1985

Back on Speaking Terms After deep freeze United States and Soviet Union are talking again in Geneva to try to halt nuclear arms race.

Starvation and drought have seized the conscience of the West: millions of pounds have been raised by ordinary people for the relief of the worst hit areas. But governments have followed different priorities and different objectives. While Marxist Ethiopia has received little Western aid, across the border in Kenya it's another story: billions of dollars have poured into a country whose government favours the West. But even then, there's a price to be paid. Panorama reports on the problems of the country the Americans have called 'the shining star of Africa'.

Nearly half-a-million people already born will be denied the university place they could have had before the Government cuts. The financial squeeze has forced the universities to cut student numbers to save money for research. And now the students' own grants are being cut. Richard Lindley reports as would-be graduates begin a campaign against moves to make them pay for their own higher education.

Talks between the National Union of Mineworkers and the National Coal Board have reached stalemate. As official figures report more and more miners breaking the strike and returning to work, 'Panorama' asks strikers in Barnsley how long they believe they can continue. In the studio, National Union of Mineworkers president Arthur Scargill reaffirms his concerns over media representations of his union members.

As unemployment keeps on rising the demands are growing again for the Government to spend more money creating jobs. Some Tory mps have joined voices urging that jobs could be found in repairing Britain's crumbling roads, sewers, and public buildings. But Mrs Thatcher and her ministers are adamant that the only way to get 'real jobs' is their strategy to cut taxes in next month's Budget

With Tom Mangold Britain's plan to deploy 11 flying radar stations to protect us against surprise attack has gone terribly wrong. The project will be at least five years late; it will cost nearly twice as much as planned - over one billion pounds -and the system still doesn't work effectively. Tom Mangold investigates what's gone wrong with Nimrod, the world's most expensive plane, and reveals startling new details of the defence project which is fast turning into a Bad Deal for Britain.

Next month Zimbabwe goes to the polls for the first time since Independence in 1980. Prime Minister Robert Mugabe -known as Comrade Bob - not only wants to win: he also wants popular approval to set up a one-party Marxist state. His opponents are fighting for their political lives amid tribal and regional conflict while the country's remaining whites look on with apprehension.

What is the future of Britain's mining industry in light of the end of the miners' strike? Donald MacCormick chairs a discussion between the miners and townspeople of Eckington from the Town Hall. With views on returning to work, further strike action, attitudes to miners who broke the strike, fears of intimidation to working miners, and relationships within the town.

In night shelters and seedy guesthouses, some of the hundreds of mental patients discharged each year from hospital struggle against despair and neglect. Care in the community has been the great hope for the mentally ill, but with limited resources outside, has the policy of running down the old asylums gone too far too fast?

Inna Begun has not seen her husband Yosif, a prisoner in a Soviet labour camp for two years. She's just started a hunger strike in protest. Tens of thousands of Russian Jews are desperate to leave the Soviet Union, but only a tiny handful are being allowed to go. Cut off from their families abroad, those left behind are harassed by the KGB. Many have been sacked from their jobs, others like Yosif Begun have been jailed. In a report filmed secretly in Moscow and Leningrad Richard Lindley talks to the 'refuseniks' who fear that they are now Soviet pawns in the superpower game

One of the most powerful Mafia Godfathers has broken the organisation's code of silence: omerta. The confession of Tommasso Buscetta gives a unique insight into Mafia operations in Italy and the United States. His evidence has already led to over 100 arrests. Martin Young reports on the organisation which included the world's biggest drugs racket and on the secret operations of the FBI which show how a billion dollars worth of narcotics were smuggled into America. In Italy, Buscetta reveals the links between organised crime and respectable politicians. On both sides of the Atlantic it is being hailed as a historic breakthrough in the battle against the Mafia - the so-called Men of Honour.

Enoch Powell 's Bill to ban research on human embryos is racing through Parliament. It's supported by a big majority in the House of Commons and massive petitions from the public. But infertile couples and parents of handicapped children are desperately trying to stop it. They see human embryo research as the only hope for avoiding human tragedies in the future. Do these ends justify the means? As Parliament reassembles Margaret Jay reports on this crucial debate - where both sides think they are the best protectors of the unborn child.

As the 40th anniversary of the end of World War D. approaches, Panorama reports on the conflicting emotions of Germans in both parts of their divided nation. In West Germany it will be officially a time of solemn remembrance of the disaster of defeat and the rebirth of democracy. In East Germany the regime will celebrate Soviet liberation from fascism, and the setting up of their Communist state. On both sides of Germany's Iron Curtain Fred Emery talks to Germans of all ages about their views of the war and the division of their people.

As Israeli Army starts last stage of its pull-out from Lebanon, settlers on Israel's northern border are again building shelters.

When a tube traveller turned on four men he thought were robbing him, and shot them, he also fired one of the most intense debates on crime in America this century. The implications of that one act have continued to reverberate and widen into deeper issues of vigilantism and racism. Tom Mangold rides with TONY IMPERIALE 'S white vigilantes and with the undercover cops in an investigation into the uncomfortable truth now emerging from the case of the 'subway vigilante'

Six months ago, at least 2,500 Indians were killed and thousands more injured in the world's worst industrial disaster. After the gas leak at the Union Carbide plant, the people of Bhopal are still trying to rebuild their lives while the company is learning to live with the stigma of the tragedy. On the sidelines, the lawyers and politicians are bickering over questions of blame and compensation. As Nick Clarke reports from Bhopal, there's a sense throughout the chemical industry of 'there but for the grace of God ..."

President Reagan sees in Nicaragua a Communist tyranny which threatens the stability of Central America. The US Government back the guerrillas who are fighting to bring down the Sandinista regime and has imposed an economic embargo. Others in the West are more doubtful about the reality of the threat from Nicaragua. David Lomax reports from the front line of the mountain war in Nicaragua and from the US bases across the border in Honduras.

When football hooligans and other young offenders are sentenced by the courts, what sort of punishment do they get? Panorama has spent three weeks behind the walls at New Hall, where the Government has introduced a tougher regime for young prisoners. Philip Tibenham investigates how tough it is in practice, and whether the offenders really can be deterred from further crime.

The number of home owners who can't pay the mortgage is rising sharply. Last year 11,000 families lost their homes when the building societies repossessed them. Millions more live in crumbling houses they can't afford to repair. As people struggle to buy their own homes, Richard Lindley talks to the families and old people who have found home ownership not a boon but a burden — and more than they can bear.

President Reagan believes his 'Star Wars' defence initiative may end the threat from nuclear weapons. His critics say that the massive research programme could upset the balance of terror with the Soviet Union and make war more likely. Tomorrow Vice-President Bush arrives in London, campaigning for support. Fred Emery reports on the debate, and discovers how scientists and businessmen on both sides of the Atlantic are getting in on the race for the new technology.

In America the biggest spy scandal for decades continues to unravel: already it threatens the security of Britain and the rest of NATO. Three members of the Walker family, and a friend, are accused of betraying to the Russians some of NATO's most sensitive and closely guarded secrets. For 20 years they had access to the vital details of submarine warfare - codes, communications and tactics - central to the nuclear deployments of the West. Tom Mangold reports on the gravity of the revelations for the USA and for Britain, and talks to some of the people involved in the case of the Family of Spies.

Asked who she thought would be the next Prime Minister, Mrs Thatcher replied 'David Owen '. But how much do we really know about one of the most familiar faces in British politics? Dr Owen's opponents label him arrogant, ambitious, and unprincipled. He claims he's courageous and tough, but tender. At the SDP conference Michael Cockerell presents a revealing profile of the party's leader.

British prisons are bursting at the bars, and now hold 8,000 more inmates than they were built for. But in the United States, where overcrowding is just as bad, local authorities have come up with a bold breakthrough. They're allowing private industry to build and run their prisons. The result, as Tom Mangold reveals, is startling. Everyone interested in the problem, from Wall Street financiers, who are already making money from prisons, to the 'lifers' serving time inside them, is now debating the issue in earnest. Are 'prisons for profit' a new curse, or a possible cure for the intractable problems of our jails?

In the general election two years ago Labour suffered one of the most crushing defeats in its history. Since then its new leader, Neil Kinnock, has embarked on an energetic campaign to modernise Labour's image, appearing on pop videos, importing American marketing techniques and streamlining the party's organisation. Today, as the party conference opens in Bournemouth, Labour has won back some of the ground it lost. But is it enough? Robert Harris has been behind the scenes with Neil Kinnock and his advisors, already preparing for the next general election.

What should the Tories do to get out of the slump they are in with the voters? Is it merely a matter, as Mrs Thatcher maintains, of getting the policies across better, of sharper marketing of basically the same policies or is pressure building up within the party for a change in policy? On the eve of the Tories' Conference in Blackpool, Fred Emery interviews both the Prime Minister, The Rt Hon Margaret Thatcher MP. and The Rt Hon Norman Tebbit MP, the new Tory Chairman. He also reports on the Tory mood around the country.

Jasmine Beckford's stepfather was jailed for beating her to death. It was first of a series of terrible cases of child abuse.

A look at effects of Apartheid laws on lives of black South Africans.

In 1985 more people have already died in air crashes than in any previous year. At Manchester airport in August, 77 people escaped from a blazing jet, 54 did not. Are the airlines spending enough to ensure that their passengers have the best possible chance of living through the horror of an air crash?

'London is now the fraud capital of the world and the profits are astronomical,' claims fraud investigator RICHARD JURGENSON. Police, lawyers and civil servants all agree that millions of pounds disappear through fraud every year in the City of London. Yet the detection and conviction rate, admits the Attorney-General, is 'disappointingly low'. Scandals at Lloyds, at the Stock Exchange and in the banks have revealed that at a time when fraud is becoming more complex, the policing of Britain's financial institutions is splintered and weak. Having failed to successfully defeat city crime, the government now proposes that the financiers should police themselves. 'A sure recipe for bigger frauds,' is the cynical conclusion of city insiders. Will Hutton reports on the new system where the poachers will become gamekeepers.

In London a senior Russian KGB officer defects: his tip-off traps a top KGB agent in Oslo. In Bonn the West German Head of Counterintelligence flees to the East, while in Rome a KGB colonel suddenly flees to the West. In the United States a KGB double agent vanishes: in Russia the CIA agent he betrays is arrested. Tom Mangold reveals what lies behind this complex pattern of defection and deceit: and looks at the impact of spy wars on next week's super-power summit and at which side is really winning in this extraordinary Year of the Spy.

On the eve of the historic Reagan-Gorbachev summit meeting in Geneva, Panorama brings young Russians and Americans together for a special debate. In an attempt to get behind the rhetoric, the Panorama team went to top American universities and to Moscow's foremost Study Institutes to choose young people who specialise in East-West relations and who will be shaping their countries foreign policy in the future. Fred Emery chairs the studio debate on the issues that the two leaders will be grappling with tomorrow.

In the wake of the violent riots this autumn, much has been said about policing and punishment in Britain's inner cities. But little has been heard from people who live in the affected areas. For the first time the people of Toxteth in Liverpool have allowed cameras in to film the everyday life in the ghetto.

AIDS is the biggest public health threat for a generation. To date there have been a few hundred victims in Britain, but experts predict there will soon be many thousands. AIDS will affect men, women and children and, unless a cure is found, all those who get it will rapidly die. Doctors and scientists are desperately searching for a drug or a vaccine to knock out the virus. Will prevention - safer sex - prove better than a cure? Can alternative medicine bring hope to AIDS victims?

Four years ago this week martial law was imposed in Poland and the short-lived free trade union movement Solidarity was suppressed. Panorama has been back to Poland to discover that the underlying economic problems that fuelled the rise of Solidarity are as great as ever. The movement itself lives on underground, with the Church as the shield and the focus for the opposition. Robert Harris has talked to top Government ministers and to Solidarity leader Lech Walesa who is deeply pessimistic about Poland four years on from martial law.

Yassar Arafat and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) are fighting for survival after the blunders and killings of the last few months. Arab backers are now telling Arafat to give up the gun and start talking. With the PLO in crisis Arafat admits to Panorama he now has few cards left to play. And, with the PLO's fighters scattered across the Middle East, Gavin Hewitt reports on how Palestinians in Israeli-occupied Gaza and the West Bank are no longer looking to the PLO but to themselves for resistance.