Preview : CNN International Programme Information Weeks 6 & 7
Inside the Middle East
Sara Sidner meeting critically acclaimed Lebanese filmmaker Mahmoud Kaabour
‘Inside the Middle East’ is hosted by Sara Sidner in February and takes viewers on a trip across the United Arab Emirates.
Mention Dubai and the image usually conjured is one of exclusive hotels, expensive restaurants and air-conditioned shopping malls. This is, however, only one side of the city. Sidner and the ‘Inside the Middle East’ team visit Dubai’s rustic residential quarter where many of the men who staff these high-end ventures live. She meets Lebanese filmmaker Mahmoud Kaabour, director of the documentary ‘Champ of the Camp’, which offers a rare and touching insight into Dubai’s large population of migrant workers, men who rarely get any media attention.
The programme journeys to the northern Emirates to meet a former pearl diver, who describes the gruelling challenges of the job which was once the lifeblood of this region. Whilst diving for pearls is no longer an economic necessity in the region, free diving has become a popular sport and Sidner speaks to a young Emirati who is training to become a champion.
The show also visits Liwa Oasis, located in the emirate of Abu Dhabi, where an annual 4×4 drag race draws young Emiratis, Saudis, Qataris and Kuwaitis to one of the most remote places in Arabia.
CNN.com/Insidethemiddleeast @CNNIME @sarasidnerCNNLiving Golf
The Dubai Desert Classic celebrates its 25th anniversary this year
Living Golf this month comes from golf capital of the Middle East, Dubai. The programme takes a look at the history and highlights of the Dubai Desert Classic tournament, which this year celebrates its 25th anniversary
Host Shane O’Donoghue speaks to Henrik Stenson, the stand-out star of last year’s European and US Tours. Stenson, the first-ever joint winner of The Race To Dubai and the Fedex Cup, discusses how he overcame personal adversity to have the greatest year of his career.
Living Golf also gets a shot-making master class from Major Champion Martin Kaymer. Three times a winner on the Desert Swing and the 2010 winner of the Race to Dubai, Martin demonstrates how best to control the ball out of sand.
@CNNLivingGolf @ShaneODonoghue Cnn.com/livinggolfArwa Damon Investigates: Ivory War
The hunters become the hunted as Arwa Damon joins the rangers of the Odzala National Park, Congo on the trail of ivory poachers (Credit: Brent Swails)
They are the new face of conservation in Congo – an elite team of 76 rangers, many former poachers themselves. They not only patrol one of the earth’s last remaining Eden’s, trained by hardened ex-special forces soldiers, they hunt down the poachers and ambush the traffickers.
CNN senior international correspondent Arwa Damon heads out with the rangers of Odzala National Park to investigate what’s fuelling the illegal trade in Ivory. Damon discovers that the fight to save Africa’s last remaining forest elephants is becoming increasingly violent and the costs are increasingly clear. The trade in ivory may be global, but out here, the fight is deeply personal.
@arwaCNNCNN Business Traveller
Aeroflot, Russia’s national airline, is currently undergoing privitisation (Credit: Getty)
As the world’s athletes gather in Sochi for the 2014 winter games, CNN Business Traveller visits Moscow.
In the Russian capital Richard Quest visits a new heliport designed to avoid the worst of the city’s traffic, takes a communist sight-seeing tour, and tries his hands at cosmonaut training with the Russian Federal Space Agency.
It’s not all fun and distractions though, as Quest discovers a conflicted aviation industry in the world’s largest country. National carrier Aeroflot is privatising, a total lack of low-cost carriers is hindering national travel and lingering concerns over air safety continue to plague the industry. Quest talks to the CEO of Aeroflot to discover just how the landscape is changing.
Also in the programme, Rosie Tomkins discovers that Russia is now the second fastest growing outbound travel market, with cities around the world now looking for innovative ways to persuade this significant new demographic to part with their roubles.
http://edition.cnn.com/SPECIALS/business.traveller @richardquest @RosieTomkinsCNNCold War
Following a Soviet blockade of Berlin’s American, British and French controlled sectors the western allies began dropping supplies by plane
In a year which marks the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, CNN airs the critically acclaimed ‘Cold War’. Narrated by Kenneth Branagh series gives viewers a chance to see how the nearly half-century long military and ideological conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union changed the face of Europe and continues to define our world today.
This fourth episode of the series focuses on the chain of events which would eventually lead to the division of Germany into two nation states, one capitalist and one communist.
In the immediate aftermath of the Second World War the United States prioritised the revival of the German economy, an approach opposed by the Soviet Union. Stalin reacted to the introduction of the Deutsche Mark by closing checkpoints and blockading roads and railways leading into the French, British, and American administrated sectors of Berlin.
To keep the city from starvation, the western allies began ferrying in supplies by plane an operation which became known as the ‘Berlin Airlift’. The Soviets meanwhile orchestrated a successful putsch against the Berlin municipal government, which resulted in a separation of the eastern and western halves of the city which would last over 40 years.
www.CNN.com/ColdWar #ColdWar