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Series 6
Castro or Quit?
In Venezuela, it's the middle class who believe they're on the edge, uncomfortable with President Hugo Chavez's socialist policies. Yurani and Florencio, two young Venezuelan doctors, can't decide if their long-term future is definitely in the country they love. Many of their friends have already emigrated to better-paid jobs overseas. As doctors, they want to care for the poor and approve of many of Chavez's initiatives but they also believe he has gone too far. As members of the middle class, they face a fundamental choice - to help the government model Venezuela on Castro's Cuba, or to leave before it's too late. Should they stay and fight for what they believe?
Edge of Islam
On the Kenyan island of Lamu, three young Muslim football players face a dilemma. Should they work for the rich foreign tourists who sunbathe on their beautiful beaches and buy up their local houses? If they don’t, they won’t be able to pay off the school fees they owe, and the exam certificates they’ve earned will remain locked away in a filing cabinet. But if they do, will they compromise the strict principles of their Islamic faith? Across the world, many other young Muslims face the same dilemma – whether they should take a stake in the globalized world, or stand aside for the sake of their beliefs. The decisions they take could affect us all…
Looking for My Gypsy Roots
In Communist Hungary, many Roma children were taken from their parents and brought up in grim state orphanages. Among them was Arpad Bogdan, whose experiences inspired his prize-winning feature film Happy New Life.
But Arpad still isn’t sure whether to embrace his “gypsy” roots, or whether he really belongs in the wider world. To help decide, he sets out to try and find his family. In this extraordinary film, Arpad finally discovers the truth about his mother, brother and father ... and finds himself asking whether even he has been affected by stereotypes of gypsy life.
As his Dad says goodbye again, this time with an affectionate wave – should they keep in touch? Or is it better for everyone if Arpad finally breaks free from his Roma roots?
No Country for Young Girls
In the shadow of the Taj Mahal, Vaijanti must decide if she can leave her husband and make a life of her own. Vaijanti, who’s 27, fled her husband’s home in the city of Agra, after a bitter row – she already had one daughter, and his family wanted her to abort another. But Vaijanti decided she’d had enough – and went ahead with the pregnancy. Now she’s living with her parents, and two young daughters. But with no income of her own, she’s undecided whether to go back to her husband or not. Vaijanti wants to know if things are as bad for girls in the rest of India – why are so many families determined not to have girl children? If India is one of the world’s booming economies - thanks to its embrace of globalization- aren’t these old-fashioned prejudices dying out? As Life takes Vaijanti on a journey across India, she must decide if its booming economy can offer her and her daughters a fair and prosperous future. Or will she decide that India is no country for young girls, and go back to her husband?
Running On Empty
Eight years ago world leaders signed up to Millennium Development Goals, the number one priority being to halve poverty and hunger by 2015. In this film, Life highlights the plight of two young mothers living in two very different societies - Ethiopia and Wales.
The Dilemma of the White Ant
He’s young, handsome and loved by his family. He’s also probably the youngest person to be indicted as a war criminal by the International Criminal Court.
Most people who believe in Western justice would want Dominic Ongwen - “The White Ant” - brought to trial. But many in Uganda would rather rely on local rituals of forgiveness. Some believe the former child soldier should be helped not prosecuted. His victims, his family, his headman, his “bush wife” and the ICC disagree whether it’s best to dispense punishment, or mercy…it’s a dilemma which confounds morality, politics and justice.
The Pied Piper of Eyasi
We’ve sent machines to the sun, flown to Jupiter, and have plenty to eat...that’s how the Hadza tribe of Tanzania see the modern world. But they also cherish their own life, and don’t want to lose it – freedom, ancestral lands, no leaders.
Now Baallow, one of the few educated Hadza, is trying to persuade his people it can’t go on. He reckons their land rights are under threat and their children deserve the benefits of development. Life on the Edge follows Baallow as he tours the Hadza’s tribal lands on his motorbike, trying to sell his message to an undecided, sometimes bewildered people.
The tribe he introduces us to are among the last hunter-gatherers, still living as they did millennia ago. But they now face the biggest decision of all – should they join the globalized world? Or are they better off without us?
The Prince
The Prince – as Shehryar affectionately calls his friend Rafeh – is the scion of an ancient feudal Pakistani family. They own the village of Ratrian where life hasn’t changed much for centuries. One day Shehryar told Rafeh about the Millennium Development Goals – ambitious targets to eradicate global poverty. Like a Prince in a fairy tale, Rafeh decided to try and achieve the MDGs in his own village. But not everyone is so keen. So will the Prince persist or decide his ambition was a quixotic fantasy?
The Unforgiven
General Butt Naked was one of Liberia's most infamous warlords. By his own account he was responsible for thousands of deaths, and was even involved in ritual human sacrifice. Now he�s an evangelical Christian pastor in the capital Monrovia, preaching peace and forgiveness. Liberia�s new government must decide whether to forgive Joshua � as he�s now known � and dozens of other ex-combatants. Should they prosecute the killers as war criminals because of the horror of their crimes? Or is reconciliation the only way forward for such a war-torn and devastated country? It�s a dilemma which even the General is unsure he can resolve
Three Sisters
Age-old customs are part of everyday life for three young women living in a remote rural corner of Eritrea. These customs dictate they should not plough land, should entrust birthing to local midwives, and circumcise their daughters. But must they follow these customs? In wartime Eritrea, women commanded tanks, and led troops into battle. They’re no longer victims but sisters. Should they refuse to go along with the old ways? Or will they give in to family, friends and neighbours?
Our guide is Belainesh Seyoum, among the tens of thousands of Eritrean women who fought on the front lines. Once she lived in a world of trench warfare, kalashnikovs and men. She believed war would not only ensure her country’s independence but a lasting shift in the status of women. Now, years later, as a spokesperson for the National Union of Eritrean Women, Belainesh discovers that in the battle for equality there’s a new front line.
She introduces us to Leyla, a mother of two who’s already had one daughter circumcised, but is now having doubts about her younger girl... Amina, a mother of six who has just discovered she is pregnant again, and must now choose between dangerous home birth and a modern clinic she’s scared of... and Howa, a divorced woman trying to decide whether to break with tradition and plough her own land.
As Belainesh meets each of these women and their families, the film explores the difficult dilemmas confronting all women in rural Eritrea.
Series 5
Back in Business?
Eleven years of civil war between 1991 and 2002 has left Sierra Leone in ruins. According to the United Nations it’s the second poorest country in the world. Tens of thousands of people were killed and many more injured and displaced during the war. In May 2002, stability was restored when the former ruling party were returned to power in democratic elections. Now, after three years of peace, the rebuilding has begun, and Sierra Leone is looking for outside investment to kick start its economy. Sierra Leone has miles of beautiful beaches - in a country that was once a war-zone, could tourism be one of the new industries that moves the country into the future?
Cash Flow Fever
There have always been economic migrants – people who swap regions, countries – even continents – to find better wages to pay for a better life. One out of every ten people on the planet either sends or receives money from abroad. And unlike all other forms of financial aid that travels into developing countries, remittances go directly to poor people. Worldwide it’s estimated that amounts to a staggering two hundred billion dollars a year. What impact can it have in the fight against poverty? To find out more, Life has travelled to the United States and El Salvador to uncover this hidden economy.
Collision Course
Road traffic accidents are now the second leading cause of death among young people – with young men most at risk. Nearly three times more young men than young women are killed or injured on roads every year. Globally, 1.2 million people are killed on roads every year and up to 50 million more are injured and remain disabled for life.
Around 85% of deaths from road traffic crashes occur in developing countries – costing the state between 1–1.5% of their annual GNP. Without action, and with the growing number of cars on the roads in thriving new middle-income countries like India and Brazil, road deaths and disabilities are likely to rise still further.
Through the eyes of road campaigner Harman Sidhu, who is himself a paraplegic after a road crash, this special Life programme looks at the current situation in both countries – and see what positive steps are being taken to confront this serious health issue.
For Richer, for Poorer
Sao Paulo is Brazil’s biggest city and the business hub of the country. Nestling between the sky scrapers are the favelas or urban slums housing the poor. Life went to the favela Coliseu, in the heart of one of the richest parts of Sao Paolo. It epitomizes a stark fact that has come to characterise Brazil today. The gulf between the rich and the poor is one of the biggest in the world. Almost half the country’s wealth is concentrated in the hands of just twenty thousand families – and that’s out of a population 184 million. Life assesses what progress has been made in two and a half years by Lula, the worker President.
Interview with Unicef Maldives representative Ken Maskall
Kill or Cure?
For over a decade, India has been the powerhouse behind low cost drugs for the developing world, especially Africa and Asia. India’s $4.5 billion pharmaceutical industry is now at a crossroads following a new law introduced in January 2005. It’s opened a highly charged debate, with opinion split right down the middle. Life has been to India to investigate.
Killing Poverty
Three years ago, President Kibaki came to power in Kenya promising to end the corruption endemic in the previous regime. Popular jubilation endorsed this policy. But how much have things really improved? Life follows the fortunes of a family afflicted by AIDS and talks to ministers and anti-corruption officials who suggest that the Government needs more international aid to help it stamp out corruption. And Deputy Environment Minister Wangari Maathai, who was tortured by the former regime and won the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize, says that Western governments need to face up to their own responsibilities for shoring up President Arap Moi.
Kosovo - A House Still Divided?
Kosovo, a land-locked province of Serbia, still bears the scars of the civil war between Serbs and Kosovo Albanians six years ago. One of the poorest regions in Europe, it’s currently run by the UN's Mission in Kosovo. During the conflict homes and property were seized, ownership often determined by force. Today there is still deep resentment. To find solutions the UN created HPD, the Housing Property Directorate. But its five year mission ends this year. Will HPD’s withdrawal signal new anger over land and property rights? Life has been to find out.
School's Out!
Makoko is a shanty town on the lagoon of Lagos, West Africa's biggest city. Space is precious, so Makoko stretches out into the lagoon, with many of the houses are built on stilts. It hardly looks the place, but new research reveals that parents here are prepared to pay to get their children educated. Children can go to the free state school. Or they can pay at one of these small, private schools. But they are extremely poor. Average income in Makoko is about fifty dollars a month. School fees can be ten dollars. So why are they prepared to pay? Research by a British team claims private schools in shanties and slums around the world are doing much better than state schools. Is this hype or reality?
Srebrenica - Looking for Justice
This film examines the massacre at Srebrenica. This July is the tenth anniversary of what proved to be the worst massacre in Europe since the Second World War. The programme examines the long and painful process of identifying the many thousands of men and boys who were slaughtered, the attempts to bring those responsible to justice and looks to the future and the possibility of Balkan states joining the European Union.
The Donor Circus
Zambia, southern Africa, is one of the poorest countries in the world, where one in every six children dies before reaching their fifth birthday. Its economy depends heavily on international aid. Over 40% of the Zambian government’s budget comes from foreign donors. In 2003 that was $560 million. In the past, donors decided what the money was spent on and demanded a say in how the country’s economy was run. Now the Zambian government hopes that way of working may soon be a thing of the past.
The Great Health Service Swindle
The health services of the richer countries are hugely dependent on nurses and doctors from developing countries, attracted by better salaries and the higher standard of living. For over 40 years there’s been a trickle of Ghanaian nurses to the English-speaking developed world. One widely quoted source says almost two thousand nurses left the country between 1995 and 2002. Life goes to Ghana with Lydia, a Ghanaian nurse working in the UK, to see what the 'push' problems are, and find out what would make Lydia return to her homeland.
The Silent Crisis
One of the poorest countries in Africa, the Central African Republic is struggling to avoid economic and social chaos. The country is on the verge of complete collapse. It is one of the least developed countries in the world and certainly one of the poorest. Few people there live beyond 40, 13 per cent of children die in infancy and only a third of the population has access to safe drinking water. Life has interviewed the President and toured the country with the Minister of Health to see the problems at first hand.
Trouble in Paradise
A thousand tiny coral islands scattered in the Indian Ocean, the Maldives are viewed as a paradise on earth. But their existence is threatened by rising sea levels, and they were devastated by the tsunami on 26th December 2004. One year on from the tsunami, and the tourists are back on the beaches. So why, when tourist facilities are up and running, are over 10,000 people on the isolated islands still waiting for their homes and communities to be rebuilt? Why is the Maldives the only tsunami-affected country which has not yet been promised all the aid it requested? A special edition of Life reports from the islands, and looks at the long-term social impact of the 2004 tsunami on this tiny island state.
Series 4
Aiming High
In 1986 Uganda was bankrupt – a byword for corruption and economic mismanagement. Six years of civil war in this former British colony in East Africa had followed the ousting of Idi Amin and its social and state institutions were near collapse. But today Uganda’s economy is widely seen as a success story and over the last ten years the number of Ugandans living in absolute poverty has been cut by half. This edition of Life looks at how Uganda has achieved this remarkable turnaround, and questions whether the country could now be on course to meet the Millennium Development Goal of halving the number of people living on less than a dollar a day by 2015.
Balancing Acts
In Pakistan, seventeen-year-old Hina is challenging tradition to complete her education. In Afghanistan, returning refugees like Maa Gul want the government to honour their right to shelter. In Kenya, Rose – who’s HIV-positive - is championing widows’ rights to independence. And in Nigeria, market trader Tematayo is demanding the government acknowledge her worth as a successful businesswoman. Hina, Maa Gul, Rose and Tematayo are just four of the millions of women that 179 leaders at the International Conference on Population and Development set out to help ten years ago in Cairo, signing agreements linking women’s rights to the reduction of poverty – rights including receiving the same education as boys; playing a full part in economic life; being free from all sexual discrimination and violence; and having basic shelter. In the first of two programmes on the 10th anniversary of the Cairo Conference, Life visits women in four countries to explore what has, and hasn’t, changed.
Between War and Peace
Liberia, West Africa. Over half of the population fled their homes in terror during its long and bloody civil war. After fourteen years of anarchy, the international community has arrived in force in an attempt to stabilise the country. Many see this as Liberia’s last chance. With more than 59,000 fighters (some of them children) demobilised in the last three months and another 15,000 waiting to follow, this Life programme reports on Liberia's attempts to find a way of engaging the former fighters in rebuilding their country – to sustain the peace.
Blue Danube?
In the year when Hungary and Slovakia have joined the EU and Romania and Bulgaria wait for accession, Life tracks the course of the Danube through the heart of Central Europe. The programme examines the legacies of communist rule and conflict in the region, and asks when more than one country shares what a river has to offer, what are the consequences? This is the story of how the Danube has become a new battleground in the conflict between the EU’s transport and agriculture lobbies, and environmentalists fighting to preserve the river’s unique ecology. Can the EU stick to its own commitment to environmental sustainability?
Brazil's Land Revolution
In Brazil, almost half of the agricultural land is owned by just one per cent of the population. The government estimates that land reform would benefit some 4.5 million families - both agricultural workers and city slum-dwellers. Although the policy has been backed by successive governments, political opposition has so far prevented any meaningful progress. Now Brazil's President, Luiz Ignazio Lula da Silva, has announced plans to resettle more than 100,000 landless families this year, and promised an extra US$500 million towards agrarian reform over the next two years. Life visits the Northeastern state of Bahia to report on an initiative which encourages the landless to club together to buy up land, with low-interest government loans.
Crisis Control - Stemming the Spread of HIV/AIDS
One of the Millennium Development Goals is to specifically target AIDS and other major diseases. In this programme, Life visits two contrasting countries whose populations are affected by HIV/AIDS and examine the roots of the problem and what is being done to alleviate it in each case. Ukraine has the fastest growing HIV epidemic in Europe, with most people are infected through injecting drug use. Aid organizations and the government are working to encourage needle exchanges, peer education and self-help groups, but can they hope to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS in a country where people have little hope faced by economic depression and unemployment? In Zambia 1 in 5 of the population are infected. We accompany workers as they visit remote rural areas as well as the capital Lusaka and find out what is being done to stem the spread of AIDS and treat those with the disease. What does the future hold for a country where life expectancy is 33 years?
Educating Yaprak
The eastern Turkish province of Van is home to Turks, Armenians and Kurds. Conflict between these communities has exacerbated poor living conditions. Now, the Turkish government has extended compulsory education for all children, including girls, up to the age of 14. Where traditionally education is taken ‘out’ to remote villages, the Turkish approach is to bring the children to the schools. Children in Turkey are either being transported into towns and cities or even sent to boarding schools. The reasoning is that the standards of remote education centres are difficult to monitor and maintain. In addition, by bringing children together from different communities it is hoped cultural and social differences will be overcome. Is this a workable solution? Parents are often reluctant to send their children, particularly girls, on arduous and often dangerous journeys just to attend school. Will they be convinced that it’s important that their children spend eight years at school? How will they be convinced that this is a good idea?
Geraldo's Brazil
This Life programme examines the effects of globalisation through the story of Geraldo Da Souza, a worker at Ford in Sao Paolo, Brazil. In 1999, he was among 2000 workers laid off from his factory during the "international financial crisis". Life filmed him then, trying to work out the connection between the financial crises in Asia, Russia and Brazil and understand the impact of globalisation. In this film we will look at the effects of globalization over the past 5 years through Geraldo’s life and eyes. And we examine how institutions like the IMF and the World Bank have been dealing with a government which had in mind not to pay its external debt...
Helping Ourselves!
This fourth programme explores changes in two Indian states that have succeeded in giving previously powerless people some control over their lives. In Karnataka, the IT revolution has allowed farmers to access the previously inaccessible land deeds so vital to obtaining the credit with which they can sow next year’s harvest. In Andhra Pradesh, women’s self-help groups have enabled rural women to change aspects of their lives they were unhappy with, and given them a voice in local government.
Holding our Ground
Holding our Ground focuses on one of the most contested of the agreements hammered out at the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo in 1994 - reproductive rights. But 10 years after the Cairo agreement, these rights still appear to be far from universal. The programme features reports from: the Philippines, a country with an average of over five children per family, and now at the epicentre of the battle over efforts to restrict access to family planning; Latvia, one of the new members of the EU, where taboos surrounding the subject of sex still hamper efforts to provide information for adolescents; Japan, where the falling birthrate is focusing attention again on the problems of childcare for working women; and India, where - despite laws designed to protect the girl child - the practice of selective abortion of female fetuses appears to be growing. The stories are linked by an interview with Thoraya Obaid - Executive Director of the UN Population Fund, and the first Saudi Arabian woman ever to head up a UN agency.
How Green is My Valley?
In this programme, Life visits the Valleys of Wales, where the coal and steel industries have left a legacy of ill health and unemployment. For every statistic on health and poverty, the Welsh Valleys top the charts for Western Europe. The highest rates for chronic emphysema, cancer, heart disease, asthma, poor housing and sanitation, low birth weight and accidental death combine to mean that people living here suffer the highest mortality rates in Western Europe. Coal and Steel were the lifeline of the Valleys - but today these industries are all but gone. Their legacy is a polluted pocket of poverty - 180,000 people nestled in the steep-sided windswept valleys of Caerphilly County. There are schemes to regenerate the entire area – health projects, with incentives, working groups, investment and employment strategies – but are these really working and what more can be done to lift this community out of its depression?
In the Wake of War
Burundi, the small land-locked country in the Great Lakes Region of Africa, which has been at the heart of one of Africa's most intractable ethnic conflicts, is finally beginning to see the benefits of a peace process. Using traditional mediation systems and peacemakers, the country is introducing innovative peace and reconciliation projects. The aim is to start a grass roots movement to bring a lasting peace to the Burundi and its long-suffering citizens. With the country's first post-conflict elections scheduled at the beginning of November, this timely programme examines the future for Burundi, for power sharing and for a rapprochement between warring factions.
Listen to the Kids!
One in five of the world’s population is aged between 12 and 18. In developing countries, where the percentage is much higher, children and young people often carry a huge burden of responsibility at work and in the home. Yet despite this, rarely are their voices heard and their views taken into account. Life reports on a Unicef initiative to involve children in decisions that affect, not only their own futures – but those of their families and communities. Life travels from post-conflict Sri Lanka to the back-streets of New Delhi to talk to children involved in the Children’s Council of street children, in adolescent education in Bangladesh, and in fighting discrimination against HIV/AIDS sufferers in Nepal.
Reaching out to the grassroots
In this programme Life looks at two very different approaches to improving the lives of poor people – one through education in Bangladesh, the other through what’s known as ‘community-driven development’ in Indonesia - and asks whether they can be replicated in other countries trying to meet the targets of the Millennium Development Goals of halving the number of people living in poverty by 2015.
Return to Srebrenica
In 1995 the small town of Srebrenica in Eastern Bosnia was home to the worst massacre in Europe since World War Two. Now international aid, and the burials of victims of the massacres, are part of a process allowing the town to move forward, and begin to build a new future. The story of Srebrenica today, a town slowly reconciling itself to its past, unfolds through interviews with returning refugees, and those who can't face ever going back; with the International Commission on Missing Persons; with EU Ambassador Michael Humphries; and with Lord Paddy Ashdown, internationally appointed administrator of Bosnia.
Returning Dreams
What happens to the millions of children caught up in the world’s conflicts? Some are forced to fight and kill, others are used as slaves and 'wives'. Those that survive are left brutalised and traumatised. How do you rehabilitate children who have gone through these kinds of experiences? To mark the 15th anniversary of the International Convention of the Rights of the Child, Life returns to Sierra Leone and Liberia, to assess the fate of children caught up in the recent civil war. Life goes to the refugee camps, the diamond mines and the border villages and towns to find out what is happening to these children and what the future now holds for them.
Roma Rights
Roma communities in Europe have been subjected to centuries of persecution and racism. They are one of the most excluded groups in the world. They are denied the chance to work, proper housing, healthcare and their children refused a decent education. But a new initiative – the Decade of Roma Inclusion – was launched on 2nd February in a concerted attempt to help and break the desperate cycle of poverty in which so many Roma live. 'Roma Rights' looks at the hard living conditions but it also examines the richness and energy of Roma culture, especially the music. TVE has been given rare access to film Roma communities in Bulgaria and Romania where ordinary families talk openly about discrimination and their suffering.
Slum Futures
Life goes to Mumbai, formerly Bombay, to investigate the city's extraordinary slum culture. There is poverty and suffering but Mumbai's slum dwellers are a vibrant and proud community. The city is also an important microcosm of how slums are developing around the world. We meet many characters. Sagira is a veteran of the streets. She's lived on the city's pavements for 32 years making do in two tiny rooms where her family of 16 sleep in shifts. They have no electricity, an illegal supply of water and no toilet. Globally one in six people live in slums. At the current rate of growth, that proportion's going to double by 2030 to one in every three. As well as travelling through Mumbai's slums, "Slum Futures" also looks at how the authorities will deal with such a massive influx.
Staying Alive!
Every year, a recent WHO report shows, 529,000 women worldwide die in childbirth and pregnancy... For over 20 years, the international community has pledged itself to improving maternal health. But until recently there has been very little progress. Now, in the Millennium Development Goals, 189 countries have renewed their commitment to reduce maternal mortality by 75 per cent by 2015. In Bangladesh, 50 women die during pregnancy or in childbirth every day. Bangladesh is doing its best, but will it be able to deliver its promises to reduce maternal mortality by 75% by 2015?
The Coffee-Go-Round
Globally, 400 billion cups of coffee are drunk each year. Coffee experts say demand is increasing world-wide. And yet many of the world's coffee growers say they are in the middle of a crisis. Life visits Ethiopia, the cradle of coffee, and speaks to players in the international coffee trade to find out how individual coffee growers can survive the boom and bust of the global coffee market.
The Hospice
To mark International AIDS Day, Life presents a powerful and intimate film into the work of a hospice in Zambia, a country on the front line in the world fight against HIV/AIDS. This is a country where one in five of the population are HIV-positive; most are under 40 years old. All of the eleven million population has been touched by HIV/AIDS in some way. The Mother of Mercy Hospice on the edge of the capital, Lusaka, was the first of its kind in Zambia. It has just 22 beds and was founded by an inspiring woman of extraordinary courage, a Polish nun called Sister Leonia. The film follows the work of the staff and volunteers both at the hospice and in the local villages and communities. The courage of patients, the resilience and despair of the staff and the dignity of how they all deal with the almost daily ritual of death makes this film an extraordinary account of the human face of AIDS in modern Africa.
The Millennium Goals – Dream or Reality?
At the turn of the new millennium, the world looked forward to an end to absolute poverty, avoidable disease, oppression of women and children without education. The United Nations embodied these hopes in a series of eight targets - the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). These Goals were agreed by all 189 UN member states in 2000 – targets for everyone to meet by the year 2015. These eight goals are the subject of this new series of eight Life programmes. This first programme is a review of the MDGs and an assessment by various leading figures of their value and likely outcome.
The Real Leap Forward
China, today, has one of the fastest growing economies in the world. With 1.3 billion people, it also has the largest population on Earth. Hundreds of millions of Chinese live far from the coastal regions generating this new wealth. This Life programme looks at how China succeeded in freeing so many people from poverty - and whether it can now use the lessons learned to help poor communities throughout the rest of the country.
This Hard Ground
Away from the idyllic, tropical paradise beaches of Sri Lanka, a civil war has been raging for the last twenty years. Jaffna, once a thriving port in the north of the island, is now a decimated skeleton of a city: buildings have been flattened by bombs, homes shot out and deserted. During the course of the war, around 800,000 people were forced to leave their homes and all their possessions. Even though they were displaced within their own country, they have lost everything: their livelihoods, their community and often their families. This Life programme examines the fragile peace and what it means to people who have fled because of the fighting. We talk to the Sri Lankan army, the government and NGOs and ask what are the prospects for a long-term political settlement and lasting peace.
Warming up in Mongolia
This Life film looks at how Mongolia is powering itself - is the current situation sustainable and can anything be done to introduce new, cleaner technology to improve people’s quality of life? All electricity produced in Mongolia comes from fossil fuels. What can be done to repair environmental damage and introduce sustainable alternatives to burning wood? Life visits the remote region of Urtuu Mukhar as well as the capital Ulan Baatar and examines the long-term environmental implications of exhausting Mongolia’s natural resources – global warming, environmental degradation, desertification. What clean technological solutions are there to Mongolia’s problems and are these feasible, financially and logistically?
When the Cows Come Home
Jamaica. Island of sun, rum, and reggae. But away from the beaches and resorts there’s another rural Jamaica, struggling to make ends meet on farming. And it's here that you can find the 'Jamaica Hope' – the island's very own dairy cow, bred specially to withstand the tropical heat. But despite the success of the breed and unprecedented consumer demand for milk, the dairy industry is facing a crisis. This edition of Life looks at how – with cruel irony – the Jamaica Hope is under threat from subsidised European Dairy Farmers and ask how Europe’s agricultural policies squares with its commitment to the Millennium
Development Goals. . .
Whose Agenda is it Anyway?
To fulfil the Millennium Development Goals, many poor countries are implementing Poverty Reduction Strategy Programmes – PRSPs. They are supposed to be ‘home grown’, developed by both government and civil society and emphasize pro-poor economic growth. But in Malawi, PRSPs are viewed by many as merely a new version of old World Bank policies, with decisions ultimately being made in Washington, rather than by the country’s own citizens.
This Life report investigates the PRSP process and its effectiveness in Malawi. We interview Malawian government officials, civil society campaigners, World Bank Economists and critics of World Bank policies, as well as visiting rural communities to ask how they themselves would eliminate their own poverty.
Yemeni Futures
In 1990 Yemen became a single country, with the unification of the Yemen Arab Republic in the North and the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen in the South. It was hailed a move that would bring prosperity to the country, and stability in the Middle East. Yemen is currently among the poorest countries in the world - 42% of the population live in poverty. Only a quarter of the population live in cities and outside the urban areas population density is low. This makes it difficult to provide essential services to the majority of the population, such as healthcare, education and basic infrastructure. This Life programme asks what is being done to address these fundamental needs of the Yemeni people, and whether anything has been achieved since the unification in 1990 to raise the quality of their lives.
Series 3
Cheated of Childhood
There are believed to be over a million homeless children in Russia, and in St Petersburg alone, 16,000 children live on the streets. President Vladimir Putin has described the situation as the 'most threatening of his country's economic and social indicators'.
Danger! Children at Work
Guatemala is one of the poorest countries in Central America. Most Guatemalans exist on subsistence farming, with over 80 per cent living on less than two dollars a day.
It Takes a Village
In one of the poorest areas of one of the world's poorest countries, there was a devastating cyclone in 1991. The community of Chakaria in Bangladesh has never really recovered, even today, more than 10 years later, and there is still malnourishment. This programme describes a new approach to community health care tried there.
Kosovo: Rebuilding the Dream
When former Yugoslavian president Slobodan Milosevic paid his historic visit to Kosovo in 1990, he started a process that was ultimately to lead to the break-up of the multi-ethnic population of the province, and the destruction of any form of civic government for the families who'd lived there for centuries.
Patents and Patients
Dr Yusuf Hamied thinks the Indian government should put the country "on a war footing" to tackle the HIV/AIDS epidemic that threatens to decimate his country. As evidence, he cites the three and a half thousand new HIV/AIDS cases registered every day in India - and the forecasts of 35 million HIV-infected Indians by 2003.
Seeing is Believing
Health experts have long known that lack of vitamin A leads to childhood measles, and blindness, as well as increasing the risks of child deaths and maternal mortality - and so undermining the health and development of many poor developing countries.
Sowing Seeds of Hunger
Across Southern Africa, rain doesn’t always fall where or when it should. And cycles of drought and crop failure, aggravated by poverty and ineffective government policies, have contributed to occasional food shortages. But now, with the number of HIV infections rising daily, there is a new and different food crisis on the horizon.
The Doctor's Story
In 2001 Dr Gunraj Lohani trudged eight hours up a long misty trail from Diktel airport in Eastern Nepal to take up residence in the local district hospital in Khotang - filled with a determination to bring change to the ailing local health services.
The Perfect Famine
The "Perfect Famine" is the kind of famine that happens when everything that can go wrong does go wrong, either because of natural disasters or because of the activities of man. That's what is happening in the southern African country of Malawi, where bad weather, poor governance, and probably profiteering have combined to create a desperate situation.
The Road from Rio
We see life in Johannesburg through the eyes of Nankie, a DJ on Alex FM, a community radio station. She's excited by the prospect of delegations from around the world flying in to her home town to debate the world's environmental problems and new ways to create a better, fairer global society.
The Trade Trap
This week's episode of Life comes from Ghana, where trading is a way of life - yet the country still relies on foreign aid for most of its national budget.
Up in Smoke
In the southern African country of Malawi, tobacco is the major export crop - responsible for 70 per cent of all export earnings. Agriculture is the mainstay of Malawi’s economy - accounting for over 90 per cent of GDP. Out of a total population of 11 million, the majority of Malawians are farmers - and seven million owe their livelihoods to the tobacco industry. But economic dependency on tobacco has not brought the country wealth. According to the World Bank, over 60 per cent of Malawians live below the poverty line - with limited access to land, little education and poor health.With the global tobacco market now worth around US$ 400 billion a year, Malawians are now questioning if the wealth promised from growing tobacco always goes up in smoke.
Series 2
A Fistful of Rice
Nine out of every 10 children in Nepal suffer some form of malnutrition. Paradoxically, it's because malnutrition is so widespread that it's also invisible, unnoticed. This is particularly true of Protein Energy Malnutrition, or PEM as it's known - a condition officially defined as being short and underweight for age, but which, in reality, is a devastating intergenerational cycle of lost potential, both physical and mental.
Brazil: Winning Against AIDS
Five years ago, the World Bank forecast that Brazil would have 1.2 million HIV-positive people by this year. The Brazilian government responded with a series of bold moves involving the health service and citizens groups across the nation. As a result, the actual number infected is believed to be only 600,000 - half what was forecast. At the heart of Brazil's success is its drug-distribution programme.
City Life
Half of humanity today lives in cities. By 2030, that figure is set to increase to three out of every five people - drawn by dreams of prosperity and opportunity. But are cities really engines of progress? Or breeding grounds for crime, violence and disease? Life examines how the cities of the 21st century should be run, what can be done to make them better places to live in - and how cities can share their prosperity with all their citizens, not just the elites.
Doing the Right Thing
Porto Alegre - capital of Brazil's southernmost state of Rio Grande do Sul - was once a run-of-the mill, dirty, Brazilian port city. With the fastest growing economy in Brazil, the state of Rio Grande do Sul attracts immigrants from many other poorer regions of the country who come in search of work and a better future. The state has a history of fierce independence, including a breakaway movement to form a separate nation.
Gaza Under Siege
One of the most densely populated places on earth, the Gaza Strip is home to over a million Palestinians - and is a virtual prison. Just 43 kilometres long and 10 kilometres wide, most of its residents are refugees who've lived in camps since 1948. Since the Palestinian uprising - the second Intifada - began in September 2000, none of Gaza's 40,000 day labourers have been able to cross the border to Israel. The checkpoint is also closed to all goods and medical supplies coming in from Israel and the West Bank. Local Gazans bear the brunt of Israel's determination to quash the uprising. Some 135 Palestinian children under the age of 15 have been killed by Israel's soldiers - for throwing stones at checkpoints near Israeli settlements. In this episode, Life visits Reyidh and Sabah and their children - just one refugee family trying to cope.
Holy Smoke - Cambodians Fight Tobacco
Like many other developing countries, Cambodia is taking the brunt of the aggressive marketing techniques of big cigarette companies. But these companies face a challenge from an unusual quarter there. Religion, in the form of Buddhism, is fighting back.
Lines in the Dust
In a small village near Tamale in northern Ghana, a group of men and women sit around in a semi-circle, discussing the chart they've drawn in the dust. The chart has three columns, showing the hours in the day, and the different tasks men and women undertake during those hours. It soon becomes clear that it's the women who undertake the most labour intensive work - fetching water and firewood, cleaning and preparing food - and the discovery sparks a lively debate about why the men can't take on more 'women's' work.
Missing Out
Landlocked Niger on the southern edge of the Sahara Desert is one of the poorest countries in the world, and less than a third of its population have access to any health care. Malnutrition remains the main cause of maternal and infant mortality: there's a hidden hunger among almost all the women and young children, caused by iron-deficiency anaemia. It's an unseen problem, that slowly steals away the body's strength and immunity to disease.
My Hanoi
Hanoi is one of the new global cities of the 21st century - a bustling centre of international trade and tourism, in competition with other fast growing cities of South East Asia and the burgeoning South China region. Growing urbanisation has led to a boom in construction: market reform and globalization have caused an influx of Western consumer goods.
My Mother Built This House
Victoria Mxenge was the first of the housing projects founded by the South African Homeless People's Federation in the 1990s in Khayalitsha, meaning "New Home", a huge sprawling township on a windswept, sandy flood plain outside Cape Town. A small oasis in a seemingly infinite sea of squatter settlements, the project has several streets of neat houses, a creche, an office built from old, brightly painted shipping containers and a small shop selling basic essentials. Nearly one-third of Cape Town's population of three million live in slums or squatter settlements.
Paradise Domain
What's in a name? To a tiny nation in the South Pacific, plenty. The country is Tuvalu in the South Pacific: nine low-lying islands 1,000 km north of Fiji that make up one of the world's smallest, most isolated and most densely populated countries. Largely unknown to tourists, Tuvalu and its 10,500 people suffer from underdevelopment and a lack of jobs. Other than fishing, people get by harvesting coconuts - pretty much the only thing the soil will grow. But Tuvalu has one valuable asset: its coveted domain name - dot tv. In 1999 the prime minister determined to capitalize on this by selling the name to a Los Angeles dot.com company - in exchange for several million dollars and access to the new wired-up world.
Patently Obvious
Protection of intellectual property - works of the mind - is the lifeblood of today's new knowledge economy. But while the benefits to the multinational pharmaceutical or telecommunication giants are plain, what relevance do international patent regulations have for developing countries?
Pavements of Gold
Urban poverty has been described as one of the biggest challenges facing the world in the 21st century. The figures are stark: in 1950, the number of people living in urban areas amounted to 300 million. At the start of the new century, that figure had multiplied almost ten-fold, to 2.85 billion - or almost half the world's total population. And the flow of rural migrants arriving in the world's megacities shows no signs of slowing down. With the backdrop of the growing urban slums surrounding Lima, capital city of Peru, this programme examines the enduring magnetism of big cities - and asks whether the migrants who've moved here now feel that city life is the answer to their dreams.
Paying the Price
In Uganda, in a hospital in the capital Kampala, 14-year old Vincent is being treated for cryptoccocal meningitis, contracted as a result of AIDS. Underweight, frightened and wracked with pain, he is one of literally millions of AIDS orphans across Africa who will die in the next 10 years unless life-saving antiretroviral drugs become more widely available. But at current prices, the drugs are just too expensive for most African countries.
Stop the Traffick
Thirty years of war left Cambodia ravaged and poverty-stricken. Since the end of the brutal Khmer Rouge rule, poverty, corruption and global tourism have all made it particularly vulnerable to the child labour industry. Children are trafficked into cities from rural areas to become sex slaves or sex workers, or trafficked out to comparatively wealthy Thailand to work in Bangkok as beggars, domestic workers, or labourers on construction sites.
The Barcelona Blueprint
Once the industrial heart of the region of Catalonia in Spain, Barcelona could have become just another burnt-out, rust-belt European city that had failed to find a role in the modern, globalized world. But what set Barcelona apart from other European cities was a visionary local government which decided on radical redevelopment of the city in the run-up to the 1992 Olympics - a redevelopment that involved all the city's population. The result - Barcelona today is a model 21st century city, combining historic buildings with modern architecture in a fusion that has helped make it one of the most popular tourist destinations in
Europe.
The Health Protesters
Twenty-three years ago, the World Health Organization's Alma Ata conference promised to deliver basic health care for all the world's population by the year 2000, under the clarion cry of 'Health for All'.
The Long March
More people are on the move in China than ever before in human history. Twelve million people are leaving the countryside for the cities every year, and, within a generation, there will be more people living in the towns and cities than in the countryside.
The Miller's Tale
The most common nutritional deficiency in the world, iron deficiency is a severe health problem that affects hundreds of millions of people around the world - causing a range of problems, from extreme lethargy to low birth weight, stunting, maternal mortality and loss of productivity on a national scale. More than half the population of Middle Eastern countries are iron-deficient - yet fortifying flour with iron costs just US$2 per person, per lifetime.
The Other Side
Over the last century hundreds of thousands of Mexicans have migrated to the United States in search of a living wage. Particularly in the 1980s, thousands of indigenous people made the 3,000 mile trip from the southern state of Oaxaca, many illegally crossing the border, to find work in Los Angeles.
Together Against Violence
Bennetlands is a ghetto community in the heart of Kingston, Jamaica's capital city - home to 5,000 inhabitants - half of them under 25 and over 2,000 of them unemployed. Once, despite the poverty, Bennetlands was a peaceful place, with daily life revolving around the four main pillars of the community - its primary school, two churches and the S-Corner Clinic which provided health care, support and education for school drop-outs. But in the 1980s war broke out in the region - with rival 'corner' gangs fighting a vicious turf battle over Bennetlands' one high street, terrorising the neighbourhood and preventing children from going to school, and for most of the residents Bennetlands became a prison without bars. This week's City Life tells how the local leaders joined forces to challenge the local gangs to heal their difference and work together to restore a sense of community in one poor Jamaican neighbourhood.
Waiting to Go
The second programme exploring the lives of Palestinian refugees, this Life episode is set in Lebanon, where - according to the UN - there are 375,000 Palestinian refugees. Palestinians are unwanted in Israel, as we saw last week's programme; but in war-torn, sectarian Lebanon, among fellow Arabs, they hardly fare better, and most live in poverty. Barred from working, they also have limited access to medical care and higher education. Many have been in Lebanon for 50 years.
Series 1
A - OK?
Of the 32,000 children who die every day from preventable causes, over 20% are killed by shortage of a vital nutrient. Vitamin A is essential for the functioning of the human immune system, and its deficiency also causes childhood blindness. In industrialized countries, foods like flour or sugar have been fortified with it for decades. But it's not the same picture in some developing countries, where children with Vitamin A deficiency still run the risk of dying from common childhood illnesses like measles and diarrhoea. The cost of ensuring that all children receive enough Vitamin A is minimal - the twice-yearly capsules cost just 2 cents apiece - and this Life programme looks at the political inertia surrounding the issue.
All Different, All Equal
This week's programme reports on appalling violence against women in South Africa, the trafficking of women in Lithuania for sex, and inequality in Sweden, where foreign-born wives can find themselves thrown out of their home - and the country. Five years after the Beijing Women's Conference, there's still a long way to go.
An Act of Faith
This week's film shows how health care is being brought to poor rural people in a rich country, South Africa, who were marginalized by the injustices of the apartheid regime. An Act of Faith is a 25-minute documentary telling the story of the Phelophepa (Good Clean Health) Train that travels to remote areas of South Africa bringing primary health care to impoverished rural people deprived for years from a share in their country's wealth and health facilities.
At the End of a Gun
"I just don't know what will happen. We have lost everything and we were forced to suffer without any reason," says Saraswathi Ramendra. In the bloody civil war which has torn Sri Lanka apart for over 17 years, as in most other wars, it is the women civilians caught in the cross-fire who suffer. "There's death, there's injury, there's loss of loved ones. There's rape - rape goes hand in hand with conflict, we know that," says Dr Gaya Gamhewage of Save the Children. This week Life reports on how armed conflict destroys women's lives. It was filmed in Sri Lanka, but it could also have been made in any of the other 30 or so regional and ethnic conflicts, where women suffer in war.
Because They're Worth It
Internationally, the definition for absolute poverty is living on an income of under a dollar a day. But the Chinese Government has a lower threshold for poverty: 66 US cents a day. Out of a total Chinese population of 1.3 billion, there are 42 million Chinese who are poor by this definition.
Bolivian Blues
Bolivia is at the heart of South America. It extends from the high Andes to tropical jungle. It's culturally, ethnically and geographically very diverse and potentially rich. Yet it ranks lowest of all South American countries in the UN's Human Development Index. Twenty per cent of children are undernourished. Average school attendance is less than seven years. Entrenched vested interests hamper foreign investment in the economy, while the landlocked geography of the country itself limits access to export markets. But there are signs of change. Annual inflation fell from a peak of 23,500 per cent in 1985 to less than 4.5 per cent by the close of 1998, and Bolivia's huge external debt burden has been substantially eased under new debt redemption programmes.
Credit Where Credit's Due
"Poverty is not created by poor people . . . Poverty is created by institutions that we build, policies that we pursue; concepts that we create." Mohammad Yunus created a concept to combat poverty - micro-credit - providing loans to the poor to whom the banks won't lend. And it works.
Educating Lucia
Twelve-year old Lucia goes to primary school; her dream is to go to secondary school, and go on to train as a pilot. Her older sister Barita wants to do computer studies, but she had to leave school when their parents died of AIDS. And Portia, the youngest in the family, wants to be a dressmaker, but she doesn't go to school at all. The three sisters are AIDS orphans being brought up by their grandmother. She can only afford school fees for one girl, Lucia, to attend primary school. Tragically for these three sisters from one of Zimbabwe's large scale commercial farms, in tobacco country 50 miles outside Harare, they're more likely to end up - as their mother before them - with no formal education, working as seasonal labourers on the farm. Across Africa, the odds are dramatically against girls getting an education. This Life episode examines why.
For a Few Pennies More
Kamidi lives on the slopes of Mount Merapi in Indonesia, one of Java's most active and dangerous volcanoes. He's three foot tall and has the tell-tale signs of cretinism: low hair line, bulging eyes, stunted growth - all associated with iodine deficiency, common in volcanic areas.
From Docklands to Dhaka
This Life programme explores the inseparable links between poverty and health and discovers that a prospering global economy doesn't necessarily equate with good health.
Life invited Dr. Sam Everington, who runs a community health clinic in the London borough of Tower Hamlets, to visit Dhaka City, Bangladesh, to investigate the Bangladeshi health service.
Geraldo Off Line
Geraldo da Souza was sacked by his employers, Ford Brazil, along with two thousand fellow workers at Ford's Sao Paolo car plant. They'd done nothing wrong - except to entrust their livelihoods to a vast multinational employer bound to the vagaries of the global economy and the company's head-office strategists. When the Russian economy went into tailspin in early '98, international capital fulfilled its own prophecy by withdrawing from Brazil: the government was forced to raise interest rates, local consumption and production fell, and Geraldo lost his job.
God Among the Children
This programme describes the background to the formation of the Boston Ten Point Coalition, an ecumenical group working to mobilise the community around issues affecting black and Latino youth in the US city of Boston - and especially those at risk from violence, drug abuse and other destructive behaviour. The Coalition's goal wasn't to replace the local church - but to make it more effective in the work of rebuilding community by getting out onto the streets - to 'walk the walk and talk the talk' with the city's growing numbers of alienated and disaffected young people.
In the Name of Honour
It's autumn in the mountain town of Qala Dzye, in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq - and the wedding season is coming to an end. Marriage for most Kurdish brides promises freedom and respectability. But for others, it can bring isolation, cruelty and even death. The Kurds have been in conflict with their three powerful neighbours - Iran, Turkey and Iraq - for the last 80 years. Thousands of villages were destroyed and families forced into crowded collective towns and refugee camps. This has changed the very fabric of Kurdish society, unleashing a chain of violence - often against women. This week's Life explores how Kurdish women are working to stop the violence - and change the law which encourages it.
India Inhales
Two and a half thousand Indians die every day from smoking related diseases - one every 40 seconds. Yet these numbers will be dwarfed in the future if present trends in tobacco use continue. This week, City Life goes to India to talk to cancer sufferers and campaigners and look at the effects of the globalization of tobacco addiction.
Lost Generations
Pushpa was only 13 when her mother forced her to drop out of school and get married. She was 14 when she had her baby, and today at 15 her health - as a child mother - has suffered, and she finds looking after her baby very difficult. And Pushpa's case isn't unusual. In six Indian states, the average age for marrying among rural girls is under fourteen years. Both the young mothers and their babies suffer from this early childbearing. Some mothers and babies die, and as many as one Indian baby in three is born with low birthweight (under 2.5 kg) - a handicap that remains with them for the rest of their lives.
Regopstaan's Dream
In March 1999, at a ceremony in the Kalahari desert, 300 of the world's remaining Bushmen were granted 125,000 acres of their own land for the first time by the South African Government in the person of Thabo Mbeki, then Vice President. Twenty-five years earlier, they'd been evicted from the Kalahari by the previous, apartheid government of South Africa who said they were 'too westernized' to cohabit with the wild animals in the National Park. Forced to live in shanty conditions on a patch of land just outside the Park, their eviction was just one more chapter in a genocide that had gone on for generations.
The Boxer
Luís Rodriguez wants to become part of the global economy, and escape the poverty of his village in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca. From Henry Cooper and Cassius Clay to Mike Tyson, boxing's always been a route out of poverty for poor boys the world over. This week's film looks at Luis Rodriguez's attempts to follow in their footsteps to fame and glory in the US.
The Cost of Living
Twenty-nine year old Pramote lives in Bangkok and has AIDS. If he'd been able to afford the drugs now routinely prescribed for HIV-positive people in the West, he wouldn't be paralysed and bedridden today. Ninety per cent of the people infected with HIV today live in developing countries, and most don't have access to the drugs that could keep them alive because they are simply too expensive for their national health services. This Life programme investigates what happened when Thailand and South Africa applied to use compulsory licences and parallel importing - practices agreed under World Trade Organisation guidelines - to make their own generic versions of anti-retroviral drugs to halt the AIDS epidemic in their countries.
The Debt Police
In September 2000, Uganda became the first country to receive debt cancellation under a new scheme - the 'Heavily Indebted Poor Countries' (HIPC) debt relief scheme agreed at the G7 Summit in Cologne more than a year ago. But in a country where corruption is commonplace, is this relief (Uganda's been let off 60 per cent of the 120 million dollars it pays to service its foreign debt every year) really going to help the poor? This week Life goes to rural Uganda with the Uganda Debt Network, an NGO working to ensure that this aid reaches the poor and improves their lives.
The Ongoing Story
In the last programme of this series, Life revisits stories from some earlier episodes - such as health, nutrition, community involvement, education, employment - and explores practical solutions as well as visions of the future.
The Outsiders
Under Soviet rule, young people in Central and Eastern Europe were drilled into the ideology of communism - indoctrinated with its sense of purpose, of structure, of belonging. The collapse of communist authoritarian rule has brought greater freedom of choice and opportunity for all. But it's also created a climate of growing uncertainty, especially for the 65 million young people in the region. As the gulf between the "have's" and the "have not's" has widened, the former safe and well-trodden road from childhood to adulthood has increasingly been swept away. Stripped of their sense of "belonging", many young people in Eastern Europe have become "outsiders", as this Life programme shows.
The Philadelphia Story
The American economy is booming, with record growth and record job creation. But global economic pressures mean that some jobs are downsized and some jobs disappear - while others make fortunes. After travelling by train with a primary health care team across one of South Africa's poorest provinces last week, Life this week visits Philadelphia, the capital of Pennsylvania, where the Declaration of Independence was once signed, to look at how the global economy is destroying some traditional employment while making others rich.
The Posse
The gap between rich and poor in Brazil is greater than anywhere else in the world - and that gap is nowhere more evident in the sprawling city of São Paulo, with its 15 million population living in conditions ranging from millionaires' penthouses to rat-infested tenements and shantytowns - favelas. This is where City Life meets the Posse - a group of six young friends, united by their love of rap music, trying to make the best of their lives against all the odds.
The Right to Choose
This Life programme opens with a bride in tears: she's only four years old. Another Ethiopian bride, Nibret, is 11, but she is just as traumatized by her wedding to a boy she has never met. And well she may be, since too-early pregnancy could easily cripple or kill her. That's the reality behind the right of women and girls to choice and reproductive health.
The Seattle Syndrome
This Life programme reports from the sweatshops of the Philippines, where women are exploited by contractors making big-name clothing and trainers for the Western market. And protesters in Seattle and Washington want an end to it.
The Silver Age
Mrs Bani Gupta of Calcutta is just one of nearly 600 million people aged 60 and over in the world today, and India has more than any other country. The numbers have grown for good reasons - because of medical advances and improvements in nutrition which have led to longer life expectancy, even in poor countries. By 2020, there will be over 1 billion people over 60, and 2 billion by 2050. And most of them will be in the developing world, where the numbers of the elderly will rise rapidly from 171 million in 1998 to 1,594 million in 2050.
The Story So Far
The justification for globalisation - its means and its end - is improving the lives of planet's 6 billion inhabitants. The free trade of information, resources, goods and people should, in theory, benefit everyone in a one world economy. Current practice is somewhat in variance: today - despite, or perhaps because of, globalisation as we know it - rich and poor are parting ways, within societies and between them. The world's top three billionaires now earn more than the GNP of its 40 poorest countries.
The Summit
In June 2000 Geneva played host to what's being called the most significant gathering of world leaders in history. They discussed not nuclear weapons or high finance, but the everyday issues that between them confront almost all the Earth's six billion people - work, poverty and inequality - the very issues that Life has been looking at. The meeting from 26th - 30th June was a Review of progress on the pledges made at the 1995 Copenhagen Social Summit - on poverty eradication, employment and social integration. It's been dubbed the 'Justice Summit' - a special session of the UN General Assembly, and the first ever to be organized outside the UN's Headquarters in New York.
Untouchable?
Veerasamy takes in washing for his living. He lives in a small village in southern India where all the inhabitants are Dalits - outcasts or 'Untouchables' as they're known in India. But even among the dalits, there are divisions, and Veerasamy belongs to the lowest scale of the hierarchy. The only payment he receives for back-breaking work, washing and steaming and drying the laundry of the village's 19 families, is the left-overs from their meals to feed his small family.
Discrimination based on caste membership has been, theoretically, illegal since India first gained independence in 1947. But it's actually an accepted part of everyday life across the continent: the Dalits are stigmatised from the day they are born.
Without Rights
In 1948, during the war that accompanied the founding of the Israeli State, thousands of Palestinian refugees fled to neighbouring countries. Some twenty years later, in 1967, the Israelis fought what they regarded as a defensive war - and occupied the West Bank of Jordan and the Gaza Strip. Now 1.3 million Palestinians are refugees living under Israeli laws. They are denied many human rights guaranteed to all people under international laws - laws that Israel herself has signed up to.
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