Thirty years ago, on 17 April 1975, about a dozen people, leaders of the Khmer Rouge, (KR) took power in Cambodia beginning a radical experiment in social engineering analogous with that undertaken by Mao Zedong in The Great Leap Forward. The Khmer Rouge was intent on transforming Cambodia into a nationalist, communist idyll uncorrupted by urbanisation, learning, science or religion. In reality, blinded by their ideology, a very small elite of extremely ruthless people imposed a genocidal regime on the unsuspecting people of Cambodia that resulted in the death and destruction to its people on a scale unparalleled since the genocide inflicted by Nazi Germany.
The death penalty is a blunt and unjust instrument that disproportionally targets racial minorities, the poor and people who are soft targets for the increasingly belligerent media and public who require quick fix convictions. African Americans make up 12% of the national population but they account for more than 40% of the country’s current death row population and 33% of those executed since 1977. But life for black people in the Deep South has always been precarious. From the practice of lynching to the denial of the right of black people to vote and compulsorily use of separate public utilities African Americans have always acted as reminder of their vulnerability. While huge advances have been made to correct some of those injustices, the legal system is still an hostile environment for many many African American people.
“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him to fish and you feed him for life” That particular cliché is fairly well embedded in most people’s minds. Flawed as it is – it seems as if women didn’t need to be fed for a day not to mention for life – there is a certain truth in it. But what happens when fish stocks run low, when there is no more fish left in the sea ? More and more Irish, European Chinese, Japanese and Korean fishermen are turning to the West coast of Africa for fish. A fish caught today off the African coast may be fried up tomorrow in a European pan or a Japanese wok, But what affect is this having on fish stocks in Africa. We went to Senegal to find out.
Few plants have become the subject of such debate, as has the coca leaf and this debate is likely to intensify in the run-up to the 2008 UN Special Session on Drugs. This Special Session is taking place against failed and costly initiatives. Civil strife, environmental degradation and violent upheaval have resulted in the botched attempt to end the global production and consumption of coca and opium.
For many of the Turkana and Pokot peoples, the centuries-old way of life continues with some significant changes. The rhythm of the desert determines their lives as they search for new pastures for their flocks of camels, cattle and goats. But outside pressures are taking their toll. The fragile environment on which they depend is under threat. Depleting resources, inter-tribal conflict, loss of human life and property, disruption of socio-economic activities is exacerbating an already precarious existence of the Turkana and Pokot peoples. But overshadowing all of these causes of change has been and continues to be the Turkwell Gorge HydroElectric Plant described as “the dirtiest deal in Kenya’s history”.
The yellow-clad figure of Cory Aquino ushered in what was to be the end of the Filipino nightmare under the Ferdinard Marcos. 1986 was the year of ‘People’s Power’ and the Corruption and cronyism that were the hallmarks of the hated Marcos regime were, at least momentarily, replaced by optimism and hope for a new future with the promise of fundamental change for the impoverished people of the country. Unhappily for the peasants of The Philippines, that optimism was short-lived. Twenty years later the poor and in particular the peasant class feel betrayed. The promise of land reform never materialised. Not only that the ruling class under Marcos have returned and consolidated their hold on the land. None more so than in the island of Negros, once known as the sugar bowel of The Philippines.
In an age when we have almost become immune to the loss of life from war, Mu Ko Lay’s story of the death and burial of her two young sons in the jungle as she and her village were being pursued by the Burmese military is as stark and emotionally wrenching account as one is likely to hear. Through uncontrollable sobs, she described how she buried her children “like dogs” as she and the village fled for their lives. But her story is just one of many in a country that has been in the grip of military rulers since 1962. Burma has a population of 55 million people, ruled by a military junta headed by Than Shwe. The junta renamed the country Myanmar, but few recognize the name. For sixty years now since Burma got its independence from Britain in 1948, a civil war has raged in what is now the world’s longest civil war. We entered the country illegally to meet with some of the Karen people one of thirteen ethnic groups in Burma. The Karen state is located on the eastern border with Thailand and home to over 4 million people. During the Second World War, the Karen fought for the British against the Japanese, on the guarantee that at war’s end they would gain an independent State. It was not to be. When Burma gained independence from Britain in 1948, the Karen were abandoned by the British to their age-old enemies. Adopting a scorched earth policy, the Burmese government soldiers burn the Karen villages, slaughter their livestock and destroy their rice stocks. They rape, torture and kill. Always on the alert for the presence of Burmese soldiers, many of the Karen people have fled to the country’s very edge, beside the Moei river, where they eke out a precarious existence in temporary shelters. Fearful of the night-time attacks by the Burmese army, many cross the river Moi into Thailand where they sleep in temporary huts and hammocks. Fearful of being detained by Thai authorities during the day, they cross the same river every morning back into the Kar
Thirty-nine year-old Margarita Cañaviri and her two daughters Abigail and Julia sift through the discarded debris of the rubble that is rejected by the other miners. Her husband died from years of exposure to the dust and the dirt of underground mining. The debts accrued from his long illness let her with no option but to sift through discarded food in the refuse heaps of Potosi. Such is life for the poor of Bolivia. At 13,000 feet above sea level, Potosi in Bolivia is the highest city in the world. An UNESCO site, the mountain that overshadows the city also holds one of the richest deposits of silver and other metals in the world. When the Spanish conquistadores stumbled upon this area nearly five hundred years ago, they were simply astounded at the vast wealth in these mountains. They named the mountain the Cerro Rico or Rich Hill and the silver from that mountain contributed in no small way to the opulent lifestyles of the colonial Spanish aristocracy of the time. It also fuelled the European 18th century industrial revolution. And the minerals from these hills continue to fuel 21st century manufacturing far from Potosi. But for the miners who have worked the mines for over 500 years now few benefits have accrued to them. Working condition were atrocious during what was known as the age of discovery (while nobody really knows for sure An estimated eight million African and Indian slaves perished in these mines) and since then not a lot has changed. Deep in the mines, in temperatures of up to forty degrees and with barely enough oxygen to survive, between fifteen and twenty thousand miners toil daily. Early mortality is still a feature of miners’ lives. Many succumb to the slow painful death from silicosis and while the accident rate is no longer what it was once like, there is still a high attrition rate. Dissatisfaction with the way in which the vast majority of Bolivia’s population, particularly its indigenous people, were denied any rewards f
Just south of the equator in the middle of the Indian Ocean lies the Chagos Islands. Diego Garcia is the biggest of the 65-island archipelago. The Chagos islands along with the Seychelles make up the many-islanded state of Mauritius. But these islands have been at the centre of global power struggles for centuries. Wellington's victory over Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815 marked the end of French influence and the beginning of British colonial rule that continues to this day. In 1966, as Mauritius was about to assert its independence from Britain, Labour prime minister Harold Wilson sold the island of Diego Garcia, the biggest and most populated of the Chagos Islands, to the United States on a 50 year lease with a further 20 year option. In return the US government provided Britain with Polaris nuclear missiles below the market value - missiles that are still in place today. Both the British and US governments claimed that the islands were uninhabited except for what one British official at the time said were a few Tarzans or Men Fridays and some contract labourers. The reality was that 2,000 people had for generations lived on the Chagos Islands all of whom were forcibly removed to accommodate a US military base from which the first Gulf war and subsequently the war on Afghanistan were launched. To accommodate the construction of the US military base, Aurelie Talate and her six children were among the 2,000 people forcibly removed from their homes and dumped in squalid slums on the main island of Mauritius. Former Chief Justice Rajsoomer Lallah was absolutely clear that the forced evictions were illegal. 'What happened to the people of the Chagos islands was illegal. It was illegal according to international law. The United States of America and the UK government were complicit in this illegality.and they were removed in terrible conditions, their dogs were shot, their animals were shot dead and they were threatened with being deprived of food and were t
It may be counter-intuitive to suggest that countries with the most natural resources are among the poorest in the planet. But that is and has been Angola's experience since oil was found off its coast over 30 years ago. And in that respect Angola is not alone. In 1970, just before the oil boom in Nigeria 19 million Nigerians lived below the poverty line. Now nearly $400 billion later 90 million or more Nigerians live below the poverty line. Oil is currently being pumped out of the waters off the Atlantic coast at a rate of 1.3m barrels a day generating a whopping $10 billion income for the country. Despite that enormous reservoir of wealth, Angola is ranked as the 15th poorest country in the world where few people live beyond the age of 40 and where nearly half the children under five years suffer from malnutrition. Its capital city Luanda originally built for a quarter of a million now holds four million people, most of whom live in desperate squalor. But poverty and misery are never random. For centuries Angola's wealth has been plundered by outside forces. First Portugal took what it could before it fled in 1975 and then Angola became the Cold War's hottest battle site in all of Africa. The Soviet Union, Cuba, the United States and South Africa were all scrambling for their piece of the action in Angola. And when the Cold War warriors came, they did not come empty-handed. Cuba arrived with 50,000 soldiers; the US and the Soviet sent weapons of war. Nobody knows for sure how many South Africans were operating in Angola. Their arrival marked the unraveling of a nation in what the United Nations described at the time as the world's worst war. The war threw up one of the greatest of all war-time ironies. Communist Cuba defended US oil facilities, the revenue from which allowed Angola purchase Soviet weapons to fight a US-backed militia. Once the Cold War ended in 1990, Russia, the United States, Cuba and South Africa lost interest in Angola and drifted aw
Deciding how and where to spend money can be a tricky decision for the mega wealthy. Douglas Tompkins knew exactly what he wanted - land and lots of it. When he cashed in his shares in sportswear company Esprit in 1990, he began buying up large tracts of land in South America. A self-proclaimed 'deep ecologist', he and partner Kristi McDivitt, former CEO of the outdoor clothing giant Patagonia, now owns 800,000 hectares in their trademark location. But they are not alone.Sylvester Stallone, Michael Douglas and CNN's Ted Turner all have impressive hideaways here in the land of the Mapuche. So too have Joseph Lewis, one of Britain's wealthiest men. But perhaps most controversially of all Luciano Benetton, owner of the €2 billion clothing empire that bears his name. In 1991, Benetton purchased 900,000 hectares of prime sheep-rearing land - almost the size of Northern Ireland. Both he and Tompkins are two of the biggest landowners in the world. Both claim to be deeply committed to the protection of the environment in Patagonia - a claim that deeply offends the indigenous Mapuche people. They believe this land is their rightful inheritance and they want rid of Benetton, Lewis and others. Straddling the southern Andes, Patagonia has been the home of the Mapuche people for over 11,000 years. Today there are an estimated 250,000 Mapuche people living in Argentina and almost four times that amount in Chile. In 2002, Atilio Curiñanco and Rosa Nahuelquir applied to and got permission from the local land office to set up home on unoccupied indigenous territory. What neither Rosa and Atilio nor the local land office realized at that point was that this land had previously been purchase by the Italian clothing magnate Luciano Benetton. In setting up their home Rosa and Atilio were catapulted into an international conflict involving the Mapuche people and wealthy foreign landowners. That conflict resulted in their eviction by Benetton. But neither Rosa and Atilio nor
Located in the South Pacific, eight degrees below the equator and almost on the international dateline Tuvalu is the fourth smallest nation on the planet. Rumours of Tuvalu's demise have been greatly exaggerated. Al Gore in his award-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth stated that all the people of these islands of Tuvalu have had to evacuate to New Zealand. This is not the case, at least not yet. The islands are still standing even if only twenty inches above sea-level and the people of Tuvalu are full determined to secure the future of their homes against the very real threat of global warming. With a total area of 26 square kilometres and a population of just under 10,000 people, Tuvalu consists of six atolls, coral reefs perched on now dormant underwater volcanoes and three islands. Of these, Funafuti, laconically stretched just above sea level has a population of just under 5,000 and is the biggest island in the archipelago. It is 11 kilometres in length, 300 metres at its widest and five metres at its narrowest. At its highest, it is a mere three metres above sea level leaving it extremely vulnerable to the rising tide. Every two to seven years, the the El Nino current brings warmer than usual sea water to the Eastern Pacific along the coast of Peru. El Nino causes major changes in weather patterns not just in Peru but also along the Pacific Ocean affecting small island states like Tuvalu. While El Nino's impact is cyclical the slow but steady rise of the sea level as a result of the melting of polar ice caps in Antarctica is a constant. Furthermore, as the temperature of Pacific Ocean increases due to global warming, its waters expand causing a rise in sea level. Both of these factors contribute to the submergence of low-lying states like Tuvalu. Most commentators reckon that the country will disappear under the rising tide in the next 100 years. Others suggest a much shorter timeframe. The question is what will become of its citizens? Sho
Between 1964 and 1973, over two million tonnes of bombs mercilessly and illegally rained down on the people of Laos during the Vietnam War, a war in which they were just helpless by-standers. Laos has the unenviable distinction of being per head of population the most bombed country in the world. Seventy-eight million or 30% of the bombs dropped failed to explode leaving a hidden and deadly legacy. Every day, that legacy is unearthed by those who till the soil and by young children playing in the fields. The war may be long over but the death and injury toll continues to rise.
Within Mali, the Bozo people are regarded as loud, colourful and gregarious. Nomadic fishermen, they move with the fish pulling into ports as they trade their fish for other basic staples. But their way of life is under threat. River levels are dropping. And that has huge consequences, not just for the Bozo people, but for the 12 million population of the country - most of whom depend on the river for survival. Even the legendary city of Timbuktu is affected. The river once ran through this the city now it is just a dry river bed. Year on year, the desert inches its way forward.
Having broken the 60-year-old stranglehold on power of the right wing Colorado party, former Catholic Bishop and now President Fernando Lugo promises to tackle the years of injustice that were the hallmark of the old regime. At the time of his coming to power, 2% of the landowners controlled 80% of the productive land. Much of that land had been parcelled out among the supporters of the Colorado party, other parts had been sold off at rock bottom prices to large Brazilian landowners. These owners cleared large swathes of land on which they planted genetically modified soya. And the production of soya has become hugely controversial in Paraguay. Silvino Talevera died from pesticide poisoning from spraying the soya. His mother has launched a nation and international campaign to highlight the adverse effects of Paraguay's soya industry.
Peadar King studies the facial eating tissue disease called Noma, which is rampant in Sub-Sahara Africa and was last seen in Europe in the Nazi concentration camps. Although found in isolated pockets throughout the world, those who study the spread of disease have identified Sub-Sahara Africa as the area worst affected by Noma. Stretching from Senegal in the West, through Burkina Faso, Niger, Ethiopia and into Egypt, this Noma belt leaves a deadly trail of destruction. Also known as grazer's disease because of the way it eats facial tissue - it affects children between the ages of two and six and it was last seen in Europe in the Nazi concentration camps. The pain from Noma is excruciating as it consumes the side of the face. While nobody really knows for sure an estimated 90% of those who contract the disease die from it. Good nutrition and a simple antibiotic could protect children from it. For the very few who survive reconstructive surgery can give them some chance of survival.
According to the Koran, bread feeds the body but flowers feed the soul. And while flowers may nourish the souls of consumers in the Northern Hemisphere, they feed the bodies of many of the poor in the Southern Hemisphere. An estimated 100,000 people here in Colombia, depend on this industry for their livelihood. "Buy our flowers and not our cocaine" was the marketing catchphrase in Colombia in the 1980s and as slogans go that is as good as it gets in a world obsessed with the spiraling drug trade. And as with many marketing slogans the reality does not always match the rhetoric. Located in opposite ends of the country, the cut flower industry has had no impact on the coca industry from which cocaine is derived. But Colombia's predominantly feminised flower industry is blighted by exploitation, poor labour laws and where involvement in a trade union can mean a death sentence. Hilda Fresnera a young flower worker was fired from her job after an accident at work. Almost twelve hours into her shift. Esperanza Cerero - can no longer work after four operations on her right hand and one on her left from repetitive strain injury.
By western standards, Mongolian herders live very isolated lives. Set against the stunning landscape of the vast open steppes, the nomadic herders temporarily settle in small clusters of one or two tents or gers. Others live on their own. These pastoral nomads have enormous herds of camels, sheep, cows and goats - some as large as 1,000. From these the country produces meat, milk and hides both for the domestic market. But this centuries-old way of life is undervalued and under threat while the pressure to urbanise is relentless. Backed by the International Monetary Fund, politicians and economists are working on what they call "a new development model for Mongolia". In keeping with current global trends, this model involves the gradual reduction of nomadism and its replacement with private commercial agriculture, mineral extraction and urbanisation. Already the transformation of Mongolian society is underway with over half of the 2.6 million population now living in urban areas. Baasanjargal has already made the move from the country to the city and daily pines for her lost world.
At the heart of Africa, the Congo for many people will always be associated with Joseph Conrad’s early twentieth-century novel the Heart of Darkness, a title that has become a by-word for the country. And for Benjamin and David, two former child soldiers, and Funaha held as a sex slave by one of the many militias that continue to terrorise the country that metaphor remains a daily reality. The film explores how this seemingly never-ending conflict impacts on the people of North Kivu.
For over 24 years, East Timor endured a crushing occupation inflicted on them by neighbouring Indonesia on the pretext of the fight against communism. The trauma from that period lives on as evidenced by the testimonies of Nelson Belo, Gregorio Saldanha and Pascal Oliveira survivors of the infamous 1991 Santa Cruz massacre. This film recalls the trauma of Timor Leste in this the tenth anniversary of its independence
Deep in the forests of Honduras unimaginable riches lie. Riches and beauty too. But within these forests temptations also lurk. Temptation to log on whatever the consequences. And it is because of the adverse consequences of wholesale illegal logging that Rene Gradiz and the Olancho Environmental Movement have mobilised to protect their forests, a mobilisation that has cost them dearly.
Indris Seid Yimer and Emyet Assen Woraki’s lives have been utterly transformed in the last thirty years. In 1984, they, their families and their community were engulfed in famine and devastation, a famine memorably described by BBC journalist Michael Buerk as “the closest thing to hell on Earth”. Set in the Wollo area, the epicentre of the 1984 famine, the film tells their story. Others also feature. People like entrepreneur Samuel Alemu and financier Ermyas Amelga. It also features the hauntingly beautiful UNESCO World Heritage site in Lalibela.
Programme one looks at Soccer Slaves – up to 20,000 young footballers have been trafficked out of Africa, left to fend for themselves on the streets of European cities. Alone and abandoned, Malian Issa Kone sat in a McDonald’s in Paris with €20 in his pocket. He was only sixteen years of age and he had just arrived in France. He waited hour after hour for the return of his agent who had promised him a football contract and in the process wheedled €5,000 from his impoverished parents in Bamako. The agent never returned. Issa’s story is not unusual. Up to 20,000 young footballers have been trafficked out of Africa, left to fend for themselves on the streets of European cities. The What in the World team film in Paris and Yaounde, the capital city of Cameroon to investigate the scale of this modern slave trade. Among the people we meet is legendary Cameroonian footballer Roger Milla.
He wouldn’t give us his name and he would only agree to be interviewed in a heavy disguise but there was no disguising the horror of his life. His mother died when he was just six years of age. He never knew his Dad. He was just eight years of age when he shot his first victim, was a heroin addict at twelve and describes his first frenzied killing at the age of fourteen. He told us of the goose-bumps he still gets on hearing the screams of the tortured. The film is located in the Mexican city Juarez, just over the border from the United States. Conservative estimates indicate that that 60,000 people have been killed in drug related violence in Mexico since 2006. We talk to grieving parents and fearful young people as well as one young man caught in the brutal web of violence.
The mother named him Michael and we filmed his arrival into the world. Life for the very young in Uganda is precarious. One in nineteen children die before they reach the age of five in Uganda. But an initiative by Irish and US governments is trying to turn that round. The first 1,000 days is all about improving the health and nutrition of children and their mothers. In central Uganda, where one time war lord Joseph Kony held sway, the results are encouraging. Less so in the Karamoja region to the east. How Michael will far in life will be a test of the 1,000 day initiative.
Sixty-one year-old Israeli citizen Izhak Rossenbaum was the first person to be convicted of human organ trafficking in the United States. In the company of Berkeley University Professor Nancy Scheper-Hughes we visit the Hasidic community in Brooklyn, New York where an organ trafficking network operated and in which Rossenbaum was a critical player. The kidney is the most trafficked of all human organs and the World Health Organisation estimates that 10% of all kidney transplantations are illegal. In an attempt to track this illegal trade we travel from LA, to Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Cork, and to Ashkelon, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem in Israel.
For most Europeans following the ending of the Second World War, the former Soviet Union loomed large as a nefarious presence on the international political landscape. . Then in 1991, the facade cracked and spectacularly it all came crashing down. So what is life like for Russians today? For its old age pensioners? For the generation who lost everything in the abrupt embrace of a most virulent and rapacious form of capitalism? What is life like for the peasantry and in what way are their lives any different not just from Soviet but Tsarist times? And the young: can they be more confident of a future better than that of their parents and grandparents? This is a film that will put Russia back on the map. It will give Irish audiences a real sense of what life is now like in what was once a world superpower.
Set against the seething anger of local residents in what is now a divided community, in January 2011, the electronics company Samsung on behalf of the South Korean government began construction of a $970 million naval facility on Jeju Island that is scheduled to open in 2015. The facility will host three new Aegis destroyers that cost $1 billion each and twenty warships including submarines. The film will feature these protests as well as highlighting the spectacular beauty of the island. In highlighting the struggle of the people of Jeju in their opposition to the naval base, the film will draw attention to the continuing arms race, which finds new ways of funding itself and in the process feeds new insecurities. The arms race? It hasn’t gone away.
On 9 July 2011, South Sudan was born on a wave of hope and promise. The liberation of South Sudan from years of oppression and genocide was greeted by throngs of cheering, dancing, singing people as cars tooted horns, churches rang bells, fireworks lit up the night sky and a new clock tower announced: “Free at last.” The newest country in the world came into existence but its birth was stilled in violence and corruption that has not brought any reprieve to the people of South Sudan. The film will chronicle South Sudan’s rapid descent into chaos and will attempt to understand how and why this happened. It will report on the legacy issues of the genocide in Djharfur and it will also examine the role that international players, particularly China and the United States, played in the creation of the world’s newest state and whether it is possible in the short-term for the distressed people of South Sudan to experience some alleviation of the nightmare that has gripped their country.
More than one billion people – an estimated 15% of the world’s population – live with some form of disability, of whom nearly 200 million experience considerable difficulties in functioning. A staggering 106 million children are estimated to have moderate and severe disabilities. People with disabilities in poorer countries are often amongst the most forgotten, very often hidden away, perceived as a curse on the family, as a social embarrassment and a cultural / religious defilement. Shot in Togo in West Africa, this film will contribute to the visibility of hitherto mostly hidden and abandoned peoples.
El Salvador's prisons are bloody and brutal. And overcrowded. And with one of the highest homicides rates in the world and with 700 arrests a day that level of overcrowding shows no signs of abating. But rather than give up on prisons and prisoners the people who are running the prison service have decided to change tack and reform the system. Their response is Yo Cambio
Caracas is the most urbanised city in the most urbanised country in the most urbanised region of the world. Nine-three percent of the population of the country live in urban areas. The city has a population of 2.1 million and 5.1 million depending on where the boundary is drawn. The boundary keeps shifting outwards and upwards. And the city continues to draw people in, not just from within Venezuela and neighbouring countries but also from The Caribbean most notably from Haiti. Not only are Latin America’s cities stretched way beyond their capacity but they are also the most unequal in the world.
Gaddafi’s demise did not result in the hoped-for democratic revolution. Four years on instead of forming a democratic and functioning state, the revolutionaries are fighting each other.
For forty years now the Sahrawi people have lived in exile. Their home: five refugee camps in one of the hottest parts of the desert where summer temperatures reach over 50 degrees centigrade. Yet they continue to dream of the prospect of returning to their homeland in northwest Africa.
Afghanistan. A country blighted by war ever since the Soviet Union rolled its tanks across its border on Christmas Eve 1979. An estimated one million Afghans were killed in the ensuing occupation over the following ten years along with an estimated 100,000 Soviet soldiers. Little did they know at the time, not least the apparatchiks who initiated it but the war heralded the beginning of the end of the Soviet empire. Malalai Joya was only four years of age at the time of the invasion. Soon her life and that of her family was upended by the invasion and they were forced to flee as refugees first to Iran and then to Pakistan. As a nineteen year-old she returned to Afghanistan determined to shape her country and to defend the rights of women against what she describes as the misogyny of the Taliban who came to power in 1996 and the warlords she claims mis-rule the country following the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001. Joya was elected to parliament in 2003 but was expelled in 2007 for her denunciation of the very same warlords. Since then she lives in hiding, moving from one safe house to another but maintains contact with supporters. She is contemplating a bid for the Presidency of Afghanistan in 2019. Peadar King and cameraman spent time with Malalai in September of this year. Working under armed guard in very tight security movement throughout the country was restricted but they did get to spend time in the capital Kabul and in the country’s fifth biggest city Jalalabad.
Peadar King reports from Sierra Leone on the ending of the Ebola epidemic in 2016.
Peadar King travels to Agbogbloshie, a former wetland in Accra, Ghana, which is home to the world's largest e-waste, to ask what are the costs of disposable consumerism not only to the poor of Africa but to us in the Western world.
Peadar King travels to troubled areas around the world.
