TV Times - 26 January - 1 February 2008

This weeks pick explores the apathy and corruption inherent in the response to the Sudanese genocide by the US government.

Submitted by Lone Wolf on January 26, 2008

In a strong and varietous week for political programming, other highlights include documentaries on alternative education, the fate of the abducted children of Argentina, alternative virtual lifestyles and the Munich summits of 1938.

Monday 28 January - 7.30 - 9.10pm - BBC4 - Summerhill
This drama is based on the true story of the clash between the Suffolk boarding school and Ofsted inspectors in 1999. Summerhill is famous for maintaining that pupils should be allowed to draw up their own rules and timetables without interference from teachers.

Monday 28 January - 8 - 9pm - BBC4 - Dispatches: Why Kids Kill
Three young people have already been murdered since the start of the year in Britain. Dispatches speaks to teenagers in south London and Glasgow and attempts to ascertain some of the causes of gang violence and deadly weapon usage and discusses potential solutions.

Monday 28 January - 8.30 - 9pm - BBC1 - Panorama - Cocaine: Alex James in Colombia
In this weeks episode, prior heavy cocaine user Alex James, now turned cheese-maker, visits Colombia to assess the damage caused by the coca industry. En route he meets a drug mule, a contract killer and the nation's president.

Tuesday 29 January - 10 - 11.40pm - More4 - True Stories: The Found Children of Argentina
30,000 "dissidents" disappeared, presumed murdered, from 1976 to 1983 during the reign of the Argentinian military junta. At the same time, 500 children were abducted and given to military families, often the same individuals who killed their parents. Their identities were obliterated. This is the story of how some of these former youngsters are discovering the truth about their real families and origins as the result of the work of a human rights group called "Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo".

Pick of the Week :rb:
Tuesday 29 January - 10.30pm - 12am - BBC4 - The Devil Came on Horseback
Sudan's government were responsible for the deaths of over 400,000 black Africans. Ex-Marine Brian Steidle witnessed the genocide and he hoped that his photographs would alert the world. But, shockingly for him, their publication in the New York Times caused more State Department ire than public outrage. Made to the normal high standards of documentaries in the Storyville strand, here Steidle's disbelief is captured in this disconcerting exploration of pitiless brutality and government apathy.

Wednesday 30 January - 9.50 - 10.30pm - BBC2 - Wonderland: Virtual Adultery
This documentary takes as its subject the growing trend for adults to adopt a creative persona in the Second Life virtual world, and in this world escape the mundanity and day-to-day relationship and financial struggles. The huge contrast between fantasy and reality leads observers to question the validity of abandoning real struggles for the escape of a fantasy world.

Wednesday 30 January - 11.20 - 11.50pm - BBC2 - Desi DNA
This edition explores police handling of anti-terror laws and reviews new British film "Shoot on Sight".

Wednesday 30 January - 9 - 10.30pm - BBC4 - Summits - 1/3
The first of three indepth analyses of pivotal moments in 20th century history, here the detailed story of the Munich agreement of 1938 and Neville Chamberlain's part in it is told. His three separate head-to-heads with Adolf Hitler over the Sudeten stumbling block are vividly described. David Reynolds does not disagree with the criticism of Chamberlain for being naive and an appeaser of Nazism, but he does add his own observations that the British PM instigated modern summitry, and that actually it was Hitler that lost his nerve in their negotiations.

Wednesday 30 January - 11pm - 12.30am - BBC4 - Blind Spot: Hitler's Secretary
This Storyville documentary features an interview with Traudl Junge who worked as one of Hitler's secretaries from 1942 until the dictator's suicide in 1945. In German with English subtitles.

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