Unreported World Season 9, Episode 16: Venezuela: Cult of the Thugs

1

Egypt's Rubbish People

Evan Williams visits the Zabbaleen, a Coptic Christian community in Cairo living and working in rubbish in ghettos overrun by rats, who claim that they are treated as second-class citizens.

2

USA: The Devil's Highway

Aidan Hartley reports from the Sonoran Desert in Northern Mexico, crossed every day by thousands of illegal immigrants from Central and South America, desperate to reach the USA.

3

Nicaragua: Blood, Church and State

Kate Seelye reports on the consequences of a total ban on abortions, with women scared to visit hospitals and doctors afraid to carry out life-saving operations on female patients.

4

Russia: Railway of Bones

Sam Kiley discovers a nation where political dissent is stifled, corruption is rife, and where little of its huge wealth reaches a population racked by poverty, alcoholism and suicide.

5

Bangladesh: The Drowning Country

Ramita Navai finds out what it's like to live in this poor, extremely overpopulated, flat country on the front line of climate change.

6

Sudan: Meet the Janjaweed

Nima Elbagir meets an Arab militia accused of being an important element of the Janjaweed, blamed for the atrocities in Darfur.

7

Gaza: Reign of the Rockets

Sam Kiley finds Israel and Hamas on a collision course, each new 'incursion' or 'terror attack' seemingly driving them on towards outright war.

8

Benin: Voodoo Children

Evan Williams visits the only country in the world to recognize Voodoo as a state religion.

9

Brazil: The Amazon's Golden Curse

Jenny Kleeman reveals how the record high price of gold brought about by the global financial crisis is affecting some of the earth's most isolated people.

10

Kenya's Human Time Bomb

Aidan Hartley finds the government, UN and NGOs all refusing to acknowledge the high birthrate as the major cause of poverty, violence, homelessness and pollution.

11

South Africa: Body Parts for Sale

Ramita Navai reveals that hundreds of people have been killed for body parts to be used in traditional medicine and meets a man who admits to torturing and killing people as part of his trade - as a 'healer'

12

India: God's Own Country

Jenny Kleeman investigates the allegations varying from fraud to physical and sexual abuse being faced by some of Kerala's 3,000 holy men.

13

Abkhazia: Valley Of The Lost

Aidan Hartley reports on the continuing bitter ethnic conflict between Georgians and Abkhazians which has cost thousands of lives over the last decade.

14

Paraguay's Painful Harvest

Tanya Datta reports on a nationwide peasant uprising against farmers of genetically-modified soya who are mainly Brazilian and seen as colonists partly responsible for the almost total deforestation of the eastern provinces.

15

Philippines' Dirty War

Evan Williams reports on an armed rebel group's efforts to seize control of the country's resources from the 135 families who hold economic and political power, as hundreds of students, activists and left wing politicians disappear without trace.

16

Venezuela: Cult of the Thugs

Nima Elbagir finds Venezuelans turning to the spirits of dead gangster criminals for protection against crime.

17

Thailand: Lessons in Terror

Seyi Rhodes finds schools on the front-line in a battle for hearts and minds between the Thai government and the extremists among Muslim separatists in the ethnic Malay south.

18

Yemen: Sea of Tears

Reporter Aidan Hartley and Director Edward Watts reveal an unseen human catastrophe unfolding in Yemen as thousands of desperate refugees fleeing the chaos and carnage in the Horn of Africa suffer terrible ill-treatment as they cross the Gulf of Aden on their way to the Promised Land of Arabia.

19

Mexico: Seven Days in Hell

This programme reveals how the demand for cocaine has led to thousands of deaths in Mexico.