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2000 - 2005 SABC
 

Special Assignment 2003


Dec 2, 2003 Restoration - The Carlos and Dadinha story - We follow the painful path to recovery of two heroin addicts we met in a heroin den in Maputo. We travel with them to Johannesburg and join them in rehab as they battle with their demons and the terrible attraction of what they call brown sugar. - More

Nov 25, 2003 Let's talk about sex, Father - The Catholic Church, and its teachings on sexual morality. Specifically, its insistence on abstinence before marriage, and the ban on condom usage in the time of the Aids pandemic. - More

Nov 18, 2003 Over-rated - This Tuesday we tackle incorrect billing, a major consumer headache. This follows our recent call for input from viewers who fall under the Johannesburg Metropolitan Council. - More

Nov 11, 2003 Walking on Water - With the arrival of the Amatola, SA's first new corvette, in Simonstown this week, the debate around the arms deal has moved into a different dimension. - More

Nov 4, 2003 RS452 - For weeks South Africa has been gripped by the allegation that its top prosecutor, Bulelani Ncquka, was an apartheid spy. It was alleged that he was agent RS452 - until it emerged that RS452 was in fact a white woman living in London. - More

Oct 28, 2003

No Special Assignment


Oct 21, 2003 The Price of Victory - Special Assignment is proud to announce that we have acquired an outstanding documentary on post war Iraq. Made by the BBC's Correspondent, this is the only documentary of its kind to be made in the aftermath of the war. - More

Oct 14, 2003 Laying down the law - Over the past five years, South Africans have taken part in more protests and campaigns against sexual violence than anything else. Yet little has changed. Rape continues, only sometimes making headline news. - More

Oct 7, 2003 Dark Time - Since the parliamentary elections in June 2000, thousands of Zimbabwean women have been subjected to sexual violence. This has been carried out by members of the youth militia, ZANU (PF) supporters and it's alleged, state agents. - More

Sept 23, 2003 Mainline - This Tuesday Special Assignment brings its viewers one of the biggest investigations in its five-year history: an expose of a major heroin trafficking route through Eastern and Southern Africa. - More

Sept 2, 2003 Nowhere to turn - Kimberley - a small town caught in a cycle of hopelessness and despair. An average of 17 people attempt suicide every week. Ten of these are teenagers who see taking their own lives as a solution to their problems. - More

Aug 26, 2003 Laaities and big guns - Hardly a month goes by without a newspaper headline like "Pupil found with drugs" or "Pupil shot over cellphone". This Tuesday Special Assignment asks: are our schools seats of learning, or hot-beds of violence? - More

Aug 19, 2003 The Anti-fat pill and the San - There may at last be a miracle treatment for obesity, the scourge of the 21st century. A cactus growing in the Kalahari contains a unique substance said to kill the appetite stone dead. - More

Aug 12, 2003 Doctoring the Books - Special Assignment goes undercover to expose the cunning scams perpetrated by medical professionals in cahoots with their patients. - More

Aug 5, 2003 Traumatised Cops - Last year thousands of cops applied to be medically boarded, the majority of them claiming some form of trauma related illness. A psychiatric hospital in Pretoria is always full - mostly with policemen and women suffering from post traumatic stress syndrome. - More

Jul 29, 2003 Waiting for Jesus - For six years 76 year old Mbuzeli Dukuza lost all contact with his family. His wife and five children were holed up in the compound of the Church of Christ, on the outskirts of Umtata. Like many others in this mysterious cult, they were waiting there for the return of Jesus Christ. - More

Jul 22, 2003 Tiny Rays of Hope - We track a group of boys on the East Rand who have drifted towards a life of crime but who have, for the moment, managed to come back from the brink. They all come from families that are poor, dysfunctional and ravaged by disease. - More

Jul 15, 2003 Promised Land - This week Special Assignment meets a small community as it takes on the might of the military and the state. At stake, is a pocket of land in Lohatla battle school near Upington in the Northern Cape. - More

Jul 8, 2003 Profile: George W Bush - Using a combination of contemporary footage and archive material dating back to Bush's teenage years, the documentary builds a picture that asks one question: How (in the producer's words) "a man with no apparent interest in politics, and no apparent qualification, ended up running for office." - More

Jul 1, 2003 Winter Children - Every year, thousands of South African children land up in the burn units of the country’s public hospitals. Many of them sustain terrible injuries in the fires that devastate informal settlements at this time of year. - More

Jun 24, 2003 Troubled Waters - Water drinkers and water providers in Nelspruit are heading for a showdown. It's a classic case of people power versus privatisation. - More

Jun 17, 2003 A Helping Hand - Two years ago Special Assignment visited parts of our poorest province. We discovered that in the Mount Frere district, one out of ten children die from malnutrition before their tenth birthday. Although now fewer children land up in hospital, many are still dying from diseases caused by malnutrition. - More

Jun 10, 2003 Boeremag - An Afrikaner "prophet" from the Boer War era predicted that at some point in the future the old Boer republics would be restored. It seems the latter day Boeremag have taken these prophecies literally. Many of their plans come directly from the prophesies of Siener van Rensburg. - More

Jun 3, 2003 War Spin - The inside story of how the Pentagon put journalists into the front line of its war on Saddam to shore up its case for victory. John Kampfner traces the roots of the controversial tactic of embedding cameras and reporters with military units to the Hollywood blockbusters Pearl Harbour and Black Hawk Down. - More

May 27, 2003 Pay back time - This week Special Assignment goes into the heart of Hillbrow for an intimate portrayal of a community under siege. Nigerians are the most visible, contentious and maligned immigrant community in South Africa. - More

May 20, 2003 Traffic report - Rough estimates put the number of Thai women trafficked into South Africa every year at 1000. They are lured by Thai women they know…but end up in the clutches of South African men who profit from their suffering. - More

May 13, 2003 May Day bus disaster - Special Assignment investigates the emergency features on buses and comes up with a shocking find. So-called emergency "pop out" windows exist in name only. There is no legislation that outlines how these windows should be tested when the vehicles go for roadworthy tests. - More

Apr 29, 2003 A time to die - Special Assignment asks a grim question: "What is to be done with the nation's dead?" In a country with a huge housing shortage, and a host of other priorities for town planners, it hardly seems of major concern to look for future cemetery space. - More

Apr 22, 2003 Classroom babies - Research reveals that South African youth are sexually active from a young age. The Department of Education is concerned. They say that more than a third of all teenagers in South Africa will have been pregnant by the time they are 18. - More

Apr 15, 2003 Conduct Unbecoming - Special Assignment investigates allegations of malpractice & incompetence against South Africa's self-proclaimed "most senior" Academic Plastic Surgeon. - More

Apr 8, 2003

No Special Assignment


Apr 1, 2003 Sold Sisters - exposes a network of human traffickers who smuggle Mozambican girls and women across the border and sell them as sex slaves in South Africa. - More

Mar 25, 2003 Hillbrow Blues - Over the past few months some violent crime has shown a dramatic decline in the Hillbrow precinct. The police believe it's the result of a concerted effort at a high visibility policing in the area. - More

Mar 18, 2003 Precious Breaths - It’s a completely curable disease…and yet thousands die of tuberculosis every day and thousands more get TB over and over again. In Africa today only Ethiopia and Nigeria have higher incidences of tuberculosis than South Africa. - More

Mar 11, 2003 Gay men in the apartheid military - What effect does military conscription have on men? What effect does it have on gay men? As the world moves inexorably towards war, the question becomes even more pertinent. - More

Mar 4, 2003 It hurts to wait - Injured workers are waiting years, not months, to be paid out by the fund set up to help them in their hour of need. The time delays in getting claims processed mean that many are without an income for extended periods and some are even starving. - More

Feb 25, 2003 People are living here - A mother and her daughter live in a condemned building in Johannesburg's inner city. It may be only a matter of weeks before the city's metro council will force them to leave their tiny room. - More

Feb 18, 2003 Mozambique on Trial - Who was the mastermind behind the assassination of a top Mozambican journalist? Could it be that no lesser person than the President’s son is implicated in this gory killing? - More

Feb 11, 2003 Hospital Horrors - Dr X is the only doctor in a huge sprawling rural hospital in Mpumalanga. She is exasperated and desperate for help. She says people who could be saved are dying in her hospital. She doesn't know where to turn to, she turned to us. - More

Feb 4, 2003 My Granny, My Mom - In a devastatingly personal insight, the documentary "My granny. My Mom" profiles the lives of four grannies who have become mothers all over again in their old age. - More

Jan 28, 2003 Massage Parlour Massacre - In the first Special Assignment of the year we investigate the gruesome and perplexing killing of employees of a gay massage parlour in Cape Town. We meet families of victims. We introduce investigators who are unraveling the complex web of Sea Point's gang-land. - More

To order copies of programmes, contact Business Enterprises at: Phone: (011) 714 8066, Fax: (011) 714 8075 or email

page by Steven Lang

 
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