Wed, Jun 10, 2009
California is in crisis. The state is $24bn short of balancing its books this year, and it may run out of cash to pay its bills in a matter of weeks. It is a local story with global implications. California's economy is the largest in the US and the eighth largest in the world. If California fails, the shock waves of this economic crisis will be felt around the globe. In this episode of Fault Lines, Avi Lewis travels to South Central Los Angeles to learn about the political causes and the human impact of shock therapy, California style, and gets a glimpse of how the next chapter of the global economic crisis is likely to unfold.
Sat, Dec 5, 2009
It's more than 100 days since Honduras underwent only the second coup in Central America since the end of the Cold War. The crisis has been portrayed as a personal standoff between Manuel Zelaya, the president who was flown out of the country in his pajamas at gunpoint, and Roberto Micheletti, the man who was sworn into power that very same day. As the country moves haltingly toward elections scheduled for the end of November 2009, Fault Lines traveled to Honduras to learn more, and found that the polarization runs deeper and wider than an easy narrative of political rivalry.
Wed, Feb 10, 2010
Just weeks after the earthquake that took up to 250,000 lives and devastated Haiti's capital city, a new normalcy is taking shape in Port-au-Prince. The shock of so much loss has barely worn off, but the mountains of rubble are slowly being cleared. And where landmarks like the national palace and the cathedral once towered a new architecture has appeared. Hundreds of tent cities have been set up, camps of internally displaced people who have lost their homes. Food distribution points dot the city, run primarily by the UN, with support from US troops. These structures might be temporary, but at the makeshift government head quarters, in donor conferences, and in the boardrooms of international financial institutions, attention is turning to the long-term plan. As pledges of billions of dollars of international aid and investment are made, Avi Lewis travels to Port-au-Prince and to the Plateau Central and finds that debates over the vision of a new Haiti are already underway.
Wed, Jun 16, 2010
It's been two months since the Deepwater Horizon explosion, and millions of liters of oil have gushed out of BP's well into the water each day, slowly encroaching on the coastline. Fault Lines' Avi Lewis travels to the drill zone, and learns about the erosion in the wetlands from industry canals and pipelines, and the health problems blamed on contaminated air and water from petrochemical refineries.
Sun, Jul 11, 2010
Six months after the earthquake that killed up to 250,000 people, the dust is starting to settle over Port-au-Prince. As it does, the deep wounds that fracture this country are re-emerging, more gaping than even before. One-and-a-half million people remain displaced, many living under tents and tarps. Rubble removal is slow, and rebuilding has yet to begin. The UN and NGOs are as omnipresent as the rubble - but the chasm between Haiti's poor majority and the foreign organizations that say they are here to help seems as wide as ever. And while the quake may have forced the international community to realize that Haiti needs a state, Haitians are debating who is up to the task of governing. Al Jazeera's reporter in Port-au-Prince Sebastian Walker hosts this special edition of Fault Lines.
Mon, Jul 30, 2012
In a special two-part series, Fault Lines travels across Iraq to take the pulse of a country and its people after nine years of foreign occupation and nation-building. It's 2012, and US combat troops have withdrawn. The so-called Islamic State is still underground. How are Iraqis overcoming the legacy of violence and toxic remains of the US-led occupation, and the sectarian war it ignited? Is the country on the brink of irreparable fragmentation? Correspondent Sebastian Walker first went to Baghdad in June 2003 and spent the next several years reporting unembedded from Iraq. In this second part of a very personal series, he returns and travels from Erbil to Mosul and Fallujah, revisiting old friends. Can the ghosts of the past ever stop haunting the future?
Fri, Apr 18, 2014
Space is up for sale, and only big business can afford to buy. The American government is no longer exerting its space supremacy. NASA's annual budget has been cut by more than $1 billion since 2010. The space shuttle program has been mothballed. International Space Station resupply missions are being put out to private tender. So who's left to roam the final frontier? Fault Lines will boldly go where no program has gone before to explore what happens when aggressive corporations search for profits in outer space.
Fri, Jun 13, 2014
On March 11, 2013, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker signed legislation that rewrote the states iron mining laws, paving the way for Gogebic Taconite (GTAC) to dig an open-pit iron mine in the pristine woods of the Penokee mountain range.
This half-hour investigative piece for Al Jazeeras series Fault Lines tells the story of how GTAC and its allies wielded money and power to influence the law, and goes behind the scenes with the burgeoning movement to resist the mine.
The mine, which could eventually reach 22 miles in length, provoked a standoff between GTAC and its supporters seeking mining jobs, and the residents, Native American tribes and political leaders intent on protecting their communities and water from contamination.
This half-hour investigative piece for Al Jazeeras series Fault Lines tells the story of how GTAC and its allies wielded money and power to influence the law, and goes behind the scenes with the burgeoning movement to resist the mine.
The mine, which could eventually reach 22 miles in length, provoked a standoff between GTAC and its supporters seeking mining jobs, and the residents, Native American tribes and political leaders intent on protecting their communities and water from contamination.
Fri, Aug 22, 2014
Fault Lines goes to Ferguson, Missouri, to examine the protests over the shooting death of an unarmed black teenager name Michael Brown by police officer Darren Wilson. It looks at the violent police crackdowns on the protest and looks at some of the controversial decisions made by officials involved in the case.
Sun, Aug 23, 2015
The drought in the western U.S. is creating a battle over resources, as private landowners compete with the public over access to freshwater supplies. In April, California Governor Jerry Brown announced a series of mandatory restrictions, forcing residents to reduce their water usage by 25 percent in the coming year. But the state's powerful agriculture industry has yet to face cuts on the same scale, despite its massive role in depleting local water supplies. It's not just California facing a future without water. More than 40 million people across seven U.S. states and Mexico depend on the Colorado River, where demand is now exceeding supply. Fault Lines travels down the Colorado to find out who really controls water in the West-and what, if anything, is being done to protect it.