Australia's authoritative and incisive international current affairs program looks at three important topics this week:
The Ice Storm
In Australia graphic ice ads have been running on television. One of the most discussed ones ends up with a bodybag being zipped up over the face of a dead teenager. To say the least, confronting. The estimate is that 73,000 Australians use crystal methamphetamine, or ice, and 40 percent of those who take that particularly nasty drug become addicted to it. Australia, of course, is not the only country in the world grappling with ice. In rural USA they've been tackling the demon modern drug for some time. Journalist Ginny Stein investigates this deadly drug.
Reining in the Paradise
Right now some Australians are none too welcome in parts of the country's largest and normally bustling metropolis; if you think about it, it's ironic that a stellar gathering like APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) that preaches international cooperation and dialogue between nations, should be taking place in a city locked down and barricaded with exclusion zones and where individuals named by police aren't allowed to come into the Sydney CBD to protest. For the past week Mark Davis has been tracking a band of young protesters planning what may well be the biggest anti-APEC demonstration, the sort of people John Howard's been telling us are the reason for what, tongue-in-cheek, some have dubbed Sydney's "rabble-proof fence".
Paul Keating Interview
Depending on which analyst or commentator's recall of recent Australian political history you're relying on, APEC was either Bob Hawke's idea, one that he pinched from garrulous Gareth Evans who nicked it from a couple of excitable bureaucrats in Foreign Affairs down in Canberra. Or its real architect was one PJ Keating. With the $350 million talkfest of 21 international leaders - accounting for more than half the world's gross domestic product, 70 percent of this country's trade and 60 percent of the globe's energy demands in full swing, Dateline's George Negus talked with the former Prime Minister about these and other APEC issues.
About International Dateline
SBS Dateline, which began in 1984, is Australia's longest-running international current affairs program. It has a well-earned reputation for authoritative and incisive reporting. Dateline has taken the traditional way of producing TV current affairs and turned it on its head. Reporters who used to travel with a cameraperson and sound recordist now travel alone and have the responsibility of both filming and reporting their stories. The reporters became video-journalists, gaining access to people and places that the conventional camera crews cannot.
