Four Corners Season 47, Episode 20: Forward Base Afghanistan

1

The Culture

It's blokey and it's bolshie, the envy of other unions, with near blanket coverage of its workforce. For decades it has sought to influence election campaigns, dragged concessions out of fearful governments and fought ferociously for its members.

45 min

2

Battling the Booze

You don't have to be sitting on a street corner urinating in your trousers and shadow boxing to be a drunk. I'm living proof of that... - Ian

45 min

3

The Denial Machine

For years the global warming debate has swirled like a firestorm. Science has been tossed about in a tornado of spin from doomsayers and doubters, deep green activists and fossil fuel lobbyists.

45 min

4

The Road to Return

Who's tough on crime? It's an election season ritual: the law and order auction to see which party will put more cops on the streets or increase sentences or build more jails.

45 min

5

Firestorm

Across southern Australia, fire chiefs are anxiously waiting for the cool draughts of autumn to extinguish another stress-filled season of sparks, flare-ups and rushed responses.

45 min

6

You Only Live Twice

Our world might be getting smaller, thanks to technology, but virtual worlds and games are booming. Millions of people venture daily into these new and constantly evolving landscapes where they can conquer mythical armies, slay dragons and embark on other fantastical quests.

45 min

7

A Hidden Life

In May 2005, citizens of Spokane, USA, woke to startling news about their city's mayor, Jim West. The outwardly conservative Republican, who had pushed legislation barring gay teachers from public schools, had whiled away his private hours trawling for young men on an Internet chatroom, the Spokesman-Review newspaper alleged. West reportedly abused his office by offering internships to lure them into more intimate relationships.

45 min

8

David Hicks' Story

With a wispy moustache and long, lank hair, it was a different David Hicks who just faced US military court in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. No longer the clean-cut young man smiling familiarly out of old family snaps - and no longer protesting his innocence.

45 min

9

Treechange

Australia is planting trees. After years of debate about logging old growth forests what could seem more sensible or more worthy? And yet a national quarrel has developed about tree plantations, a quarrel that Chris Master discovers is quietly dividing rural communities and members of the Coalition Government.

45 min

10

Earth, Wind and Fire

Picture a windswept hillside lined with slender white skyscrapers, each crowned by a giant whirring rotor longer than a jumbo jet. Or a swathe of desert covered by a sea of mirrors drawing power from the sun.

45 min

11

Painting the Mind

Imagine surviving a massive brain injury, then waking up in hospital to discover your personality has completely transformed.

45 min

12

The Dark Arts

"Well mate... let me just say this to you. I mean you wouldn't know this but I'm not a f...... good enemy to have..." (Brian Burke on the telephone)

45 min

13

Dr Rosanna Capolingua

A confronting report in which fit and healthy elderly Australians reveal plans to take their own lives before they lose their independence. Is this a new fact of life in greying Australia?

45 min

14

Mississippi Cold Case

One spring day in 1964, Charles Moore and Henry Dee were hitchhiking in rural Mississippi. The two black men were picked up by the Ku Klux Klan, tortured, locked in a car boot and driven to Louisiana, then chained to an engine block and dropped alive into the Mississippi River.

45 min

15

A Private Affair

Nick off, it's not for sale!... Qantas shareholder's answer to the takeover offer.

45 min

16

Torture

"No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment." (Universal Declaration of Human Rights)

45 min

17

Ghost Prisoners

Shackled, gagged and blindfolded, they are bundled on to spy planes, spirited to Third World capitals and dumped in prison hellholes. There they face repeated interrogations that typically include prolonged sessions of torture, crudely inflicted, unimaginably endured.

45 min

18

Tough Calls

"We run an absolute dictatorship and that's what's going to drive this transformation and deliver results... If you can't get the people to go there and you try once and you try twice... then you just shoot 'em and get them out of the way... " - Telstra Chief Operations Officer Greg Winn (at a May business meeting)

45 min

19

The Home Front

While politicians clash noisily over global warming and how to fight it, millions of Australians are trying modestly to cut their energy use, to be a small part of a big solution.

45 min

20

Forward Base Afghanistan

Like Star Wars figures beamed back to the 17th century, Australia's hi-tech, lethally-equipped soldiers cut a surreal presence as they cautiously patrol the baking dustbowl of southern Afghanistan, drawing just casual glances from turbaned tribesmen and nomadic herders.

45 min

21

Real Spooks

Across Britain counter terrorism forces are gathering evidence against the planners of the failed car bomb plots in London and Glasgow. The forensic information gleaned from the vehicles and the arrests in Britain and Australia should allow them to piece together how the conspiracy was formed.

45 min

22

The Cape Experiment

"If they don't take responsibility then we will step in. We want the system to work so that when people don't take responsibility we're able to step in ... you could lose your freedom if you don't abide by the conditions." Noel Pearson.

45 min

23

For The Children's Sake

"My baby was the last thing that I thought about until I pulled that needle out of my arm." Sharon, drug user.

45 min

24

Grist to the Mill

It started with dinner in a Hobart restaurant. The head of Tasmania's biggest timber company and the then Deputy Premier chatted about future plans for the forest industry in Tasmania. Four years on the Tasmanian Parliament is about to decide whether to give the nod to a $1.7 billion giant pulp mill on the banks of the Tamar River north of Launceston.

45 min

25

The Behaviour Business

An angry child, lashing out at the world, struggling at school, labelled a 'problem'. The desperate parents, looking for help, hoping that one day their child will have a normal life. This is the traumatic world of families living with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

45 min

26

EYES WIDE OPEN

When was the last time you had a good night's sleep? Are you one of the million-plus Australians who spend their nights watching the minutes tick by, dreading the morning, knowing you'll be exhausted? Some say it feels like dragging a piano around, an awful deadening weight.

45 min

27

Friends of God

"I don't think you can win without them. And I think if they're unified, you'll lose if they go against you. John Kerry learned that. Al Gore learned that and Hillary will learn that in 2008. The church is the only hope for the recovery of this country. And this is a do or die thing with us; we are not playing games with it. We are absolutely planning to take this nation back for God." The late Reverend Jerry Falwell.

45 min

28

First Do No Harm

How do you know if you can trust your doctor? How do you know if they have the skills to heal you? How do you find out, what all too often, the medical profession already knows: who to go to and who to avoid? It's been the ultimate insider's secret, the doctor you would never let near your own family or friends.

45 min

29

When Kids Get Life

The crimes are shocking, the perpetrators alarmingly young. A 15-year-old who brutally murdered his parents; a 15-year-old participant in a fatal car-jacking; a 17-year-old who killed a schoolmate in a robbery gone wrong. Prosecutors have labelled them "the worst of the worst". All three of them will spend the rest of their lives in jail as a result of mandatory sentencing laws.

45 min

30

Hokey Pokie

"There's no country in the world that has gambling in clubs and pubs in the way that we do in Australia." Professor Jan McMillen.

45 min

31

Mortgage Meltdown

"When the US sneezes the rest of the world gets the cold."

45 min

32

Afghanistan Unveiled

The pictures were shocking. A woman swathed in a blue burqa, stumbling across the ground, barely able to see. Forced to her knees, then shot in the head. Publicly executed in a soccer stadium. Punishment, Taliban style.

45 min

33

The Trials of Dr Haneef

On Saturday June 30 an explosives-filled Jeep Cherokee careered into Glasgow's airport terminal. Images of the flaming car and one of the attackers, Kafeel Ahmed, grotesquely burnt and struggling on the ground, sent a shudder of fear through Britain.

45 min

34

Burma's Secret War

Democracy will just have to wait. The rallies have been crushed and the protesters are in captivity, in hiding, or fleeing the country. Military vehicles sweep Burma's main city Rangoon blaring menace from loudspeakers: "We have photographs. We are going to make arrests."

45 min

35

The Brethren Express

They don't vote and they repudiate any organised role in politics. It's God's call, they say, whether governments stand or fall.

45 min

36

The Real Godfather

They called him The Tractor. "He mowed people down," explained an informant.

45 min

37

Flying Blind

"If you think about all the planes that are available as being puppies in a litter, the Super Hornet is the runt." US aviation analyst James Stevenson

45 min

38

Tracking the Intervention

After decades of hollow promises, it was time to cut the talk. In Canberra's eyes the rolling scandal of child sexual abuse in Indigenous communities demanded action, swift and certain.

45 min

39

The Undecided

In the political marketplace, their votes are gold dust. People like Matthew, Nicole, Mark, Deanne and George will determine who governs Australia after November 24. All are marginal seat voters. In recent elections all have gone with John Howard.

45 min