli occupied territories.

A new racial divide in Europe; Italy moves from rhapsody to resentment of Albanian refugees.

Art imitates life in the Congo; the director of the movie "Lumumba" talks about chaos then and now, in a tormented country.

Albanian refugees in Italy say their years in residence seemed to earn them only discrimination.

Today they are pariahs, an "invisible minority" in a country where the term "Albanian" has become a form of insult.

Dispatches contributor Megan Williams looks into a perception that appears to be grounded in myth.

His family moved there when he was a child, and he went on to make two films profiling the man who emerged as its leader after independence; Patrice Lumumba.

That was during the Cold War, and Lumumba was flirting with the Soviets, to the dismay of the West. In 1961, he was mysteriously murdered.

Raoul Peck's recent film "Lumumba" is a timely reminder of the violent chaos that still dominates politics in Congo -- where as Peck puts it, "every day is September eleventh."

Raoul Peck is the award-winning director of the film "Lumumba" now available on video and DVD.

Latest UN figures suggest as many as 3-million people have died in the Congo due to war, famine and disease.

Dispatches listeners will recall Connie Watson was among many CBC reporters covering Afghanistan and Pakistan during the war.

Last month she got to do something few reporters ever get the chance to do.

She went back, to meet the people who lived through the war, and you can hear their stories in a 3-hour series starting tomorrow morning. It's called Afghanistan: The Sky Cries Blood.

You can hear the 3-hour special Afghanistan: The Sky Cries Blood on CBC's Afghanistan website -- at www.cbc.ca/one

Dispatches goes on Spin Patrol with the Marines at Camp X-Ray: The United States wishes to thank you for your excellent questions, but has no intention of answering them.

And, two faces of Iraq: theatre of the absurd is back in Baghdad, as long as it toes the party line.

And we're joined by an analyst who says Saddam has already launched his own strikes on American soil.

With the Afghan crisis losing heat, George Bush is fanning America's simmering emnity with Iraq, amid warnings of a Saddam-supported terrorist attack on the U.S.

There are experts who believe such an attack has already begun, but American intelligence chose to overlook it.

It was back in 1993; the attack on the World Trade Centre. The bomb was supposed to knock one tower into the other and bring them both down.

It failed; but not many know the blast carved a crater six-storey's deep in the basement.

Military analyst Laurie Mylroie is an advocate of the Iraq-attack theory and says for Saddam, the Gulf War never ended.

Hence the title of her new book -- "Study of Revenge, Saddam Hussein's Unfinished War Against America." She spoke, from Washington.

(Dr Laurie Mylroie's book Study Of Revenge, is published by the American Enterprise Institute.)

Men dressed as monkeys; astronauts greeting aliens. It's the stuff of the fantasyworld of theatre in vogue in Baghdad.

While Saddam flits between fabulous palaces, the average Iraqi faces shortages and sanctions -- but can find some solace now in a new wave of officially-sanctioned comedies and musicals.

Naturally Saddam and the state are off-limits, but the show goes on, Baghdad style -- according to Dispatches contributor Hadani Ditmars.

Every now and then reporters agree to be gagged on the off-chance it might advance a story.

Military censorship is one of those ritual humiliations imposed on us by armed forces everywhere in the world.

The CBC's Sandra Bartlett was among a pod of journos who agreed to abide by U.S. restrictions, in exchange for a look at Camp X-Ray, where the Afghan prisoners are kept in Cuba.

Variations on the theme: human traffic.

In the Middle East, Israel is anxious to increase its numbers by recruiting new immigrants in a battle of birthrights with the Palestinians.

Meanwhile in Africa, the government of Botswana is chasing the famed Bushmen of the Kalahari off their ancestral lands to make way for development, though it may doom a race and its way of life.

Despite the conflict raging inside Israel these days, the country continues to be a magnet for Jewish emigres.

But it's nothing like the torrent of immigrants pouring in from as far away as Argentina.

None of this is an accident. The Israeli government has long had an open-door policy to Jews the world over,and a generous package of incentives.

That's because Israel views immigration as a way to counter the soaring Palestinian population.

The CBC's Middle-Eastern correspondent, Mike Hornbrook, filed this Dispatch on what's being called The War Of The Cradles:

The famed Bushmen of the Kalahari have roamed Botswana for more than 40-thousand years, sustained by a remarkable ability to divine water from the desert.

But the years have not always been good to this tribe known as the San people. And today they're under pressure from the government to get off their last piece of ancestral land, the Central Kalahari Game Preserve.

Botswana has decided to move the San to resettlement camps in what's being described as a human rights tragedy.

Our contributor, Carolyn Dempster, reports on the looming end of a unique way of life: The Last Stand Of The San.

Tonight we're going into Israel, Afghanistan and the mind of a front-line physician.

Do No Harm is a doctor's story of war and healing everyone's wounds, but his own.

Mired In Afghanistan is a correspondent's tale that ensures you'll never again feel quite the same way about the term 'Shangri-La.'

And Big Sam Bawhore And The Diaspora Dollars reveals how Palestinians have begun building for their own state.

In Japan, bowing is an art. It conveys respect, regret, and otherentiments, depending how it's done.

Bowing is ingrained in the country's culture and tradition. The Japanese manner is synonymous with the bow.

So imagine, trying to change it, and you get some idea of what the country's great economic minds are up against.

Japan's mammoth economy is sick, wheezing from the fourth recession in a decade.

And it's under tremendous Western pressure to implement economic reform before the sickness spreads.

But in a country where reform traditionally comes only from national concensus, nothing happens quickly, or can. You might as well try to change the art of bowing.

Tonight, in a full-edition doccumentary, Dispatches contributor Jennifer Westaway examines the Japanese dilemma.

Once they turned a war-shattered country into a world-beating economy. And they did it their way.

Stranded in the Borneo hotel: how politics and people-smugglers leave Afghan refugees in limbo.

A dispatch from the front: the memories of a Canadian journalist who survived a bullet in the brain.

And we've got George W Bush to kick around again, as America recovers its sense of humor.

But first: Japan's listing economy. If those stereos are so good, how come the country's broke?

Like The Full Monty, you hear of middle-aged men heading off to non-existent work in the morning, too ashamed to tell their families they're unemployed.

Jennifer Westaway is just back from Japan where she's been working on a story for us next week. But first, a sampler.

A refugee by definition may sound like someone on the move, but for some it has meant coming to a complete standstill.

A lot of Afghans fled the Taliban, hoping to make it to Australia. There were plenty of high-priced smugglers with rickety boats, ready to help them try.

But many have run aground on the rocks of bureaucracy. As we hear in this documentary from correspondent Patricia Nunan, they languish now in The Borneo Hotel.

The headlines out of Afghanistan provide a daily reminder that foreign newsgathering is difficult and dangerous.

But Canadian journalist Ian Stewart has his own story to tell. In the 1990's, he covered Africa for the Associated Press.

Then one hot day in 1999, he went off to cover the rebellion in Sierra Leone with photographers David Guttenfelder and Myles Tierney.

Today, after painful rehabilitation, he's written "Freetown Ambush; A Reporter's Year in Africa." He joins me from Stanford, California with a reading from it, recalling a chance meeting with a child of war in Sierra Leone.

Three countries, three conflicts --and the consequences for those caught in the middle.

Many of those responsible for the genocide of 1994 remain at large, and may never be tried.

It was a murderous rampage. Hutu extremists slaughtered more than 800,000 members of the rival Tutsi tribe.

Some say the Churches of Rwanda harbor secrets from that time too. Perhaps, even suspects.

Perhaps now more than ever. as we hear in this documentary prepared by CBC correspondent Margaret Evans.

The music of Thomas Mapfumo has provided a soundtrack of political commentary in Zimbabwe since the 1980s, when it was still known as white-ruled Rhodesia.

At 56, Mapfumo's rich voice is now rising against Robert Mugabe and his ZANU-PF party, which encourages attacks on white farmers and black opposition figures like Morgan Tsvengarai of the M.D.C.

For his trouble, Mapfumo has been arrested and jailed. His music is banned in Zimbabwe. But he still tours, and we met on his recent stop in Toronto.

With his long hair tucked up under a hat, he sat barefoot on a hotel bed, warming to the themes of Zimbabwe politics which drive his music.

It's the fight to find normal life amid a former battlefield still littered with land mines, and the less visible scourges of disease and ignorance.

Those on the front lines of this fight, CBC's Stephen Puddicombe reports, are not soldiers. They are children.

Cowboys, cocaine and the cost of doing oil business in Colombia; a documentary from the most sabotaged pipeline in the world, and how people are paying for it with their future.

And: sure, it was all fun -- until someone lost an eye. The fourth to take The Fifth, Ken Lay invokes his right to refuse to testify in the collapse of Enron.

Enron is an American scandal, in which the principals are either innocent, or suffered a blow to the head from the evil axis of amnesia and greed.

But when Ken Lay's Potemkin company fell, it revealed an essential flaw in the foundation of western finance: sometimes the numbers are true; sometimes they're a big fat lie.

Our Economics Reporter, Michael Colton has some thoughts about what that says about the integrity of American capital markets.

In most countries, oil is viewed as the saviour of economies, and an engine of development.

But in Colombia, a country torn by guerilla warfare, the oil patch is the cause of violent competition that's contaminating politics as well as the environment.

People living near the oilfields once marvelled at their good fortune. These days, they consider it a curse.

Our correspondent Rhoda Metcalfe sends this documentary, Black Cocaine -- from Colombia's eastern plains.

As we've heard from Rhoda Metcalfe, keeping Colombian oil flowing involves political compromises that are both clear and costly.

But there are also prices to pay for social and environmental damages, and in the long term they may be much higher.

That's because in the rush for oil, the region is losing its most basic services, as well as its long-term direction.

And when the wells run dry -- as they soon will -- the region could soon find itself addicted, once again, to an outlaw econony driven by drugs.

Bosnia on edge: the Dayton Accords and a lot of NATO soldiers have kept the peace this long, but for how much longer? Time hasn't healed old wounds.

First aid for the first casualty of war: it took a Truth Commission to begin exorcising the demons of apartheid in South Africa. One of the Comissioners talks to us about exporting it elsewhere.

And Death In Persia: few things in Iran are as efficient as a funeral. Our guest essay tonight explains why, and wonders if George W. Bush is picking a fight that may lead to more of them.

During the seige of Sarajevo, you could peer through shellholes in the hotel walls, at Sniper Alley down below -- one of the brutal lines of scrimmage between Serbs and Muslims.

It could be a dangerous practice. From time to time, the snipers had to be looking back.

That made repairing the holes even more dangerous. So they remained there for years. And so did the reporters, who moved to slightly safer quarters in the rear of the hotel.

It's been six years since the Dayton Accord brought an end to the fighting in Bosnia.

The Canadian military is a part of the NATO force trying to implement its principles of peace and stability.

But progress is slow. And some are starting to wonder if it isn't time to revamp the Accord -- before it's too late, as the CBC's Jessica Brando reports from inside Bosnia.

Those that have -- in Chile, in El Salvador, in Argentina -- had to wait until the combatants were willing to talk --and in some cases, admit to atrocities before a Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

South Africa recently completed one, designed in part by Alex Boraine, who served as deputy-chair.

The Commission prosecuted some people and compensated others, and offered amnesty to some who confessed their crimes.

Even President F.W. deKlerk appeared before it, claiming ignorance of the evils of apartheid all around him.

Alex Boraine first read a brief passage from his new book "A Country Unmasked", in which he recalls what, for him, was perhaps the most compelling moment of testimony of all 22,000 witnesses.

These days Alex Boraine is involved with other countries trying to make what he calls "the transition from dictatorship to democracy."

He spoke with Rick, from our New York studio, about his work and prospects for reconciliation in places like Bosnia.

Alex Boraine is the author of A Country Unmasked,; the story of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, published by Oxford University Press.

George W. Bush says Iran is in cahoots with Iraq and North Korea in something he calls an "axis of evil."

It's widely known that Iran sponsors the Hezbollah guerillas of Lebanon. But an axis, especially an evil one, hints at something much more serious and efficient.

Iranian bureaucracy may be abhorrent, its traffic apocalyptic, but few nations can put you in the ground faster than Iran.

More thoughts now on life and death in Iran in our guest essay from Borzou Daragahi in Tehran.

Judgment at The Hague; Slobodan Milosovic on trial for crimes against humanity, including genocide. We look at the stakes -- legal and political.

Sacred Bulls in the land of Sacred Cows. A Canadian team takes the ice for: Hockey Night in the Himilayas!

India -- once part of the arena where spies and diplomats fought The Great Game -- has since taken up our great game -- ice hockey.

To get to the ice you've got to go eleven-thousand feet up, where the puck freezes and your lungs feel like they're burning in the high thin air.

We're talking about Hockey Night in the Himalayas, and what a bunch of Canadians can learn from their inexperienced rivals.

Our all-Canadian correspondent Daniel Lak ascended to the National Hockey Championship of India in the city of Leh, capital of the autonomous region of Ladakh.

In days ahead, "Dispatches" will document the unravelling of democracy in Zimbabwe.

After twenty-two years in power, President Robert Mugabe is waging war on his first real opposition to re-election.

And he continues to encourage supporters to seize white-owned farms in the run-up to the Presidential election March 9 and 10.

Cathy Buckle is a white farmer who admits whites were responsible for injustices against blacks in the past. But she wonders how much longer they'll have to pay for the sins of their grandfathers.

She is also a published author, and sends a weekly e-mail to collegues about the the pressures on the white farming community.

Thirteen summers ago, on an ancient battlefield known as "The Field of Blackbirds", a pugnacious little man uttered the words many regard as the start of the Balkan conflict.

Before a cheering crowd of a million fellow Serbs, Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosovic took to a stage in Kosovo.

"...we are in battles and quarrels" he said. "They are not armed battles, though such things should not be excluded yet."

And with that, the powderkeg of Serb nationalism was lit. What followed was a decade of bloodshed, as the Serbs waged what were increasingly one-sided armed battles.

After several preliminary appearances, he's going on trial for crimes against humanity, allegedly committed in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo.

He is the the first sitting head of state ever indicted by the Yugoslav War Crimes Tribunal. And there is much at stake, as we hear in this report from our correspondent in The Hague, Lauren Comiteau.

From a dam that can't make power, to corrupt dictatorships that renege on foreign aid billions -- the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have had far too many failures, according to our insider who says it's time for reform.

On the eve of the World Economic Forum's annual headscratch, we go into Africa to compare the noble intentions of the foreign-aid financiers, with their spotty record.

We have a horror story from the from vaults of the IMF and the World Bank, the agencies that control western economic aid.

It's about an African village in the shadow of a giant hydro dam that produces no electricity. And if it ever does, the people living near it are unlikely ever to see any benefit. In fact, they've already lost plenty.

Dr William Easterly is also author of "The Elusive Quest for Growth; Economists' Adventures and Misadventures in the Tropics."

And from the African country of Mali, Joan Baxter reports on the monster debt that poor country took on, to build the Manantali Dam.

A little song, a little dance, a little goat's milk down your pants! Laughter makes a comeback in Afghanistan.

Who's killing the white farmers of South Africa? Our documentary asks whether it's just more violent crime in that country -- or part of a bloody campaign to take over the farms.

Under The Volcano: thoughts on the natural disaster that's being heaped on the man-made tragedies in central Africa.

This week, the world community has pledged billions in donations of food and medicine to help rebuild Afghanistan.

But the country is also engaged in a kind of self-rehablitation that money just can't buy.

It is slowly emerging from the suffocating doctrine of the Taliban. And slowly, the long-suppressed sound of human laughter is replacing the thrum of of tanks and artillery.

Call it a kind of medicine for the soul. Afghanistan will need a lot of it. And it's coming, as we hear from the CBC's Stephen Puddicombe in Kabul.

An unprecedented number have been attacked and murdered as the country's crime wave reaches deep into the countryside.

In response, a vigilante movement has sprung up in South Africa, adding to the growing sense of anarchy.

We asked our contributor Franz Kruger to answer this question; is it simply crime, or is there something more sinister afoot?

Some closing thoughts, from Rick, on volcanoes and the politics of Central Africa.

When the going gets tough, the tough get Uzis. America is learning the lessons of September 11, and for some that means learning how to use an automatic weapon.

Conspiracy theorists too, are ready to talk and load. We hear from a former U.S. diplomat who witnessed a visa scam recruiting terrorists to America.

And, controversy dogs the release of Mafia folk songs in Europe. We play you a tune you can't refuse.

George W. Bush has vowed to protect Americans against further danger following the attacks of September 11.

But his promises don't seem to be enough for those still feeling scared and vulnerable.

Recent statistics from the FBI indicate a sharp spike in firearms sales, since the attacks on America.

And in the wild western desert of Nevada, the CBC's Laura Lynch found an entrepreneur with a vision of a new citizen army for his country.

The events of September 11 are also focusing the fertile minds of conspiracy theorists in the United States.

One of the latest theories suggests that the terrorists responsible for the attacks, may have been helped into the United States by the C.I.A. and the State Department.

A former American Foreign Service officer, now a practising lawyer in Washington, says his experience gives that theory some credibility.

Michael Springmann is a self-styled whistleblower, and in 1987 he was a Visa Officer at the American Consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

He says back then, that consulate was used to rubberstamp visa applicants recruited for guerilla training in the U.S. -- by the C.I.A. and Osama bin Laden.

A CD recently released in Europe -- but not in Italy -- is courting controversy.

"Il Canto di Malavita", which means "songs of a life of crime" purports to be a collection of secret old folk songs of the Calabrian Mafia.

The producers find they're criticised in Italy for glorifying the Mafia. But they call it a historical document, saying history is sometimes, hard and bloody.

And when it comes to gore, modern-day gangsta rap has nothing on the old-time mob.

Some notes from the sharp end. Every correspondent wants to be where the action is. But how close is too close? If the gunmen are using your car for cover, chances are, you're too damn close.

Inside the five-sided building there's only one side to the story; A reporter snoops on the Pentagon press corp and finds it ill-equipped to deal with the war on terrorism.

And a documentary on Afghanistan's Lost Generation; how refugee children are begging to be part of Pakastan's child workforce.

The CBC contract says, "A foreign correspondent, while on assignment in a war risk zone, will receive additional pay at the rate of forty-two dollars a day."

Somewhere in the world that's handsome compensation for trying to report the news while somebody else is shooting at you for doing it.

One of our reporters recently had one of those magic moments during a visit to the Gaza Strip.

It was to be an opportunity to see the different threads of the Palestinian conflict close up. Too close, as it turned out.

As Michael McAuliffe has discovered, sometimes being in the right place at the right time, can also be the wrong place.

With much of the country still unstable, Afghan families by the thousands continue to spill over the border into neighbouring Pakistan.

Poverty compels even the children of those families to join the workforce, where they compete with millions of Pakistani children for the worst possible jobs.

From Islamabad, Connie Watson reports that in a country as poor as Pakistan, the cheap labor of Afghan children is both welcomed, and resented.

While American soldiers busy themselves fighting a war on terrorism in Afghanistan -- back in Washington, the Defence Secretary is busy trying to manage it.

Journalist David Samuels recently wrote one of them for this month's edition of Harper's magazine.

He recently spent time in the Penatagon, observing the interplay between the media and military.

David Samuels says the Pentagon is packaging the war in a way the media finds difficult to question.

Finally some closing thoughts from Rick, on America and the politics of being a superpower.

We forgo the usual conflict coverage to repeat a show from last June 13th -- on the comic side of covering the world.

Anna-Maria Tremonti has faced down more dangers than most in tours that have included Bosnia and the Middle East. But the tone was set during a campaign flight to Rouyn-Noranda in Quebec, with former NDP leader Ed Broadbent.

Don Murray recalls the comic frustration he and a bunch of other Moscow-based reporters shared trying to ride with the Soviet military's last convoy out of Afghanistan.

Then there's one we call

Silence of the Lambs, as related by Dick Gordon. His time in Russia, India and -- in this instance -- Bosnia, made him one of our best raconteurs.

Many nights in seedy east-bloc hotel rooms taught Jennifer Westaway to carry a bag of goodies during her CBC posting in Europe. Some of it didn't seem necessary for her subsequent posting in Washington. But then she went to Haiti. Let's call this one

A Gecko's Tale.

The most punishing parts of a correspondent's job are the long absences, which can be specially hard on a young parent. So

Joan Leishman bent the rules a little, and went turtle watching.

Joe Schlesinger dishes the details about a mis-step that landed him in a close encounter of the aromatic, and organic kind. For diplomatic relations between Canada and what was then known as Red China -- it was hardly

a great leap forward.

Conway Fraser recalls the time he got into a life-and-death tussle with George W. Bush about the order of the days of the week.

And

Rick MacInnes-Rae has a tale of being held at gunpoint by an anxious-to-emigrate guard.

The tragic attacks on New York and Washington changed the way we view the world.

But the world had other concerns prior to Nine-Eleven: peacekeeping, ethnic hatred, nation-building, landmines, epidemics.

And our correspondents remind us that the problems they addressed have not gone away.

It's the season we in the West traditionally regard as a time for family, for giving thanks and for children.

We want to take you tonight to places far from familiar, where these same things are also cherished, for profoundly different reasons.

In Uganda, children are forced to fight in an endless guerilla war. Now some are escaping but return home weighed down by gruesome images of the killing they've seen and done.

In Afghanistan, our correspondent is about to return home, weighed down by the images of children trapped by that country's long civil war

For many years, rebel forces from Uganda have been conducting a hit-and-run war against rebels in neighbouring Sudan.

Those forces from Uganda are in league with Sudan's Muslim government, trying to drive Christian and other tribes from their homelands on Sudan's vast southern oilfields -- just across the border from Uganda.

The Ugandan rebels call themselves the Lord's Resistance Army, but any claim to religious piety is somewhat undermined by their recruiting methods.

In recent months, some of these traumatized kids have escaped from abduction, and returned home.

Most just want to recover a lost childhood, but as one Ugandan mother puts it, "that may take the world itself."

You see, these children are killers, and sometimes even their fellow villagers want them killed for their crimes.

Others say these children can be rehabilitated. And for those who make it, their ordeal ends, back home -- with the symbolic ritual of stepping on an egg.

From a small village in northern Uganda, David McLauchlin has tonight's "Dispatches" documentary: "When Warriors Become Children Again."

It's a theme that has troubled many of our correspondents as they emerge from covering the conflict in Afghanistan.

The other day Rick received an e-mail from our colleague in the CBC's French Radio service, Manon Globensky, with whom Rick covered the war in Kosovo.

"The Nazis are not sleeping." These words of warning come from one who knows -- a recovering neo-Nazi at the centre of a chilling documentary we're calling "The Same Old Hate: Breaking With The Far Right Movement In Germany."

You might have heard that it's Yasser Arafat's last stand. Again. The tiny imperfect Palestinian is once again fighting for his political life. Maybe more than that. And this time, his enemy is within. Maybe he should have plugged ahead with plans to emigrate to Canada after all. Rick has some thoughts on the Chairman's chances.

But first, the brittle charm of Italy's Silvio Berlusconi. What the eleven-billion dollar man wants, he usually gets. He wanted to be Prime Minister, and he is. Are Italians concerned about what he's doing with all that power?

From humble beginnings on a tour ship, to captain of the ship of State, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has sailed to the pinnacle of Italian politics.

He owns a slew of bluechip Italian companies, including the AC Milan football club. And three private television networks.

With his election last spring, Berlusconi gained control of three public TV networks as well.

Naturally, many in Italy hold him up as a glowing example of success. But that overlooks the fact he has not bothered with the glaring conflicts-of-interest in his media holdings.

And he still faces outstanding charges of tax evasion. Then there are those allegations of illegal party financing.

But Berlusconi isn't ignoring the law. He's paying lots of attention to it. And changing it.

In the opinion of our guest essayis Megan Williams in Rome, most are watching Berlusconi TV, and swaying to the Berlusconi beat.

Germany is confronted once again with a fledgling neo-Nazi movement. In recent years it wasn't much of a priority.

When Helmut Kohl was Chancellor they used to joke that he was "blind in his right eye." Anti-Nazi activists called his time in office, "ten lost years."

When it comes to extreme politics, the left-leaning government of Gerhard Schroder is a lot more proactive.

It has banned two skinhead movements and next year it's going to try and shut down the NPD, a small political party likened by some to the Nazi party of the 1920s. As a legal party, ironically,
the NPD receives government funding.

Earlier this month, several thousand of its supporters marched through Berlin, in the largest rally of the far-right since The Second World War.

By some estimates there are 50-thousand so-called neo-Nazis in the re-unified Germany. And the few who manage to break with the movement have emerged with a chilling revelations.

Alexa Dvorson's documentary report from Berlin is a story of two former neo-Nazis -- and the tireless commitment of one of them to alert her fellow Germans.

This week we anticipate possible solutions to some of the problems that define our times.

There's Afghanistan, an armed camp with way more guns than butter, and nothing but trouble for The West if it stays that way.

In Britain more and more cities are turning to video surveillance to assist in urban security. We look at the ongoing contest between yobs and Big Bruvver.

And there's Africa, where the desperate drive for cheaper AIDS treatment has led scientists to an ancient panacea that's been growing right under its nose.

The costs, though are far beyond the means of those on the African continent, where the disease is at its worst.

But five dollars a day might as well be five-million to many of the afflicted in South Africa, the country with the highest rate of infection.

And the government can't afford to provide expensive anti-retro viral drugs which can turn a death sentence into a manageable chronic illness.

But now it emerges that a common South African flower may help prolong the lives of the infected.

Dispatches contributor Carolyn Dempster, on the power in a simple plant -- sutherlandia frutescens.

Rick had tea once in the house of a Chechen warlord. Nice house, he remembers. Had kind of a retro look with chesterfields and the formal china cabinet.

But these were the '90s, and under the side table, where the silver trays ought to have been, there were only rocket-propelled grenades. Chechen chic.

So it is in Afghanistan, where it seems every man between 15 and 45 owns a Kalashnikov.

The CBC's Moscow correspondent Bill Gillespie spent two months in their company and concludes: if the country is ever to find normal again, the guns have got to go.

Internal security is not exclusively the problem of the third world, as the event of September eleventh have demonstrated.

In Europe and North America there is much talk of giving more power to the police, as well as identity cards and surveillance cameras with face-recognition capabilities.

For Londoners, Big Brother is already a fellow traveller on the underground. Has been for years.

Five thousand cameras scan the three million passengers that ride the trains each day.

Dispatches contributor Donald MacGillivray reports that in London, when you take The Tube somewhere, you're also on the tube. Somewhere.

The Russians call it the other war against against terrorism: French journalist Ann Nivat goes behind the lines in Chechnya.

Can pride in culture heal the wounds of Islam? Silver Threads And Burning Flags, Nazim Baksh's profile of two British converts who answer "Yes."

The Afghan conflict has crossed a lot of of rubicons this week, and it's worth pausing a moment to chart them.

American forces are willing to take casualties for the first time since the Gulf War. That makes the war on terrorism a cause officially worth dying for, whereas Bosnia and Kosovo were not.

And after demanding the elusive bin Laden dead or alive, observers will reach for the word "disingenuous" should the Bush Adminstration act surprised when the Northern Alliance slaughter more Taliban fighters.

Then again, the Alliance did round up several hundred Taliban on its own but apparently forgot to frisk them for weapons and wound up in a disasterous 2-day firefight. These are the guys who want to run Afghanistan.

Now that journalists can see the extent of civilian casualties for themselves, a lot of them are getting out.

Then there are the Saudis, hitherto America's chief ally in the Gulf. Turns out they were also allied with the Taliban. It's going to take more than oil to lube that relationship back to life.

And Russia, once arch-enemy of the Afghan people, now supplies them with arms. It's even set up camp in downtown Kabul. For some, that has got to be like waking up to a horses's head in your bed.

In Germany leaders of some Afghan factions are trying to come up with an exit strategy for everybody. But how many tribes does it take to make an interim government? We might never find out.

The long war in the Caucauses is being overlooked by many because of the Afghan crisis, but not by the French journalist Ann Nivat.

Where most reporters (Rick MacInnes-Rae included) were in an out of the bloody Chechen conflict in a matter of weeks -- she took the time to learn Russian, then adopted the costume of a Chechen peasant -- and spent six months observing it undercover, at great personal risk.

She documents the experience in her new book, "Chiennes des Guerre: A Woman Reporter Behind the Lines of the War in Chechnya."

The Afghan conflict has many Muslims looking to their faith for something to explain how the tenets of Islam have been twisted from a source of solace, to a premise for violence.

And it's natural that many non-believers will eventually discover that in their lifetime.

So it seemed natural for a couple of English men, several decades ago, to accept Islam.

In Silver Threads, BurningFlags,Dispatches producer Nazim Baksh reports how these men have also come to believe that we are all born to be inspired by art and culture.

Dope dealers, warlords and war criminals; is this the stuff of good government in Afghanistan?

Somalia says it hasn't got Osama bin Laden. But it'sb inviting its own warlords to join the new government there. Do we detect a trend?

Speaking of trends, one of the great pop tunes of the '60's was sold for a song in South Africa. Now they want it back. Find out why the Lion won't Sleep Tonight.

But first; you're invited to a swingin' party in Iran. Then you're going to jail.

Iran is a country poised between history and modernity. Its vibrant young population is bristling under the rule of aging conservative Ayatollahs.

For some it means living a kind of double life, moving to the spiritual rhythms of Ramadan by day, and the sexual sway of techno-pop at night.

Correspondent Neil MacDonald of CBC Television News recently experienced Iran's contradictions firsthand, and found the whole experience rather arresting.

In Afghanistan, factions of the Northern Alliance are already engaged in a poster war to stake out turf in the streets of the country's capital.

Their leaders meanwhile, are preparing for a conference on Afghanistan's future, to be held next week in Germany.

Now some of these guys are pretty shady. There's Uzbek General Rashid Dostum who once tied a thief to a tank track and minced him to death.

We asked CBC correspondent Patrick Brown in Kabul for a quicksketch on some of these characters.

Meanwhile, Osama bin laden remains at large, and may be heading for Somalia, or perhaps Yemen according to London's prestigious International for Institute for Strategic Studies.

But Somalia says it doesn't have him, doesn't want him, and U.S. troops are welcome to come and see for themselves.

The Americans have now shut down Somalia's banking system, claiming it was funneling cash to bin Laden.

It's another blow to a country recovering from ten years of civil war and which just recently formed its first government since 1991.

Ahmed Abdi Hashi is a Canadian citizen but he is also Somalia's new Ambassador to the United Nations, also the first in a decade.

Somalias's President is now trying to bring warlords into the Administration with offers of cabinet posts. Why is he attempting what to some, appears to be a very risky tactic?

Our next story combines some of our favourite themes -- history and creativity, injustice and redemption.

You may know it as "Wimoweh", that swooping refrain that in some versions is also called "The Lion Sleeps Tonight."

It's a joyous outpouring of the human voice -- but one that masks a dark secret that began in South Africa years ago. From Johannesburg, David McLauchlin prepared this dispatch, "On The Trail of Wimoweh."

The Taliban is teetering in Afghanistan but the worst may not be over. So far it might just be one group of bad men replacing the other.

And what about the hidden casualties of the international war on terrorism.?We travel far afield to find out why refugee-bashing is one side-effect.

Plus an Islamabad diary about a secret meeting with part of Pakistan's silent majority.

But the jubilation is tinged with uncertainty. After all, the men now in charge are the same ones whose own brutal governance gave rise to the Taliban in 1994.

To sort out possible scenarios we turned to the man who a month ago predicted it would happen this way.

Peter Tomsen was the American special envoy to the Afghan Resistance from 1989 to 1992 -- when it was still fighting the Soviets.

As Tomsen says, Pakistan is still poised to play a key role in Afghanistan. But will it be an agent of stability or one of chaos?

After all Pakistan was a longtime ally of the Taliban, but the President turned around and gave his support to the Americans.

In recent weeks, CBC correspondent Margaret Evans has been traveling the Pakistani countryside as well as the capital of Islamabad.

And she says it's not clear the country's leader has enough support from the so-called "silent majority" to keep a lid on Pakistan's radicals.

The attack on the World Trade Centre continues to be a shock felt round the world.

And the extent to which its aftermath is having an effect on faraway places may surprise you. And refugees and immigrants are feeling the heat..

It's been a factor in this week's Australian election -- where the Prime Minister won again -- the Italian parliament and Germany's national immigration debate -- where the government has introduced Germany's first immigration act (modeled on Canada's).

Rick talked with Linda Mottram, of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Dispatches contributors Megan Williams, in Rome, and Alexa Dvorson, in Berlin.

BONUS AUDIO:
Rick MacInnes-Rae's's thoughts on risk taking,
mortality and the politics of war reporting.

Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega goes down for the third time; and just to make sure, the Americans throw him an anvil.

The Worst Possible War: Recognition at last for what a handful of Canadian soldiers endured almost 60 years ago.

It's a sacred month for Muslims; but they've also fought some of their greatest battles during Ramadan.

The foes of the United States, past and present, would do well to note the Americans have long memories and a long reach.

Back in the 1980's, Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega fought U.S.-backed Contra rebels to a negotiated standstill.

And he still gets under Washington's skin. So when Ortega started his bid to regain the Presidency in Monday's election, the U.S. once again waded in.

American influence or not, a majority just couldn't bring itself to vote for the new, mellow Ortega, who'd taken to wearing pink shirts while campaigning on the "peace and love" platform.

Dispatches contributor Tom Gibb is in his second decade covering South and central America.

With Remembrance Day approaching,Dispatches has a Canadian tale of memory and restitution.

Once upon a time soldiers talked about having a "good war", and coming home in one piece with a chestful of medals.

But for a handful of Canadians, the Second World War was "The Worst Possible War." Most everything that could go wrong, did go wrong for them, beginning with their capture.

And we received an email recently from Helena Buckles, who divides her time between Canada and South Africa.

"South African farmers are under attack" she writes, "...not a week goes by without multiple and attempted farm murders."

"Since 1994" she continues, "the farming community in South Africa is and has been deliberately targetted by organised criminals, or self-styled dissident 'freedom fighters.'"

This weekend she tells us that South Africans in London, England are holding a silent demonstration against crime, violence and farm murder in Trafalgar Square.

We wondered if this is a question of crime -- or conspiracy, as in Zimbabwe, where the government encourages black supporters to invade white farms.

In the war on Afghanistan, there have been some questions about religion in the battlefield.

After some weeks spent skirting the issue, the Americans have decided their bombing campaign will continue during Ramadan, a sacred event on the Muslim calendar.

Nine or ten days from now, depending on the visibility of the new moon, observant Muslims will fast from dawn to dusk for an entire month.

Rather than risk offending them, the U.S. has considered a pause in its attacks.

But that would have revived the issue of religion in the bombing campaign, while giving the Taliban time to regroup.

Besides, according to Dispatches producer Nazim Baksh, throughout Islamic history, some of the greatest battles have been fought during Ramadan.

Africa's Mirabel. Zimbabwe's white elephant of an airport says everything about what's going wrong there.

"Divided Loyalties" -- new developments in the the war on terrorism. Muslims from Britain are killed serving with the Taliban, while others are torn between their country and their faith. Nazim Baksh's documentary report from London.

And How do you feel about state-sponsored assassination? The United States authorises a hit on Osama bin Laden. Host Rick MacInnes-Rae points out that we've been here before.

From Zimbabwe, a defining bit of madness in the twilight of the Mugabe regime: the capital city's new airport.

Harare International is a shining hulk of glass and steel, although the control tower has been made to look as if it's built of traditional mud and wood.

But it's hardly the grand regional hub it purports to be. It is instead, a gleaming white elephant -- an island of ridiculous overspending by a nation sliding into economic ruin.

The Mugabe government has been seizing white-owned farms, brutalising opposition blacks, and now faces the threat of European economic sanctions.

As a result, major airlines are reducing flights into Harare, or cutting them off altogether.

But "Dispatches" contributor Tom Walker, a journalist with the London Sunday Times, recently flew in -- only to discover you don't even have to leave the airport to see how bad things are.

The war on terrorism continues with President Bush driving it from Washington -- and Britain's Tony Blair tightening the seatbelts of coalition partners from Europe to Asia.

At home though, Blair can't seem to convince Britain's own Muslim community that the attack on Afghanistan is justified.

A host of Muslim leaders have been through Downing Street and the House of Lords over the last month, demanding an immediate end to western agression.

And these days, the British press is full of stories about young British Muslims going off to fight on the side of the Taliban.

Blair's government is now threatening to charge the others with treason, murder or terrorism if they return to Britain.

The result is divided loyalties, the title of this week's documentary by Nazim Baksh, examining the clash between faith and state in Britain's fractured Muslim society.

Fuad Nahdi is the director of London, England's Centre For Muslim Policy Research. In Divided Loyalties he told Nazim Baksh that Muslim's in the U.K. had to be more involved, as Muslims, in the day-to-day politics of their country, without the divisions they are displaying in the current situation.

You go, girls! At The Alamo, The Daughters of the Republic of Texas show Christopher Grosskurth the patriotism the rest of America now aspires to.

From Quetta, Pakistan: Surgical Strikes. A defiant Afghan woman doctor takes on the Taliban -- by making the kindest cuts of all, the kind that save lives. A documentary by David McLauchlin.

And The Guns of Belfast -- The IRA coughs up weapons to save the Irish peace process. But Kevin Toolis cautions that the tribes are still choking on their mutual hatred.

David McLauchlin visits the mud-hut hospital of Dr. Sima Samar. She fled the Taliban, and now provides medical care for the newest and neediest refugees -- the ones that don't fit into the the overflowing UN-sponsored camps. Her schools in Afghanistan illegally teach young women to read, write and become health-care workers. And the Taliban wants her dead.

"It's Not Just Black and White -- our documentary examines dissent among south Africa's mixed-race "coloured" people, fast losing hope with life after apartheid.

Air India, Flight 182. From Punjab -- one widow's struggle with the stigma of terrorism.

First, from Pakistan; a chance encounter on a dark road with someone who could decide the outcome of the war on
terrorism.

CBC correspondents have been rotating through various posts around Afghanistan for the past month.

It's a tag-team affair, aggravated by limited visas and a 24/7 workweek; a recipe for reporter burn-out.

Recently it was David McLauchlin's turn to depart the riot-torn city of Quetta in Pakistan.

With the air space closed to civilian aircraft, he had to take the long way home, down a long dark road.

It turned out to be a passage of missiles and miracles beneath an upside-down sky; where the voyage was every bit as important as the destination.

From the theatre of war, now to a scene from the theatre of the absurd: South Africa, still wrestles with the demons of aparthied.

After seven years of democratic government, everything has changed -- unless you are among those who used to be classified as coloured.

"Coloureds" are the descendents of colonial masters and slaves, East Indian immigrants, as well as white settlers and indigenous blacks.

And in the peculiar politics of identity in today's South Africa, they are neither white enough -- nor black enough to taste the fruits of this new democracy.

"It's Not Just Black And White" is Carolyn Dempster's report from the Western Cape, home to the largest community of Coloureds in South Africa.

You will recall: June 23, l985; Air India flight 182 explodes in the air over the Irish sea, killing 329 people.

An hour earlier, 2 baggage handlers die as a bomb explodes in a suitcase being loaded on a plane at Japan's Narita airport.

And both flights, originated in Canada.

15 years and 26-million-dollars later, the RCMP arrested 3 men allegedly connected to a militant Sikh movement for an independent homeland in India. And all three are from British Columbia.

Their trial begins in Feburary, and promises to be one of the longest in Canadian history.

But we're reminded too that the suspicion and sidelong glances endured since September 11 by some in Canada's Muslim community, were long ago visited on the widow of Captain Satinder
Binder.

Binder was a Sikh, and the co-pilot aboard Air India flight 182.

On a recent assignment in India, The CBC's Karen Wells went to Mrs. Binder's home in Punjab -- because for her, there is more than grief at stake

America's smart bombs and guided missiles are targetting terrorist strongholds in Afghanistan. And the coalition against terrorism is watching on the world's most sophisticated satellite and electronic equipment.

But the most effective weaponry in this whole campaign might be staying below American radar.

Tonight we look at some aspects of the battle of ideas in this war against terrorism. We bring you some of the constructive thoughts that might be getting lost in the din of battle.

The flow of information and disinformation always reaches a peak in times of conflict.

It has the power to move people -- from presidents to streetfighters -- to great things and to bad ones.

It inspires bands of scrawny adolescents to burn flags, wreck cars and chant slogans.

It provokes some governments and religious forces to censor, denounce, threaten, jail -- even murder outspoken opponents.

Fact is in war there are lots of truths here. True facts. True believers. True friends. True enemies.

And a new player in this contest of truths is Al-Jazeera -- an Arab Satellite TV station based in Qatar.

It's crews are broadcasting the only television pictures coming out of Taliban-controlled Afghanistan right now.

It's the same station Osama bin Laden used to get on-air during the first night of air attacks on Afghanistan.

Al-Jazeera, based in Qatar, is a new player in a region that used to settle for censorship and the perceived anti-Arab bias of the foreign networks.

In just four years, the station has brought a new voice to the Muslim World, even though Muslims themselves aren't certain just who's side its on.

Rick MacInnes-Rae co-hosts from Beruit
with The Sunday Edition's Michael Enright, in Toronto.

When those jet planes -- filled with terrified everyday people -- slammed into the towers of the World Trade Center on September 11, it set off an atmosphere of fear across the world.

But the fear isn't just a fear of terrorism or a fear of the war that's upon us.

It's turned into an uneasy realization that so many things we do are going to be different.

The way we travel; the way we do business; the way police work; the way we view civil liberties; the way we look at our neighbours. The way countries get along.

Perhaps George W. Bush and the powerful interests that supported his presidency, perhaps, feel it the most. Bush had thumbed his nose at the international treaty to reverse global warming -- because it might hurt American profits -- and the treaty to limit nucelear weapons -- because it didn't fit into his national defense plans.

Now he wants every nation to get in line in his global coalition against terrorism.

Tonight we'll look at just some of places where that campaign is stirring up old antagonisms and presenting new problems.

Rick MacInnes-Rae looks at how the current hostilities
are churning up old hatreds in Lebanon.

Margaret Evans traces terrorists tracks through Hamburg, Germany; from Jakarta,Patricia Nunan gets behind Indonesia's deal with Washington; Mike Hornbrook watches the so-called ceasefire in Israel/Palestine;

Chris Grosskurth hits road to the Pakistan-Afghanistan border; Ted Flitton revisits The Green March in Morocco; Teddy Katz reflects on The U.S.'s right to bear arms and security at February's Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, and Jennifer Westaway, in Los Angeles, fails to sell an op-ed piece on Canada to any U.S. newspaper.

From Cairo, Dispatches' Rick MacInnes-Rae co-hosted, with Michael Enright in Toronto, an hour-long special about the campaign against terrorism and the terrorists' campaign to upset the nations of the Islamic World.

Over the past week it had become clear that the events of September 11 were more than an attack on America.

They were part of a crusade by radical Islamic
forces who want to topple the secular states with mainly Muslim populations. And terror is just a tactic in their crusade.

We checked in with CBC correspondents in Islamibad, Moscow, Western Europe, Jerusalem -- and New York. We asked a Muslim scholar why the appeal of this holy war to create Muslim theocracies is growing.

And we heard Rick's documentary report from Egypt, about why that powerful nation can't quite take a stand in George W Bush's war.

With experiences in Iran and the millions of refugees streaming out of Afghanastan for 20 years now, why is the furvor for eclesiastical Muslim governments growing rather than diminishing? And what does crashing an airplane into a building have to do with building an Islamic state?

The CBC's Economic Reporter, Michael Colton drove off to Washington, D.C. in a rental car -- minutes after the news of the terrorist disaster at the World Trade Centre.
At that time, he was just trying to be an eyewitness to a small part of the story, like any good reporter. But his role as an economics expert wasn't far from his mind.

As the U.S. economy has sped up its downturn folowing the attacks, here are some of his reflections on the risks ahead, and lessons to be learned.

And CBC's Connie Watson thought that making a rock video at Ground Zero was too much, until she cried with a firefighter who had a good time dancing in it.

Our correspondent in Israel says a tenous ceasefire could throw the process into chaos.

We hear a warning from Beirut that American military retaliation is exactly what the terrorists want.

The realm of Islam is a world of over a billion followers, stretching in a crescent from the Atlas Mountains of Morocco, through the deserts of Africa, across mountainous Central Asia to the humid climes of Indonesia. Islam is a religion as diverse as the countries and peoples who follow it.

Arab scholar Mary Anne Weaver says that "over the centuries, the Muslim world has been consumed by an intense and often angry debate on the use and abuse of Islamic law...various interpretations... have produced both rationalist theologians, and rigid ideologues."

There is a growing suspicion that the most rigid and radical of those ideologues have twisted the tenets of Islam into a cult responsible for the terrible attacks of September 11.

Dispatches producer Nazim Baksh has been piecing together the details of this extreme movement for the past 10 years -- predating the first bomb attack on the World Trade Centre in 1993.

We were pre-empted this week to make room for CBC radio's live coverage of the attacks in New York and Washington, co-hosted by Rick MacInnes-Rae

Host Rick MacInnes-Rae started the new season with a full-show documentary about a murder in Jamaica.

A Canadian priest is among the many casualties of the island's growing gun culture.

Martin Royackers devoted himself to the poor of Jamaica, working the fields with them on weekdays, preaching to them on Sundays. They returned his affection, calling him "Father One-Speed" because of the way he drove.

But in June he was found with a bullet in his chest, dead on the steps of his church.

We began our season asking who killed "Father One-Speed?" It's a story of God, guns, and globalisation.

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