Afghan Money Pit & The Pacification of Rio
Series 2, Episode 1 Unrated
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Season Two Premiere. 'Afghan Money Pit' - The U.S. has spent nearly $100 billion on reconstruction projects in Afghanistan - the most spent on any country in our history. Yet John Sopko, the U.S.'s Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, has found that much of that money has been wasted and misused--or fallen into the hands of the Taliban. 'The Pacification of Rio' - Rio de Janeiro is working hard to remedy its drug and murder capital reputation in time for the upcoming World Cup and Olympics. The Special Police Operations Battalion, or BOPE, has been charged with pacifying the slums, but their violent military occupation of favelas has been criticized as heavy-handed, to say the least. Ben Anderson looks under the picturesque facade Rio's sports marketing wants you to see, to reveal the dark underbelly of the city.
Greenland Is Melting & Bonded Labor
Series 2, Episode 2 Unrated
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'Terrorist University' - Dagestan is Russia's hotbed for Muslim extremism. It is in the throes of a cripplingly violent insurgency, and its jihadis are behind many high-profile terrorist plots around the world; in fact, alleged Boston Bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev spent six months there the year before he carried out his deadly attack. Shane Smith heads to Dagestan to follow in terrorists' footsteps. 'Armageddon Now' - The Israel-Palestinian conflict is one of the most well-known and longest-standing conflicts in the world. Despite the fact that the United States publicly supports a two-state solution, it continues to be Israel's biggest ally. You'd think most of this support comes from a strong, wealthy Jewish lobby, and much of it does, but in terms of sheer numbers, the Evangelical Christians from the heart of the Bible Belt are Israel's strongest supporters. Thomas Morton uncovers the rationale behind Evangelical support for the Jewish State.
American Scrap & Children of the Drones
Series 2, Episode 3 Unrated
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'American Scrap' (correspondent: Davd Choe) - Cities like Detroit and Cleveland have found themselves at the forefront of a new phenomenon: scrapping. People left behind are literally ripping apart old school, houses, hospitals and factories for raw materials to hawk to local scrap yards for cash. Scrap metal is one of the U.S.' biggest exports, with billions of dollars' worth traveling to China every year, where it's invested into their infrastructure. The price for a pound of copper, for example, is about five times more than it was in 2002. David Choe looks into the life cycle of scrap metal, from the people who risk their lives to find it, to the yards that buy it, all the way to the Chinese traders who take it back home to build their economy. 'Children of Drones' (correspondent: Suroosh Alvi) - After a long and costly war in Afghanistan, American foreign policy has taken a drastically different approach to dealing with suspected Taliban insurgents. In place of the old 'boots on the ground' strategy, President Obama has increasingly relied on remote-controlled drone warfare, with operators stationed thousands of miles away who eliminate targets with the click of a button; their only interaction with the battlefield is through a screen. Drones are touted as a surgical weapon that keeps soldiers out of harms's way. But for the innocent victims, described as 'collateral damage,' drone strikes are hardly precise. Suroosh Alvi investigates the effects of drone strikes in Pakistan, where extremism and militancy are only growing in the wake of Obama's drone campaign.
A Syria of Their Own & White Gold
Series 2, Episode 4 Unrated
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'A Syria of Their Own' (correspondent: Thomas Morton) - The ongoing civil war in Syria has been covered extensively in the media. While the Free Syrian Army, Bashar Al-Assad's forces and the myriad of jihadi groups have dominated the headlines, one group, the Kurds, remains largely unmentioned. The Kurds are an ethnic group trying to carve out their own state in the four countries where its population lives: Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria. Thomas Morton goes to the frontline of the battle for a Kurdish state to follow the story of Syria's forgotten ethnic group. "White Gold" (correspondent: Vikram Gandhi) - Believed to cure a spectrum of ailments from colds to cancers, rhino horn has been coveted in Eastern medicine for centuries. Over the past seven years, killings have increased 5,000%. Vikram Gandhi traces the trade from Southern Africa to Vietnam to understand this illicit phenomenon.
Terrorist University & Armageddon Now
Series 2, Episode 5 Unrated
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'Terrorist University' (correspondent: Shane Smith) - Dagestan is Russia's hotbed for Muslim extremism. It is in the throes of a cripplingly violent insurgency, and its jihadis are behind many high-profile terrorist plots around the world; in fact, alleged Boston Bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev spent six months there the year before he carried out his deadly attack. In order to understand why so much terrorism is coming out of Dagestan, and to see firsthand what Tamerlan learned during his time there, Shane Smith heads to Dagestan to follow in terrorists' footsteps. 'Armageddon Now' (correspondent: Thomas Morton) - The Israel-Palestinian conflict is one of the most well-known and longest-standing conflicts in the world. Despite the fact that the United States publicly supports a two-state solution, it continues to be Israel's biggest ally. You'd think most of this support comes from a strong, wealthy Jewish lobby, and much of it does, but in terms of sheer numbers, the Evangelical Christians from the heart of the Bible Belt are Israel's strongest supporters. Thomas Morton uncovers the rationale behind Evangelical support for the Jewish State.
Rocky Mountain High & North Korean Defectors
Series 2, Episode 6 Unrated
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'Rocky Mountain High' - On January 1, 2014, the legalization of marijuana in the U.S. became a reality when Colorado lifted its prohibition on recreational marijuana use. David Choe looks at the impact of this ever-growing trade on the local and national economy, as businessmen and lawmakers try to capitalize on legal weed. 'North Korean Defectors' - Last season, VICE followed the journeys of North Korean defectors who risked their lives daring to escape the Hermit Kingdom. This year, we see that their hardships haven't ended; instead of being welcomed with open arms in South Korea, defectors are now faced with deep suspicion and discrimination. But in the face of largely negative perceptions, one TV show, 'Now On My Way to Meet You,' humanizes North Koreans in a humorous and appealing light. Vikram Gandhi follows the paths of the defectors and their new lives in the highly modernized South Korea.
The Pink Gang Rebellion & Genetic Passport
Series 2, Episode 7 Unrated
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'The Pink Gang Rebellion' - The brutal details of a 2012 gang rape on a Delhi bus focused international attention on India's rampant rape issue. Delhi's police department has vowed to hire more female officers and set up a help desk, but it remains a major problem. But one woman, Sampat Pal, has galvanized a group of rural women into the Gulabi Gang, or Pink Gang, to combat the injustice of sexual assault. Gelareh Kiazand heads to rural India to investigate the issue and embed with this revolutionary gang.'Genetic Passport' - From 1949 to 1989, the Soviet Union detonated more than 450 nuclear bombs in an area of Kazakhstan known as the Semipalatinsk Test Site. For hundreds of thousands of Kazakhs, radiation became part of their DNA. In an effort to curtail the birth of a new generation of deformed children, a Kazakh doctor recently tried to implement a mandatory 'genetic passport' allowing people to know if their genes were damaged by radiation. Note: contains disturbing images.
The Resource Curse & Deliver Us from Drought
Series 2, Episode 8 Unrated
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'The Resource Curse' - As humanity's appetite for energy grows exponentially, the extraction industry scrambles to the most remote regions on Earth. In the undeveloped Melanesian country of Papua New Guinea, America's Exxon Mobil has staked its claim to a $19 billion liquid natural-gas project expected to start production in late 2014. While some see Exxon's mammoth presence as the catalyst that will usher the underdeveloped country into the 21st Century, others predict the initiative could plunge its people into civil war. 'Deliver Us from Drought' - Over the past three years, Texas has experienced the worst drought in its recorded history. 97% of the scientific community agrees that human activity has contributed to extreme weather patterns around the world. But many Texans--legislators, community leaders and citizens--don't attribute their drought to humans, and have taken few if any initiatives to limit the state's CO2 emissions, currently the highest in the country.
Crude Awakening & The Enemy of My Enemy
Series 2, Episode 9 Unrated
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'Crude Awakening'- To combat the worst environmental disaster in American history, BP and the Coast Guard dumped nearly 2 million gallons of a chemical dispersant called Corexit into the Gulf. But instead of helping clean up the spill, Corexit made things worse. Shane Smith heads to Louisiana to report on the lasting effects of the BP oil spill. 'The Enemy of My Enemy' - Yemen, the fractured state in the Arabian peninsula, is at the top of the worry list for President Obama's national security team, and the rise of Al Qaeda there is only half the reason why. The real trouble is a current threat posed by the little-known Houthi rebel movement in the north of the country - a grassroots army, allegedly funded by Iran, that has never granted access to any other Western film crew before. Ben Anderson goes deep into Houthi-controlled territory to learn about the group that's fighting, and beating, Al Qaeda in the east, Saudi Arabia in the north, and Yemen's central government in the south.
Playing with Nuclear Fire & No Man Left Behind
Series 2, Episode 10 Unrated
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'Playing with Nuclear Fire' - In March 2011, the Tohoku earthquake in Japan created a tsunami that killed some 16,000 people and crippled the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. In the aftermath, the government and TEPCO, the plant's operator, withheld information about the extent of the damage. Three years later, citizens and the international community are left wondering if Japan really does have the situation under control, as the government is insisting, or if the danger is far greater than anyone is willing to admit. 'No Man Left Behind' - It's estimated that over a quarter million vets from recent wars have sought treatment for PTSD. Despite these statistics, veterans often face an uphill battle to get treatment, receiving inadequate attention and, most dangerously, overprescribed narcotics and other pharmaceuticals. Ryan Duffy meets veterans struggling with mental illness and addiction.
Heroin Warfare & The Coldest War
Series 2, Episode 11 Unrated
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'Heroin Warfare' (correspondent: Suroosh Alvi) - Since the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan, heroin production in the region has skyrocketed, making the country the number-one producer by a large margin. Though Iran, Afghanistan's neighbor, is an ultraconservative country, Afghan heroin flowing across the border has actually caused Iran to have the worst heroin use problem in the world. Suroosh Alvi gets a rare look inside Iran to meet the suffering heroin addicts, and see how the country is coping with the illegal drug trade. 'The Coldest War' (correspondent: David Choe) - With the polar ice caps shrinking due to global warming, new trade routes are being exposed, along with billions of dollars' worth of natural-resource reserves. This is prime real estate and the five nations bordering the Arctic are readying themselves to fight for it. David Choe heads north to witness NATO forces participating in the largest polar military exercise in history. The problem is that there's one non-NATO country that already considers itself rightful owner of the region: Russia. With Vladimir Putin's recent military annexation of Crimea, there's a definite possibility its aggressions will boil over, returning the international community to precarious Cold War footing.
Surveillance City & The Forgotten War
Series 2, Episode 12 Unrated
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(Season Two Finale) 'Surveillance City' - Camden, New Jersey is one of the poorest and drug-ridden cities in the country, and its murder rate is 12 times the national average. In 2011, the city cut its police force almost in half, with nearly 80,000 residents regularly being policed by 12 cops at a time. The state stepped in to overhaul the department, introducing an experimental 'Metro' security apparatus equipped with futuristic technologies like gunshot detecting, triangulation microphones, and automatic license-plate readers. 'The Forgotten War' - A decade ago, the crisis in Darfur was a cause celebre. American politicians, activists, and celebrities took to the media to condemn Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir for his brutal genocide, and to send out a call for justice and aid his victims. Yet today, world attention has waned and Bashir remains in power. Ben Anderson goes to the refugee camps in Chad and Sudan to meet the victims the world has forgotten, and the rebels poised for civil war.
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