TV Times - 16 - 22 February 2008

This weeks highlight is the beginning of a futuristic dystopian drama the main theme of which is encroaching and insidious State technological surveillance.

Submitted by Lone Wolf on February 17, 2008

Other highlights include the effects on the banning of legal abortions in Nicaragua and a study of the political and life changes since the 1980's experienced by graduates of Moscow's elite school for mathematical geniuses.

Sunday 17 February - 7 - 8pm - Channel 4 - Our Big Fair Trade Adventure
This documentary explores the beliefs and activities of three secondary school children who, angered at the notion that workers seldom benefit financially from the sale of clothes on the high street, travel to India in an attempt to ethically source material to make school uniform shirts.

Pick of the Week :rb:
Sunday 17 February - 9 - 10.25pm - BBC1 - The Last Enemy - 1/5
In this major new futuristic drama series, Benedick Cumberpatch plays a mathematician who has been away working in China for five years and returns to London for the funeral of his brother who was an aid-worker. He finds Britain subtly but significantly changed from when he left. Writer Peter Berry paints a portrait of a world where constantly patrolling armed police demand to see compulsory biometric ID cards, most civil liberties have been curtailed and CCTV State surveillance is now absolutely ubiquitous. Berry began writing this series three years ago and has stated that many dystopian elements he thought up have since become reality, forcing him into a number of major rewrites.

Monday 18 February - 8 - 9pm - Channel 4 - Dispatches: How the Banks Bet Your Money
A private equity financier explores the impact of the global credit crunch in this weeks edition. As well as blaming the banks for pursuing short-sighted and greedy strategies that have caused an epidemic of house repossessions, Jon Moulton also believes governments should share culpability for their failure to implement adequate regulatory supervision.

Tuesday 19 February - 10.30pm - 12am - BBC4 - Very Russian Geniuses: My Class
Only the most gifted Russian children are allowed to attend the elite Moscow School No 91, which has produced maths geniuses since the early 1980's. This Storyville documentary traces the class of 1982 in order to see the effect the political changes of the 1980's had on their lives.

Friday 22 February - 7.35 - 8pm - Channel 4 - Unreported World - 3/10 - Nicaragua
This week Kate Seelye investigates the rise in the number of backstreet abortions being performed in Nicaragua after the government passed legislation banning the practice in hospitals. This came about as a result of an alliance between the President, Daniel Ortega, and the Roman Catholic Church. As might be expected no exceptions can be made leaving seriously ill women for whom continuing with a pregnancy could kill with the awful choice of continuing with the pregnancy or of incurring major expense and risking a jail term whilst ill in order to procure an illegal abortion. Victims of incest and rape are similarly shown no mercy, and this is taking a heavy, heavy toll on the nations women and girls in a macho country where condom use is frowned upon.

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