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Dateline: Mar 20

Dateline takes a look at the two big international stories this week: Japan and Libya, with Mark Davis set to host for the first time in 2011.

Dateline takes a look at the two big international stories this week: Japan and Libya, with Mark Davis set to host for the first time in 2011.

It is a return to the chair for Davis, who was the show’s previous presenter before George Negus.

Yalda Hakim, who has presented the program so far this year, takes her turn to hit the road on assignment.

Japan Quake
Dateline takes a personal and intimate journey to the Japanese disaster zone this Sunday, as video journalist Toshi Maeda takes a road trip through some of the worst affected areas, seeing for himself how bad the situation really is.

It’s a difficult journey through swathes of land blocked with debris, to devastated communities mourning hundreds, even thousands of dead, and people trying to salvage what they can from their ruined homes.

The journey takes us to the edge of the nuclear power plant exclusion zone, as Japan struggles with a new crisis on top of the earthquake and tsunami.

Libya
As troops loyal to Muammar Gadaffi close in on the rebel stronghold of Benghazi, Dateline reports from that city, amid preparations for a final showdown with the Libyan leader.

French film maker Gwen Le Gouil takes us into the ranks of the newly-formed revolutionary army – and shows us gruelling images of underground prison cells beneath Gadaffi’s abandoned Benghazi residence – where anti-Gadaffi rebels had been held and tortured prior to the revolution.

Le Gouil also films the beginnings of Benghazi’s free press, as the city celebrates what may be a short-lived liberation.

Empty Cities
Vast new cities, complete with towering apartment blocks, public building and shopping malls, are being built across China at a rate of ten a year, but they remain almost completed uninhabited ghost towns.

The construction craze is all part of the government’s efforts to keep the economy booming, but despite millions of apartments sitting empty, they remain too expensive and out of reach for most of the population.

Video journalist Adrian Brown wanders through malls of vacant shops and roads lined with empty apartment buildings. He visits a shop keeper who rarely has a customer and a man who shares a two bedroom home with nine others, while towers of empty apartment buildings continue to rise around them.

It airs 8:30pm Sunday on SBS ONE.

One Response

  1. The thinking person’s “60 Minutes”. Never fails to deliver. Yep, the photo says it. Producer, director, reporter, audio, lighting, camera, makeup (no), hair (no), gofers (no), etc. (no). Just the one.

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