In a new episode of iWitness, FRONTLINE/World's web series, curator Joe Rubin talks to Gigi Ugulava, the mayor of Georgia's capital Tbilisi and a confidant of President Mikhail Saakashvili.
Ugulava describes the mounting refugee crisis facing his city as Georgians flood in from Gori and other towns bombed by the Russian army, and how the city is reacting as Russian tanks remain less than 40 miles from the capital. Ugulava tells FRONTLINE/World that when it comes to Tbilisi, Georgians are drawing a red line. "If Russia will succeed here, they will be halfway to reestablishing the Soviet Union and nobody can stop them then."
A new project by CIR and NPR follows the money behind independent campaign ads leading up to the 2008 election. The Election 2008: Secret Money Project tracks the funders of ads intended to sway voters—much like the ones launched by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, the independent organization that attacked Senator John Kerry in 2004.
Watch the ads. Read the analysis. See who's paying, and who they're connected to. A recent post on the Secret Money Project by CIR's Will Evans:
Former Swift Boat Donor Finds New Target
Mark Udall, meet Bob Perry.
Udall, a Democratic member of Congress from Colorado, is running for Senate this year in a race that is attracting out-of-state money from all sides.
Perry, a Texas developer, gave $4.4 million to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth to help defeat John Kerry in 2004. FEC reports reveal that the Texan dropped $400,000 this month to air an ad criticizing Udall for "wasteful" spending.
Perry gave the money to the Club for Growth. The group said in a press release that the ad will be up for 2 weeks.
Watch the ad:
A type of "safe" pesticide found in household products—from lice shampoo to Raid bug spray—is responsible for a surge in injuries and deaths over the past decade, according to Environmental Protection Agency data acquired by the Center for Public Integrity. In a new report, "Perils of the New Pesticides," CPI reveals that "the number of reported human health problems, including severe reactions, attributed to pyrethrins and pyrethroids increased by about 300 percent over the past decade ... [the chemicals] accounted for more than 26 percent of all fatal, 'major,' and 'moderate' human incidents in the United States in 2007, up from 15 percent in 1998."
Pyrethrins, extracted from the chrysanthemum plant, and their synthetic relatives, pyrethroids, have exploded in popularity over the last decade. They are now used in thousands of consumer products from Hartz Dog Flea & Tick Killer to Raid Ant and Roach Killer. These chemicals are found in bug-repellant clothing, flea collars, automatic misting devices, lawn-care products, and carpet sprays. Manufacturers developed them as safer alternatives to a class of compounds, derived from Nazi nerve gases, called organophosphates, found in products such as Dursban. The chemicals were widely used in American homes as recently as the late 1990s but are no longer approved by the Environmental Protection Agency for indoor use.
The EPA released its pesticide incident-reporting database in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from CPI earlier this year. The database was called one of the “Ten Most Wanted Government Documents” by the Center for Democracy and Technology.
>> Read "Perils of the New Pesticides" by the Center for Public Integrity.
FRONTLINE/World iWitness posted two video reports this week about the capture and arrest of Serbian war criminal Radovan Karadzic this past Monday. iWitness talks to reporter Saska Rankovic, who worked as an independent journalist under Milosevic and has been covering a divided Serbia for the last few years.
"I think it is so pitiful, for the man who was so powerful during that war period ... after all he was the master of life and death ... It is so pitiful," Rankovic says of Karadzic's capture and the way he's been living in disguise for more than a decade.
iWitness also checks in with Hasan Nuhanovic, who lost his mother, father, and brother in the massacre at Srebrenica. Nuhanovic was featured in a FRONTLINE/World documentary in 2006 about the hunt for Karadzic and his top general, Ratko Mladic: "The Men Who Got Away."
"There is no place for euphoria," Nuhanovic says of Karadzic's arrest this week. "It came 13 years late. He's still in custody in Belgrade. We'll see when he is going and how he is going to be transferred to The Hague international tribunal. We'll see what happens when he gets there ... It's one important step forward, of course. But many problems remain unresolved."
In 2005, reporters at the Idaho Falls Post Register uncovered a terrible secret: a known pedophile was working as a camp leader within the local Boy Scouts. With "In a Small Town," EXPOSÉ producer Joe Rubin retraced the steps of reporter Peter Zuckerman, who was tipped off by an anonymous source and later faced brutal—and very personal—attacks from the Boys Scouts of America and the Mormon Church. The piece, which already won a CINE Golden Eagle award, is now up for a News and Documentary Emmy Award.
>> Watch "In a Small Town" on the PBS EXPOSÉ website.
The EXPOSÉ: America's Investigative Reports series is produced by Thirteen/WNET New York in association with CIR.
The latest episode of iWitness, a new web series from FRONTLINE/World, spotlights a journalist working to expose human rights abuses in Zimbabwe—where practicing journalism "has become a crime punishable by death." The woman, who is not named and does not appear on camera to protect her identity, talks to series curator Joe Rubin by phone about some of the most striking experiences she has had reporting in Zimbabwe during Mugabe's fight to maintain power—a dangerous time for anyone who publicly criticizes him and his party.
iWitness launched in June 2008 on FRONTLINE/World's website:
The idea for iWitness grew out of a sense that we wanted to expand our network of voices from around the world and to respond more quickly to events, especially dramatic situations.
Reaching people in countries such as Iran or Burma via web cam provides an immediate and powerful storytelling tool. We'll be checking in mid story with our regular reporters, but we will also be connecting directly with activists and artists, doctors and teachers, even avatars reporting from virtual communities, such as Second Life.
>> Visit the FRONTLINE/World iWitness site to watch videos and learn more.
The number of border patrol agents employed by the Department of Homeland Security is expected to grow to more than 20,000 by 2009, which is more than double what it was in 2001. An investigation by The New York Times and FRONTLINE/World found that the increased manpower has also led to increased corruption—agents accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to smuggle illegal immigrants, drugs, and weapons across the border they were hired to protect.
“If you can get a corrupt inspector, you have the keys to the kingdom,” one FBI agent told the reporters.
The Times article, by Randal C. Archibold and Andrew Becker, catalogs a number of recent cases of agents-gone-bad. The accompanying FRONTLINE/World documentary begins airing on PBS tonight and will also be available online. Check local listings.
In his NYTimes.com blog, filmmaker Errol Morris reconstructs the series of events that led to the death of Manadel al-Jamadi, the dead man shown in the well-publicized Abu Ghraib photo with Sabrina Harman flashing a thumbs up.
In the process of making his new film, Standard Operating Procedure, Morris conducted hours of interviews with the soldiers who served at Abu Ghraib, including Harman and others convicted of abuse. He also carefully analyzed the photographs taken by Harman and others stationed at the prison. Morris's own investigation into the crimes committed at Abu Ghraib and the death of al-Jamadi might very well be the best examination on public record today.
Morris also talks a lot about Sabrina Harman, and how the photograph of her smile over the corpse of a dead man, in his view, "aided and abetted a terrible miscarriage of justice." In true Morris fashion, he takes the investigation deeper, contacting psychology professor Paul Ekman at the University of California, San Francisco, an expert on facial expressions and emotions. Morris actually has Ekman analyze several photos of Harman to determine whether her smile in the Abu Ghraib photograph expresses true happiness or is just posturing for the camera.
> Read the Errol Morris blog: "The Most Curious Thing"
One of the deadliest jobs for civilian Iraqis is working as a translator for the U.S. military. Foreign correspondent Anna Badkhen profiles a 23-year-old Iraqi interpreter in today's San Franciso Chronicle. Badkhen is also writing an Iraq reporting journal for CIR's Muckraker blog.
From the Chronicle:
Neither his parents nor his siblings know he works for the U.S. Army. It's bad enough that he wakes up each night around 2 a.m., the hour his armored convoy was hit by a roadside bomb several months ago. He doesn't want his family to have the same nightmares.
The 23-year-old translator, who goes by the name Travis, is intent on protecting his loved ones from Iraq's sectarian militias, which consider anyone who works for the Americans as traitors. He is also well aware that translating in Iraq has become one of the most dangerous civilian jobs in the world.
Since the war began five years ago, at least 200 Iraqis translating for U.S. troops have been killed, most of them in targeted killings, according to L3 Communications, a New York company that supplies interpreters to the American military.
To avoid being killed or maimed, Travis and most other Iraqi translators lead dual lives, concealing their identities and addresses. On patrol, the young man covers his face with a military-issue bandanna that he pulls down to the bottom of his sunglasses.
GOOD magazine does a great job summing up the campaign fundraising race for the 2008 presidential election in this entertaining little video: "America: Love it or Fix it."