Please email Rich Deakin rdeakin@glos.ac.uk , or fchmediaservices@glos.ac.uk if you would like any of the following programmes / series recording.*
Monday 30th May
BBC1 - Egypt's Lost Cities - "It is possible that only one percent of the wonders of Ancient Egypt have been discovered, but now, thanks to a pioneering approach to archaeology, that is about to change. Dr Sarah Parcak uses satellites to probe beneath the sands, where she has found cities, temples and pyramids. Now, with Dallas Campbell and Liz Bonnin, she heads to Egypt to discover if these magnificent buildings are really there.
Tuesday 31st May
BBC4 - Storyville - Pol Pot's Executioner: Welcome To Hell - "On 28 February 2009 Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch, appeared in the ECCC courtroom and made a two-hour speech where he asked for forgiveness for the appalling torture and execution of at least 13,000 prisoners at Tuol Sleng and probably more in the security camps of M-13 and M-99. Until this date, with the exception of a handful of judges, lawyers and a priest, he had not been seen or heard of for the last thirty years. How did a man, known to be kind and generous to fellow students, possibly transform himself into Comrade Duch, the Khmer Rouge's infamous executioner? This documentary revisits and searches for clues.
BBC4 - Storyville - Amnesty! When They Are All Free - "To celebrate its 50th anniversary in May 2011, this probing documentary brings together an extraordinary cast of interviewees, from Sting to former home secretary Jack Straw, to shed light on how, as a 'letter-writing organisation, Amnesty International has changed the world and how the world has changed Amnesty International. It poses the fundamental question: has the human rights movement been able to hold back mankind's capacity for atrocity?"
Wednesday 1st June
BBC2 - Wonderland: The Men Who Wouldn't Stop Marching - "More than ten years after the end of the troubles, filmmaker Alison Millar explores Belfast's Shankill Road to find out how well the scars of war have healed. For four months she joined the men of the famous marching bands and in particular, spent time with Jordan, an eleven-year old aspiring drummer from one of the most famous former paramilitary families on the estate. What she found is a mixture of entrenched prejudice, relief that the troubles are over, nostalgia for the days of paramilitary discipline, and a battened-down resistance to talking about the past. But when Jordan makes a shocking discovery at the end of his road, his father's brittle silence cracks and he decides to take his son on a journey into his own past and through the Maze Prison where he had been inside for several years."
Thursday 2nd June
BBC1 - Andrew Marr's Megacities - 3 part series - "Documentary series in which Andrew Marr finds out how some of the world's largest cities feed, protect and move their citizens. In the first episode, Andrew looks at how people live in five of the world's biggest megacities: London, one of the world's oldest megacities; Dhaka, the world's fastest-growing megacity; Tokyo, the largest megacity on Earth; Mexico City, one of the most dangerous cities in the world; and Shanghai, arguably the financial capital of the world. Andrew compares the sleek skyscrapers and rapid modernisation of Shanghai to the colourful street culture and geographic sprawl of Mexico City. He spends a night living in a one-room shack in Dhaka's toughest slum, taking his turn to fetch water, cook and clean; and he rents a friend in the efficient and high-tech, but alienating, city of Tokyo. As he gets under the skin of each unique metropolis, Andrew discovers how the structure of each megacity defines every aspect of its inhabitants' daily lives."
BBC4 - Storyville -Prosecutor - "Exploring the work of Luis Moreno-Ocampo, prosecutor at the International Criminal Court. The programme follows him as he defends the arrest warrant for Sudanese President Al-Bashir at the UN Security Council in New York, and opens the court's first trial of alleged Congolese war criminal Thomas Lubanga."
Friday 3rd June
Channel 4 - Unreported World - Breaking Into Israel - "In the Sinai desert, thousands of African immigrants fleeing conscription, torture and conflict in East Africa risk being shot by border guards and held ransom by people smugglers as they try to get to Israel.
Reporter Ramita Navai and director Paul Kittel arrive in the Sinai desert in north-east Egypt just over a month after the revolution that toppled the regime of Hosni Mubarak. Smuggling from Egypt to Israel has gone on for years, but now the smugglers are focused on people rather than goods.
Navai and Kittel visit a smugglers' safe house where 100 Eritrean migrants are crammed into four small rooms terrified that they will be arrested by Egyptian border guards.
Eritrea produces more refugees than almost any other country in the world, with nearly 2000 people escaping every month. Twenty-one-year-old Joseph has been in the smugglers' hands for over a month and has paid them $2000. He tells Navai that the Eritrean regime forcibly conscripts men and women, and that deserters can be tortured or killed.
Another man, Sammy, says he has deserted the army and that torture, starvation and slave labour are commonplace. He also tells the team that conscription can be indefinite.
For the refugees, Israel's fast-growing economy promises safety and prosperity. The team talks to the mastermind of a people-smuggling ring transporting migrants into the country.
He tells Navai that it is a sophisticated operation run by Bedouins in three different countries and that one smuggler can transport up to 4000 migrants to Israel every two years.
Later that night the team is driven deeper into the desert, less than a mile away from the Israeli border. The refugees are about to embark on one of the riskiest parts of their journey.
Most of the 260km border is open, but Egyptian guards have been accused of using a shoot-to-kill policy against anyone found trying to cross into Israel illegally and 86 people have reportedly been killed crossing the border. The Egyptian authorities deny using a shoot-to-kill policy but say lethal force is justified to stop illegal activity.
The team crosses over into Israel as the migrants face the next stage of their journey; they must get further than 50km from the border or face being handed back to the Egyptian authorities if they're captured. The team receives a call from another refugee, Tadsse. He has been captured but has been detained rather than handed over to the Egyptians.
Navai and Kittel head north to Tel Aviv, which is Israel's business capital and the goal for the refugees. They meet 25-year-old Eritrean Kidane Isaac who was smuggled over four years ago and now lives there legally and helps recently arrived immigrants.
He tells Navai that many of the 20,000 Eritreans who have made it to Israel are now safe but destitute. He rents a tiny shared room in a flat with 16 other refugees.
He also claims that in recent months there has been a disturbing new development: smuggling gangs have started to hold refugees for ransom, extorting cash from relatives who already live abroad. He says men have been killed and women raped. The team travels to a medical centre that treats up to 700 Eritreans every month, who say they've been abused at the hands of their kidnappers.
With evidence suggesting nearly 200 Eritreans are being held hostage in the Sinai desert for ransom, Kidane talks to one smuggler insisting on $13,000 for each person being held. The smugglers are threatening to kill them if they don't get paid.
Israel has appealed to the Egyptian authorities to investigate these kidnappings but so far no cases have been pursued.
Israel is now building an electronic fence to keep African migrants out, but with the ongoing violence in their country, it seems clear that Eritreans will continue to seek refuge here and in Europe and take any risk on the way."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*This applies to staff members and students at the University of Gloucestershire only. Any recordings made are to be used only for educational and non-commercial purposes under the terms of the ERA Licence.
Tuesday 24 May 2011
Tuesday 17 May 2011
Off-air recordings for week 21-27 May 2011
Please email Rich Deakin rdeakin@glos.ac.uk , or fchmediaservices@glos.ac.uk if you would like any of the following programmes / series recording.*
Sunday 22nd May
BBC2 - Louis Theroux: Miami Mega Jail - 2 parts - "In the first episode of this two-part series, Louis spends time in one of the most notorious sections of Miami County Jail: the fifth and sixth floor of 'Main Jail', where many of the most volatile inmates are incarcerated. Held in large cage-like dwellings for up to 24 men, the inmates have developed a strange and violent jail culture. The men - who remain in the cells almost all the time and may only leave for yard time twice a week - live under the sway of a gladiatorial code. They fight each other for food, for status, and often just to pass the endless hours of confinement. Trips to the infirmary are a frequent occurrence as inmates are viciously attacked and beaten, but the guards say they are powerless to end the abuse."
Monday 23rd May
BBC2 - All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace - 3 part series - "A series of films about how we have been colonised by the machines we have built. Although we don't realise it, the way we see everything in the world today is through the eyes of the computers.
This is the story of the dream that rose up in the 1990s that computers could create a new kind of stable world. They would bring about a new kind global capitalism free of all risk and without the boom and bust of the past. They would also abolish political power and create a new kind of democracy through the internet where millions of individuals would be connected as nodes in cybernetic systems - without hierarchy.
The film tells the story of two perfect worlds. One is the small group of disciples around the novelist Ayn Rand in the 1950s. They saw themselves as a prototype for a future society where everyone could follow their own selfish desires. The other is the global utopia that digital entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley set out to create in the 1990s. Many of them were also disciples of Ayn Rand. They believed that the new computer networks would allow the creation of a society where everyone could follow their own desires, yet there would not be anarchy. They were joined by Alan Greenspan who had also been a disciple of Ayn Rand. He became convinced that the computers were creating a new kind of stable capitalism - "Like a New Planet", he said.
But the dream of stability in both worlds would be torn apart by the two dynamic human forces - love and power."
Wednesday 25th May
More 4 - True Stories: Crack House - "In 2001, Darrell 'Duck' Davis recruited a group of young men from the South Side of Chicago to help him take over the drug trade in Rockford, Illinois. For four years they sold a kilo of hard drugs each week, terrorised neighbourhoods and intimidated witnesses.
The Rockford Police Department made a string of arrests but were unable to curtail the violence. And, in 2005, when gang member Bradford Dodson attempted to execute a rival drug dealer in a busy McDonald's, the Police Department called in the ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives) who set the gang up in a 'surveillance house' and gathered over 1000 hours of footage as evidence.
This film uses the footage to provide a fascinating insight into what happens in a drug house, revealing the wide range of people who came to the house to buy drugs, and the truth behind the gang members' extravagant boasts of violence and wealth."
Thursday 26th
BBC4 - Heath Vs Wilson: The 10 Year Duel - "Harold Wilson and Edward Heath are two different men equally overlooked by history, but they were the political titans of the era in which Britain changed for ever. For ten years they faced each other in the House of Commons and fought four general elections, three of which were amongst the most exciting of the century. They scorned one another, yet were cast from the same mould. Both promised a revolution of meritocracy and dynamism in the economy and society. Both failed, but together they presided over a decade that redefined the nation: Britain ceased to be a world power and entered Europe; the postwar consensus in which they both believed was destroyed; Thatcherism and New Labour were born."
This documentary tells the story of their personal and political duel in the words of those who watched it - colleagues in the cabinet and government, and the journalists at the ringside. Set against a backdrop of the music and style of the 1960s and 70s it brings the era vividly to life."
Channel 4 - Breaking A Female Paedophile Ring - "Colin Blanchard, Vanessa George, Angela Allen, Tracy Lyons and Tracey Dawber provoked widespread revulsion and made international headlines after their sexual offences against children came to light in 2009.
With unique access to the police investigation, Cutting Edge is the first film to take an in-depth forensic look at this criminal web, detailing how it operated, and what motivated the five people within it.
This carefully crafted, sensitive and revealing documentary uses police interviews with the offenders, and first-hand testimonies from family members of the offenders and the parents of a possible victim.
Chilling unseen police evidence from a multi-force inquiry is pieced together in an attempt to understand how Colin Blanchard persuaded four women - all mothers - to abuse children.
The film also reveals the painstaking police investigations in Manchester, Liverpool, Nottingham, Plymouth and Portsmouth that led to five arrests and subsequent successful convictions.
To understand the emotional and psychological fallout for those most intimately affected by the ring, the film-makers hear from the parents of a child who attended the Little Ted's Nursery in Plymouth, where Vanessa George worked.
Unaware of the secret lives of their loved ones, the perpetrators' relatives also talk candidly about how the legacy of abuse continues to affect them. The husband of one of the offenders gives detailed insight into the trauma of betrayal.
And in another powerful interview, a close relative of one of the female abusers - a young woman who has been forced into hiding - describes how she was driven from her home after the news was made public."
Friday 27th
Channel 4 - Unreported World - The Battle For Ivory Coast - "Reporter Seyi Rhodes and Director Alex Nott visit Abidjan in Ivory Coast, West Africa, to investigate the country's escalating political crisis, only to find themselves one of the few television crews to witness the terrifying violence between rival factions. They reveal how Laurent Gbagbo has clung to power despite losing the UN-backed elections, and gain access to some of his most feared supporters, including Charles Ble Goude, who agrees to let them accompany him to a series of mass rallies against their president's rival Alassane Ouattara."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*This applies to staff members and students at the University of Gloucestershire only. Any recordings made are to be used only for educational and non-commercial purposes under the terms of the ERA Licence.
Sunday 22nd May
BBC2 - Louis Theroux: Miami Mega Jail - 2 parts - "In the first episode of this two-part series, Louis spends time in one of the most notorious sections of Miami County Jail: the fifth and sixth floor of 'Main Jail', where many of the most volatile inmates are incarcerated. Held in large cage-like dwellings for up to 24 men, the inmates have developed a strange and violent jail culture. The men - who remain in the cells almost all the time and may only leave for yard time twice a week - live under the sway of a gladiatorial code. They fight each other for food, for status, and often just to pass the endless hours of confinement. Trips to the infirmary are a frequent occurrence as inmates are viciously attacked and beaten, but the guards say they are powerless to end the abuse."
Monday 23rd May
BBC2 - All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace - 3 part series - "A series of films about how we have been colonised by the machines we have built. Although we don't realise it, the way we see everything in the world today is through the eyes of the computers.
This is the story of the dream that rose up in the 1990s that computers could create a new kind of stable world. They would bring about a new kind global capitalism free of all risk and without the boom and bust of the past. They would also abolish political power and create a new kind of democracy through the internet where millions of individuals would be connected as nodes in cybernetic systems - without hierarchy.
The film tells the story of two perfect worlds. One is the small group of disciples around the novelist Ayn Rand in the 1950s. They saw themselves as a prototype for a future society where everyone could follow their own selfish desires. The other is the global utopia that digital entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley set out to create in the 1990s. Many of them were also disciples of Ayn Rand. They believed that the new computer networks would allow the creation of a society where everyone could follow their own desires, yet there would not be anarchy. They were joined by Alan Greenspan who had also been a disciple of Ayn Rand. He became convinced that the computers were creating a new kind of stable capitalism - "Like a New Planet", he said.
But the dream of stability in both worlds would be torn apart by the two dynamic human forces - love and power."
Wednesday 25th May
More 4 - True Stories: Crack House - "In 2001, Darrell 'Duck' Davis recruited a group of young men from the South Side of Chicago to help him take over the drug trade in Rockford, Illinois. For four years they sold a kilo of hard drugs each week, terrorised neighbourhoods and intimidated witnesses.
The Rockford Police Department made a string of arrests but were unable to curtail the violence. And, in 2005, when gang member Bradford Dodson attempted to execute a rival drug dealer in a busy McDonald's, the Police Department called in the ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives) who set the gang up in a 'surveillance house' and gathered over 1000 hours of footage as evidence.
This film uses the footage to provide a fascinating insight into what happens in a drug house, revealing the wide range of people who came to the house to buy drugs, and the truth behind the gang members' extravagant boasts of violence and wealth."
Thursday 26th
BBC4 - Heath Vs Wilson: The 10 Year Duel - "Harold Wilson and Edward Heath are two different men equally overlooked by history, but they were the political titans of the era in which Britain changed for ever. For ten years they faced each other in the House of Commons and fought four general elections, three of which were amongst the most exciting of the century. They scorned one another, yet were cast from the same mould. Both promised a revolution of meritocracy and dynamism in the economy and society. Both failed, but together they presided over a decade that redefined the nation: Britain ceased to be a world power and entered Europe; the postwar consensus in which they both believed was destroyed; Thatcherism and New Labour were born."
This documentary tells the story of their personal and political duel in the words of those who watched it - colleagues in the cabinet and government, and the journalists at the ringside. Set against a backdrop of the music and style of the 1960s and 70s it brings the era vividly to life."
Channel 4 - Breaking A Female Paedophile Ring - "Colin Blanchard, Vanessa George, Angela Allen, Tracy Lyons and Tracey Dawber provoked widespread revulsion and made international headlines after their sexual offences against children came to light in 2009.
With unique access to the police investigation, Cutting Edge is the first film to take an in-depth forensic look at this criminal web, detailing how it operated, and what motivated the five people within it.
This carefully crafted, sensitive and revealing documentary uses police interviews with the offenders, and first-hand testimonies from family members of the offenders and the parents of a possible victim.
Chilling unseen police evidence from a multi-force inquiry is pieced together in an attempt to understand how Colin Blanchard persuaded four women - all mothers - to abuse children.
The film also reveals the painstaking police investigations in Manchester, Liverpool, Nottingham, Plymouth and Portsmouth that led to five arrests and subsequent successful convictions.
To understand the emotional and psychological fallout for those most intimately affected by the ring, the film-makers hear from the parents of a child who attended the Little Ted's Nursery in Plymouth, where Vanessa George worked.
Unaware of the secret lives of their loved ones, the perpetrators' relatives also talk candidly about how the legacy of abuse continues to affect them. The husband of one of the offenders gives detailed insight into the trauma of betrayal.
And in another powerful interview, a close relative of one of the female abusers - a young woman who has been forced into hiding - describes how she was driven from her home after the news was made public."
Friday 27th
Channel 4 - Unreported World - The Battle For Ivory Coast - "Reporter Seyi Rhodes and Director Alex Nott visit Abidjan in Ivory Coast, West Africa, to investigate the country's escalating political crisis, only to find themselves one of the few television crews to witness the terrifying violence between rival factions. They reveal how Laurent Gbagbo has clung to power despite losing the UN-backed elections, and gain access to some of his most feared supporters, including Charles Ble Goude, who agrees to let them accompany him to a series of mass rallies against their president's rival Alassane Ouattara."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*This applies to staff members and students at the University of Gloucestershire only. Any recordings made are to be used only for educational and non-commercial purposes under the terms of the ERA Licence.
Tuesday 10 May 2011
Off-air recordings for week 14-20 May 2011
Please email Rich Deakin rdeakin@glos.ac.uk , or fchmediaservices@glos.ac.uk if you would like any of the following programmes / series recording.*
Monday 16th May
BBC1 - The Street That Cut Everything - "Nick Robinson presents a unique social experiment, as he persuades one street in Preston to give up all council services for six weeks."
BBC2 - The Story Of Ireland - 5-part series - "A new five-part landmark series, written and presented by BBC Special Correspondent Fergal Keane, The Story of Ireland is a clear-eyed and expansive view of the history of the island and its people from its earliest times to the present day. Far from being a remote European outpost, episode one charts the formation of Ireland's DNA by successive ways of invaders and settlers. Along the way, Keane exposes the myth of Ireland's Celtic identity; he travels to Norway and presents the Vikings as resourceful settlers and traders in Ireland rather than as the barbarous marauders of popular belief. He also follows the trail of the early Iris monks as they bring their literature and learning through Europe to re-energise the Christian world, in the early middle ages."
Wednesday 18th
BBC2 - Wonderland: A Hasidic Guide To Love, Marriage, And Finding A Bride - "With their trademark ringletted hairstyles, tall fur hats (even in summer) and long dark coats, the Hasidic Jewish community of Stamford Hill live in a unique world divided between 21st-century urban life and 18th-century traditions.
For the most part this community is reserved and publicity shy, but film-maker Paddy Wivell has spent three months with members of the community who have decided it is time to let the rest of world inside their personal and religious lives. Father of five Avi Bresler invites Paddy to his oldest son's wedding – a scene of religious solemnity, family gathering and exuberant drinking – and on his quest to find a wife for his second son. The programme follows a trip to spend Jewish New Year in the Ukraine at one of the world's largest Hasidic festivals; a visit to Avi's family in Jerusalem; regular audiences with a Hasidic scholar to find out about his notions of love and marriage; and a meeting with a professional shadchan (Jewish matchmaker) at which the family-loving Avi reveals something from his past that takes everyone by surprise."
Thursday 19th
BBC4 - The Golden Age Of Canals - "Most people thought that when the working traffic on canals faded away after the war, it would be the end of their story. But they were wrong. A few diehard enthusiasts and boat owners campaigned, lobbied and dug, sometimes with their bare hands, to keep the network of narrow canals open.
Some of these enthusiasts filmed their campaigns and their home movies tell the story of how, in the teeth of much political opposition, they saved the inland waterways for the nation and, more than 200 years after they were first built, created a second golden age of the canals.
Stan Offley, an IWA activist from Ellesmere Port, filmed his boating trips around the wide canals in the 40s, 50s and 60s in 16mm colour. But equally charming is the film made by Ed Frangleton, help from Harry Arnold, of a hostel boat holiday on the Llangollen Canal in 1961. There are the films shot by ex-working boatmen Ike Argent from his home in Nottinghamshire and looked after by his son Barry.
There is astonishing film of the last days of working boats, some shot by John Pyper when he spent time with the Beechey's in the 60s, film taken by Keith Christie of the last days of the cut around the BCN, and the films made by Keith and his mate Tony Gregory of their attempts to keep working the canals through their carrying company, Midland Canal Transport.
There is film of key restorations, the Stourbridge 16 being talked about with great wit and affection by one of the leading activists in that watershed of restorations in the mid-60s, David Tomlinson, and John Maynard's beautiful films of the restoration of the Huddersfield, 'the impossible restoration', shot over two decades.
All these and more are in the programme alongside the people who made the films and some of the stars of them. Together they tell the story of how, in the years after 1945, a few people fought the government like David fought Goliath to keep canals open and restore ones that had become defunct, and won against all the odds.
Channel 4 - Hunting Britain's Most Wanted - "The expansion of the EU and open borders in the UK have led to a surge in foreign criminals heading for Britain. The number of requests for wanted fugitives has risen ten-fold over the past five years and now totals more than 4300 a year.
Over the course of three months Cutting Edge has unique access to New Scotland Yard's Extradition Unit as they track down murderers, suspected rapists and armed robbers from abroad.
A record 1500 foreign fugitives are now arrested each year and with more and more coming to these shores it's a job that is stretching the unit and its officers to the limit.
Some of these criminals go to extraordinary lengths to evade capture, changing their name and ID so it's a painstaking and often frustrating experience tracking them down.
The film makers are there as officers follow up on leads, tracing potentially dangerous criminals, and capture high-tension arrests as the unit's hard work finally pays off.
The cameras are also with the unit when it deals with some of its biggest ever high profile cases, including the arrest of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, wanted in Sweden for alleged sex crimes, and the arrest of Shrien Dewani, wanted in South Africa in connection with the death of his wife, Anni, on their honeymoon.
Other cases include the hunt for Hungary's most wanted fugitive, a Turkish man who conducted an honour killing, a suspected Croatian war criminal and an alleged serial rapist who's escaped the French authorities and who they must close in on before it's too late."
Friday 20th
Channel 4 - Unreported World - Mexico: Living With Hitmen - "Mexico's drug wars have been well reported, but there is a frightening, new phenomenon that is going largely unnoticed. A growing number of journalists are being killed or 'disappeared' as they try to report on drug violence and the growing links between the cartels and the corrupt police and politicians.
Reporter Evan Williams and Director Alex Nott travel to Ciudad Juarez, on the US border, to experience the daily life of a journalist who has been called one of the most courageous women in Mexico.
Luz Sosa is chief crime reporter on El Diario, the main newspaper in Ciudad Juarez, where more than 3000 were murdered last year as powerful drug cartels fight for control of routes to smuggle cocaine and heroin into the US.
Luz spends her days travelling from one crime scene to another trying to ascertain the truth of what's happened and provide a record of the conflict, which is spiraling out of control and in which hundreds of women, grandmothers and even babies have been murdered in revenge attacks or warnings.
Someone - possibly the drugs cartels, or the security services, or both - is targeting her, and several colleagues have already paid the ultimate price.
Just two years ago, Luz's predecessor, crime reporter Armando Rodriguez, was shot dead in front of his home as he was about to take his children to school. No one knows for sure who killed him but Luz says he had written about the links between the cartels and corrupt politicians.
Nearby in the office there is another small flower by the photograph of Luis Carlos Santiago, a 21-year-old photographer. In September 2010, Luz got a call that there was another murder. They arrived at the scene to find their young colleague dead.
It was after she wrote up this story that she too received a direct threat. Her front-page article was found next to a severed human head on the outskirts of the city.
A single mother of two, she says she's never sure whether each day will be the one when she doesn't come home to her kids. Her mother says she prays every day for her daughter's safety and that she will see her again at the end of the day.
The team also meets TV journalist Arturo Perez. He tells Williams that crime gangs, corrupt officials or police could be responsible for the killing and disappearances of journalists but there is never any credible investigation into these killings.
Just across the border in the United States, Williams and Nott meet one of Juarez's leading journalists, who has been given asylum. He claims that after he published an investigation into corrupt officials linked to the cartels he received a threat from an official in the state governor's office that he would be the next journalist to die.
He also claims that some police are involved in extortion with the drug gangs, and that they take their orders from corrupt politicians involved with the drug business. 'They can do anything, they use their weapons and uniforms for this as they know they will never be prosecuted,' he says."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*This applies to staff members and students at the University of Gloucestershire only. Any recordings made are to be used only for educational and non-commercial purposes under the terms of the ERA Licence.
Monday 16th May
BBC1 - The Street That Cut Everything - "Nick Robinson presents a unique social experiment, as he persuades one street in Preston to give up all council services for six weeks."
BBC2 - The Story Of Ireland - 5-part series - "A new five-part landmark series, written and presented by BBC Special Correspondent Fergal Keane, The Story of Ireland is a clear-eyed and expansive view of the history of the island and its people from its earliest times to the present day. Far from being a remote European outpost, episode one charts the formation of Ireland's DNA by successive ways of invaders and settlers. Along the way, Keane exposes the myth of Ireland's Celtic identity; he travels to Norway and presents the Vikings as resourceful settlers and traders in Ireland rather than as the barbarous marauders of popular belief. He also follows the trail of the early Iris monks as they bring their literature and learning through Europe to re-energise the Christian world, in the early middle ages."
Wednesday 18th
BBC2 - Wonderland: A Hasidic Guide To Love, Marriage, And Finding A Bride - "With their trademark ringletted hairstyles, tall fur hats (even in summer) and long dark coats, the Hasidic Jewish community of Stamford Hill live in a unique world divided between 21st-century urban life and 18th-century traditions.
For the most part this community is reserved and publicity shy, but film-maker Paddy Wivell has spent three months with members of the community who have decided it is time to let the rest of world inside their personal and religious lives. Father of five Avi Bresler invites Paddy to his oldest son's wedding – a scene of religious solemnity, family gathering and exuberant drinking – and on his quest to find a wife for his second son. The programme follows a trip to spend Jewish New Year in the Ukraine at one of the world's largest Hasidic festivals; a visit to Avi's family in Jerusalem; regular audiences with a Hasidic scholar to find out about his notions of love and marriage; and a meeting with a professional shadchan (Jewish matchmaker) at which the family-loving Avi reveals something from his past that takes everyone by surprise."
Thursday 19th
BBC4 - The Golden Age Of Canals - "Most people thought that when the working traffic on canals faded away after the war, it would be the end of their story. But they were wrong. A few diehard enthusiasts and boat owners campaigned, lobbied and dug, sometimes with their bare hands, to keep the network of narrow canals open.
Some of these enthusiasts filmed their campaigns and their home movies tell the story of how, in the teeth of much political opposition, they saved the inland waterways for the nation and, more than 200 years after they were first built, created a second golden age of the canals.
Stan Offley, an IWA activist from Ellesmere Port, filmed his boating trips around the wide canals in the 40s, 50s and 60s in 16mm colour. But equally charming is the film made by Ed Frangleton, help from Harry Arnold, of a hostel boat holiday on the Llangollen Canal in 1961. There are the films shot by ex-working boatmen Ike Argent from his home in Nottinghamshire and looked after by his son Barry.
There is astonishing film of the last days of working boats, some shot by John Pyper when he spent time with the Beechey's in the 60s, film taken by Keith Christie of the last days of the cut around the BCN, and the films made by Keith and his mate Tony Gregory of their attempts to keep working the canals through their carrying company, Midland Canal Transport.
There is film of key restorations, the Stourbridge 16 being talked about with great wit and affection by one of the leading activists in that watershed of restorations in the mid-60s, David Tomlinson, and John Maynard's beautiful films of the restoration of the Huddersfield, 'the impossible restoration', shot over two decades.
All these and more are in the programme alongside the people who made the films and some of the stars of them. Together they tell the story of how, in the years after 1945, a few people fought the government like David fought Goliath to keep canals open and restore ones that had become defunct, and won against all the odds.
Channel 4 - Hunting Britain's Most Wanted - "The expansion of the EU and open borders in the UK have led to a surge in foreign criminals heading for Britain. The number of requests for wanted fugitives has risen ten-fold over the past five years and now totals more than 4300 a year.
Over the course of three months Cutting Edge has unique access to New Scotland Yard's Extradition Unit as they track down murderers, suspected rapists and armed robbers from abroad.
A record 1500 foreign fugitives are now arrested each year and with more and more coming to these shores it's a job that is stretching the unit and its officers to the limit.
Some of these criminals go to extraordinary lengths to evade capture, changing their name and ID so it's a painstaking and often frustrating experience tracking them down.
The film makers are there as officers follow up on leads, tracing potentially dangerous criminals, and capture high-tension arrests as the unit's hard work finally pays off.
The cameras are also with the unit when it deals with some of its biggest ever high profile cases, including the arrest of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, wanted in Sweden for alleged sex crimes, and the arrest of Shrien Dewani, wanted in South Africa in connection with the death of his wife, Anni, on their honeymoon.
Other cases include the hunt for Hungary's most wanted fugitive, a Turkish man who conducted an honour killing, a suspected Croatian war criminal and an alleged serial rapist who's escaped the French authorities and who they must close in on before it's too late."
Friday 20th
Channel 4 - Unreported World - Mexico: Living With Hitmen - "Mexico's drug wars have been well reported, but there is a frightening, new phenomenon that is going largely unnoticed. A growing number of journalists are being killed or 'disappeared' as they try to report on drug violence and the growing links between the cartels and the corrupt police and politicians.
Reporter Evan Williams and Director Alex Nott travel to Ciudad Juarez, on the US border, to experience the daily life of a journalist who has been called one of the most courageous women in Mexico.
Luz Sosa is chief crime reporter on El Diario, the main newspaper in Ciudad Juarez, where more than 3000 were murdered last year as powerful drug cartels fight for control of routes to smuggle cocaine and heroin into the US.
Luz spends her days travelling from one crime scene to another trying to ascertain the truth of what's happened and provide a record of the conflict, which is spiraling out of control and in which hundreds of women, grandmothers and even babies have been murdered in revenge attacks or warnings.
Someone - possibly the drugs cartels, or the security services, or both - is targeting her, and several colleagues have already paid the ultimate price.
Just two years ago, Luz's predecessor, crime reporter Armando Rodriguez, was shot dead in front of his home as he was about to take his children to school. No one knows for sure who killed him but Luz says he had written about the links between the cartels and corrupt politicians.
Nearby in the office there is another small flower by the photograph of Luis Carlos Santiago, a 21-year-old photographer. In September 2010, Luz got a call that there was another murder. They arrived at the scene to find their young colleague dead.
It was after she wrote up this story that she too received a direct threat. Her front-page article was found next to a severed human head on the outskirts of the city.
A single mother of two, she says she's never sure whether each day will be the one when she doesn't come home to her kids. Her mother says she prays every day for her daughter's safety and that she will see her again at the end of the day.
The team also meets TV journalist Arturo Perez. He tells Williams that crime gangs, corrupt officials or police could be responsible for the killing and disappearances of journalists but there is never any credible investigation into these killings.
Just across the border in the United States, Williams and Nott meet one of Juarez's leading journalists, who has been given asylum. He claims that after he published an investigation into corrupt officials linked to the cartels he received a threat from an official in the state governor's office that he would be the next journalist to die.
He also claims that some police are involved in extortion with the drug gangs, and that they take their orders from corrupt politicians involved with the drug business. 'They can do anything, they use their weapons and uniforms for this as they know they will never be prosecuted,' he says."
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*This applies to staff members and students at the University of Gloucestershire only. Any recordings made are to be used only for educational and non-commercial purposes under the terms of the ERA Licence.
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