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Archives for December 2009

Goodbye to the Noughties

Panorama marks the end of the first decade of the millennium - the so-called 'noughties' - with a look back on some of the tough questions asked and the key issues of the day that were put under the microscope by the world's longest-running investigative reporting programme.

Here Caroline Mallan, from Panorama's web team, gives her take on the decade that was.

Panorama's decade began with a string of hard-hitting investigations. Among them was the ground-breaking 'Who Bombed Omagh?' in which reporter John Ware revisited the events of 15 August 1998 and named the four perpetrators of the bomb attack which killed 29 people and unborn twins.

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The programme won a Royal Television Society award but also attracted unwelcome attention. In 2001 a planted by the Real IRA exploded outside ´óÏó´«Ã½ Television Centre in London.

The security services suggested the attack was revenge for the Panorama programme.

John Ware continues to cover the issues of for Panorama.


In 2001, Panorama picked up the thread of what was arguably the biggest story of the decade just days after the .

In World's Most Wanted, Panorama retraced the events that led to the attacks and reporter Jane Corbin, who had first reported on Osama bin Laden in 1998, examined the man, his motives and how New York was coping in the aftermath of the attack on the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center.

This film combined the cataclysmic events and footage of September 11th with reports from eyewitnesses and victims families, including those who had received calls from Flight 93, with solid information on Bin Laden's terror network.

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In 2002, Panorama revisited the story of big pharmaceutical companies amid the growing popularity of anti-depressants.

In the , reporter Shelley Jofre looked into the safety of the anti-depressant drug and revealed its sometimes dark side effects. Panorama uncovered evidence of people getting hooked on the drug and suffering serious withdrawal symptoms when they tried to come off it.

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For some, it lead to self harm and even suicide, despite little warning of these possible side effects from drugsmaker GlaxoSmithKline, which forcefully denied the allegations.

In 2003's Inside Guantanamo, Panorama gained rare access to the newly-opened detention centre that went on to define the presidency of George W Bush and continues to .

A six month investigation took reporter Vivian White to Asia, Africa, Europe, and America, to talk to those on the receiving end of American justice - both in Guantanamo and in other detention facilities around the globe - and to those responsible for administering it.

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This programme offered early testimonials of detainees being tortured in captivity abroad - a theme that would resurface as the War on Terror marched on.

By 2004, Hilary Andersson had travelled deep into the remote mountains of Jebel Mara in , where local black Africans were being attacked by members of the
Sudanese-government backed Janjaweed Arab militia.

The New Killing Fields was, for many, the first sense of the horrors of what has since become widely viewed as a genocide.

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Panorama's work helped push the issue to the front of the news agenda. The team picked up a host of awards for their work, including the Royal Television Society award and George Peabody award as part of the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s overall coverage of the crisis, the Best Television Documentary Prize at the Amnesty International Media Awards and was named Current Affairs Film of the Year at Banff International Television Festival.


In 2005, Margaret Haywood became .

Margy, as she is known, with more than 20 years of nursing experience, wore a hidden camera and microphone as she did nursing shifts on a ward at Brighton's Royal Sussex County Hospital.

Over the course of her three month investigation, Margy exposed suffering and a series of indignities at the hospital, including a patient left to die on her own and another left waiting for hours for help to go to the toilet.

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Margy's work for Panorama jeopardised her career, leading to her eventually being struck off by the Nursing and Midwifery Council in April 2009 for breaching patient confidentiality - a decision later overturned.

In November 2009, Margy's efforts were vindicated when .

By 2006, Panorama reported on what became .

A Home Office investigation was ordered after it was revealed that a while at a bail hostel in Bristol.

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The secret filming of the convict led to such concern among the programme producers, that to report the violations of licence conditions.

It was not until the third call to 999 that police moved to re-arrest the man who was one of more than 2,000 offenders living in more than a hundred hostels in England and Wales on court orders and on licence from prison.

In 2007, Panorama's John Sweeney made headlines around the world for his encounter with the Church of Scientology's Tommy Davis in Scientology and Me. Sweeney, who had been investigating the practices of the controversial group for months, had a very vocal blow out on camera, completely losing his temper.

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In taking a close look at Scientology - popular with high-profile celebrities - the reporter described in detail .

internationally, with France recently examining the financial practices of the group.

In 2008, the darling of the British High Street, for using suppliers who sub-contracted work out to children in the developing world.

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At a time when ethical sourcing is increasingly a determining factor for consumers, to sever ties with the suppliers in question and reassure their customers that child labour was not being employed in its manufacturing processes.

The programme, in addition to winning a RTS Current Affairs Home award, also brought attention to .

In 2009, Panorama's examination of racism on a Bristol housing estate was both shocked and angered many in Britain.

Undercover: Hate on the Doorstep, followed reporters Tamanna Rahman and Amil Khan as they set up house on the Southmead estate under the guise of a young married couple.

Over the course of their investigation, Tamanna in particular virtually every time she left the house. At one point she was the victim of an attempted mugging by an 11-year-old boy.

The most startling moment perhaps came when Amil was punched in the head in an unprovoked attack. The programme drew hundreds of comments from viewers and questioned the position taken by Trevor Phillips, head of the , when he said in an interview that having neighbours of a different ethnic background is no longer an issue in modern Britain when compared to other countries.

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The Commission say his comments followed two Mori polls which, it claimed, showed the majority of British people to be increasingly at ease with racial diversity.

These were our picks for some of the best programmes of the decade, please join in our forum to leave us a comment or tell us your own highlights.

Happy New Year from the Panorama Team.


Romania: the last revolution of 1989

It still seems hard to believe that little more than 20 years ago Berlin was a , military generals ruled and, in Czechoslovakia, could have been the name of a rock band rather than a movement about to overthrow a communist regime.

But such was the pace of change in Eastern Europe in 1989 that much of what had stood since the end of World War II was in flux and the political map redrawn.

As the effects of the spread through the Eastern Bloc in the late 1980s it seemed - certainly with hindsight - almost inevitable that established communist regimes would be challenged and removed.

But in reality many of the were truly shocking. None more so than .

That Romania's President Nicolae Ceausescu was shot after a summary trial on Christmas Day - a day when much of the world looks hopefully toward a peaceful future - was rich with symbolism.

Ceausescu's death brought to a bloody close a remarkable year in which the people of Eastern Europe demanded freedom and saw tyranny defeated. Of course, nothing is ever quite so simple, but the transformation of the old Eastern Bloc - through generally bloodless revolutions - to fledgling democracies was one of the more remarkable achievements of the late twentieth century.

Panorama's John Simpson told the story of the last revolution of that momentous year in the first Panorama of 1990, reporting on how the revolution sparked into life amid demonstrations and riots in Timisoara in mid-December.

The demonstrations followed the eviction from his home of a pastor, critical of the Ceausescu regime. A brutal and cruel regime kept in power by the secret police - the Securitate.

The Securitate ruled by fear and intimidation, but didn't have the numbers to deal with the sheer volume of the crowds - which peaked at 100,000 - that gathered in Timisoara to support the priest initially, but later to denounce Ceausescu.

The out of touch Ceausescu was deluded by his secret police into thinking the people loved him. This delusion led him to believe that if he addressed a crowd in Bucharest and denounced events in Timisoara, he would be able to quell the unrest.


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That decision proved to be his undoing. It caused his regime to unravel and within days he was facing execution along with his wife in the damp courtyard of an army barracks in Tirgovista, closing the year of revolutions in a grisly manner.


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Romania recovered quickly. After a brief period of executions of Securitate members and jockeying for position by revolutionary groups, calm was restored and parliamentary and residential elections were held in May.

The new decade saw Romania, like much of Eastern Europe, reborn.

Panorama prompts formal review of cautions system

Panorama's recent programme, , examined the use of cautions and on-the-spot fines in cases that were more serious than their intended use, including violent assaults.

On the eve of the programme, Justice Secretary Jack Straw announced a of the entire cautions system in England and Wales.

This week, the , along with the and the , released more details on what the review - to be led by the - will examine.

The review will consider:

- How often out-of-court punishments are being used.
- If they are being employed across the regions in a consistent way and if not, why not.
- Whether or not any conditions on the cautions, including fines, are being observed by the offenders.
- Whether or not the use of cautions is working as a deterrent and whether or not the victims retain a level of satisfaction with the justice system.

Attorney General, Baroness Scotland, said: "This review is an opportunity both to tighten up on any poor practice but also to improve public understanding of the role and value of out-of-court disposals."

Home Secretary Alan Johnson said: "Out of court disposals are an important tool for the police and can often be the most appropriate sanction when dealing with low-level offences. However, it is vital they are used appropriately and consistently by police forces across the country."

It was announced that an update on the review will be made to Parliament in March 2010.

Big business is the climate's new friend as Copenhagen begins

Talked about for weeks, campaigned on for months, and finally underway this morning in Copenhagen - where more than 190 countries are have now gathered to negotiate a climate change deal. Many are hoping a new dawn is breaking on the world of green politics, but dark clouds have already begun to gather.

The impact of what is now known as is yet to be seen, a deal to suit both developed and developing countries remains a challenge, and headlines have been forecasting a gloomy end to the fortnight's talks with not very much agreed.

But every cloud has a silver lining as shown in last week's Panorama: Can Tesco Save the World? Away from the usual doom that engulfs most 'environment' stories, reporter Tom Heap had found a whole host of people who are . Away from the politicking, it seems business is doing it for itself.

In the early days, researching the background to Can Tesco Save the World?, I was despatched to listen to key voices in the City of London talk up their green credentials. Cue sceptical laughter. Hosted by Bank of America Merrill Lynch, with Aviva and Chevreux amongst others speaking, I was prepared for a lot of green spin that would make the promise of a climate-friendly financial sector a whitewash.

But the green spiel soon had me sold on the notion that business really is looking to a green future. And let's not get carried away. This is not some great show of altruism but rather a decision that makes good business sense.

The was the reason for the gathering. It collates data and rates companies on their greenhouse gas emissions and climate change strategies. Launching in the UK, the CDP was naming - but not shaming - FTSE 350 companies. It resisted shaming because work has been done by business to get ahead of the green agenda with calls on the day for the CDP to become mandatory rather than remain voluntary as it is now.

But why? This greening up runs counter to any former understanding of business so often portrayed as the monster polluter concerned only with profit and whose mantra of growth only saw a profit threat in the prospect of reining back carbon emissions.

But rather than focusing on what we can't do, businesses have started to take an innovative approach by seeing a green future as an opportunity for creativity, job creation and, yes, more growth. At the , the business case for a bold deal on climate change is being made in a document signed by more than 800 businesses around the world. Craig Bennett from the explained to Panorama the five reasons why business is going green:

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Of course questions remain. Can growth, even if it is green, chime with the call for sustainability that we've been hearing from campaigners for years? Can we trust business which invests with one hand in green technology yet takes with the other by continuing to invest in dirty industries?

The answers should lie in Copenhagen. The policy framework for the low carbon economy is not for business to decide. If this is the future, then business needs to know from politicians how the land lies, and so do we, its future consumers and employees.

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