This International Dateline episode includes two segments: Foot In Mouth and Hmong - Apocalypse Now.

Foot In Mouth
Dateline's Peter Martin investigates the decision by Australian government bureaucrats that risked a $13-billion catastrophe by allowing beef to be imported from Brazil - a country with a history of the dreaded foot-and-mouth disease. In late 2004, the government organization, Bio Security Australia permitted the Heinz company to import a shipment of beef from Brazil. Raising the question: how could they have allowed the importation without first investigating the situation in Brazil?

Hmong - Apocalypse Now
Dateline gained access to an extraordinary video made in the remote jungles of Laos. It shows Hmong tribespeople pleading for international assistance to help save them from their country's military. They've been under attack for decades. Up to 20,000 Hmong have been hiding in remote jungle but, earlier this year, driven largely by starvation, they decided to risk a long trek out of isolation. They decided to send a group of 173 women and children to surrender, to test whether it's safe for them to emerge from their refuge in the jungle.

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.