Contact:
susan.soto@asu.edu | 480-965-3506
WIDE ANGLE
TUESDAYS AT 9 PM IN JULY
EIGHT/KAET-TV
Acclaimed international reporter and news commentator Aaron Brown returns to the anchor chair this summer as the new host of Wide Angle, the weekly primetime international affairs series on PBS. With his engaging, award-winning brand of insight and analysis, Brown will bring substantive understanding of worldwide issues to American audiences.
Wide Angle launches its eighth season Tuesday, July 1, 2009 at 9 p.m. on Eight/KAET. No other primetime programprovides deeper international and foreign policy coverage — anticipating the headlines of tomorrow through the eyes of people living them today. Since its inception, the series has garnered dozens of awards and widespread critical praise.
This season’s lineup includes:
July 1, 2009: Crossing Heaven’s Border
North Korean defectors take life-threatening journeys, some traveling thousands of miles from their homeland through China and Laos, in the hope of settling as free citizens in South Korea. Intrepid South Korean journalists with hidden cameras risk their own lives capturing the action and emotion.
July 8, 2009: Heart of Jenin
When a 12-year-old Palestinian boy was killed in the West Bank city of Jenin by Israeli soldiers who mistook his toy gun for the real thing, something extraordinary happened that turned Ahmed Khatib’s tragic 2005 death into a gift of hope for six Israeli children whose lives were on the line: while overwhelmed with grief, Ahmed’s parents consented to donating their son’s organs.
July 15, 2009: Birth of a Surgeon
In sub-Saharan Africa, where doctors are in short supply, a woman’s chances of dying in childbirth are a shocking 1 in 22. But in Mozambique, a midwife named Emilia Cumbane is doing something radical to stem the trend. She is part of an extraordinary grassroots initiative in which midwives, otherwise untrained in conventional medicine, are learning to perform advanced life-saving surgery. Among the first of its kind in the world, Cumbane’s program may offer a working alternative to the life-threatening lack of doctors in other developing countries. In this 2009 update, WIDE ANGLE host Aaron Brown travels to a rural hospital in Mozambique to meet with Cumbane to see how both she and the program are faring.
July 22, 2009: The Market Maker
WIDE ANGLE travels to East Africa to tell the dramatic story of an Ethiopian economist on a mission: Seeking a market-based solution to end hunger in her famine-plagued country, she creates Ethiopia’s first commodities exchange. What she didn’t count on was a world financial crisis getting in the way.
July 29, 2009: Contestant No. 2
How far can one young woman push a conservative culture? Duah Fares is an Arab-Israeli teenager and member of the Druze minority, a religious sect living predominantly in Israel, Syria and Lebanon. She longs to be an international superstar like Angelina Jolie, but when she changes her name to Angelina and sets her sights on the Miss Israel pageant, her tight-knit religious community balks. Miss Israel requires a bathing suit competition; to appear that way in public would disgrace her family and even put her in danger from those who would rather see her dead than see the community dishonored. “Israel's Next Top Model” follows Fares and her family as they navigate the boundaries of traditional values as she tries to reach her dream.
About Eight/KAET-TV
Eight, Arizona PBS specializes in the education of children, in-depth news and public affairs, lifelong learning, and the celebration of arts and culture — utilizing the power of noncommercial television, the Internet, educational outreach services, and community-based initiatives. The PBS station began broadcasting from the campus of Arizona State University on January 30, 1961. Now more than 80 percent of Arizonans receive the signal through a network of translators, cable and satellite systems. With more than 1.3 million viewers each week, Eight consistently ranks among the most-viewed public television stations per capita in the country. Arizonans provide more than 60 percent of the station’s annual budget. For more information, visit www.azpbs.org.
Eight is a member-supported service of Arizona State University.