Al Jazeera: South African minister linked to illegal rhino horn trade! (Video)

According to an exclusive report by the Al Jazeera's Investigative Unit, South Africa's Minister of State Security David Mahlobo is involved in illegal rhino horn trade. The reporters also discovered that members of the Chinese President's delegation went on an illegal spending spree in South Africa to buy ivory and rhino horn and smuggled the products back to China. 

Earthrise: Saving Namibia's Cheetahs (video)

Earthrise, a show on Al Jazeera covering all sorts of environmental issues, recently visited the Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF) in Namibia to find out what it is done to save the cheetahs in the the Southwest African country. The show's host, Russell Beard, talks to the founder of the CCF, Laurie Marker, gets an inside view on the intiatives of the Fund and on what it is done to protect the mammal and its habitat through education, conservation, public policy, science and research.



The Cheetah Conservation Fund is situated 44km from Otjiwarongo on the D2440. Windhoek is located about 3.5 hrs (by car) from the CCF; it also takes 3.5 hrs from Etosha's Namutoni Gate and 2.5hrs from the Okaukuejo Gate. The CCF is open daily, all year round, from 9am-5pm, except on Christmas day and reservations are not required for standard day tours.

Al Jazeera: New series follows trainee rangers as they fight rhino poaching in South Africa

update (12 Nov 2013): The sixth and last episode of "Wildlife Warzone" is online and available in the playlist below.
update (05 Nov 2013): The fifth episode of "Wildlife Warzone" is online and available in the playlist below! Learn more about the Shamwari Game Reserve in the Eastern Cape!
update (29 Oct 2013): The fourth episode of "Wildlife Warzone" is online and available in the playlist below! Learn more about the Selati Game Reserve in Limpopo!
update (22 Oct 2013): The third episode of "Wildlife Warzone" is online and available in the playlist below!
update (15 Oct 2013): We have added the second episode of "Wildlife Warzone" to the playlist.
"Wildlife Warzone" is a new six-part documentary series produced by 5to9 Productions for international news channel Al Jazeera. The series follows a new batch of young South Africans from all kind of backrounds as they are put through their 38 day course to become rhino rangers for Protrack, the first private anti-poaching unit in South Africa.

"Wildlife Warzone" is partly shot in and around the Kruger National Park and at Shamwari Game Reserve in the Eastern Cape, named the World’s Leading Conservation Company and Leading Safari Lodge at the 2012 World Travel Awards.
The series screens from Monday, 07 October 2013 at 22:30GMT, with additional screenings on Tuesdays at 9:30GMT, Wednesdays at 03:30GMT, and Thursdays at 16:30GMT. We'll add the following episodes to the video playlist above as soon as (and if) Al Jazeera makes them available.

Video interviews: "What does Nelson Mandela mean to you?"

Broadcaster Al Jazeera went to the streets of South Africa's business hub Johannesburg, home to people from across the world, and asked 10 South Africans and non-South Africans: "What does Nelson Mandela mean to you?"

Al Jazeera documentary "The Last Rhino" (47 min)

In the well compiled documentary "The Last Rhino" Al Jazeera's correspondent Jonah Hull investigates how South Africa became the epicentre of rhino poaching in the world. He travels around South Africa, Mozambique and Vietnam and interviews conservationists such as Dr Joseph Okori (WWF, African Rhino Manager), Tom Milliken (Traffic, Director East, Southern Africa) and Dr Ian Player (Founder of The Wilderness Foundation), as well as Major Jack Greeff of the Anti Poaching Intelligence Group Southern Africa and Kobus de Velt, a manager of a CIS unit in the Kruger National Park. While in Mozambique, Hull speaks to members of a familiy of a killed poacher, to an "influential business man" and to an alleged poacher. Towards the end of the documentary Hull visits the game farm of South Africa's largest private rhino breeder, John Hume, and interviews him about his motives. All in all a very interesting, but shocking documentary. Kudos at Jonah Hull, Clifford Bestall and Al Jazeera.

Al Jazeera documentary about Johannesburg - "Hillbrow: Between Heaven and Hell" (50min)

In the 50min Al Jazeera documentary "Hillbrow: Between Heaven and Hell", Filmmaker Clifford Bestall is taking us on a personal journey to the heart of one of South Africa's most dangerous neighbourhoods. Through the stories of some of its residents, including an old white Jewish lady that never left, Clifford Bestall, who grew up in an all-white Hillbrow in the 1960s, reveals a rich seam of today's urban South African experience. Hillbrow is the inner city residential neighbourhood of Johannesburg.

Witness is Al Jazeera English's flagship documentary strand, presenting four international documentaries each week. It is presented by Ghida Fakhry and showcases documentaries commissioned from independent filmmakers around the world. The "films focus especially on people whose stories are rarely heard - people at the margins of society and people who are somehow surviving the pressures of international news events" (via Al Jazeera).

"South Africa: The party is over". South Africa after the 2010 World Cup (Video, 45min)

I just came across this very interesting 45min documentary about South Africa after the 2010 World Cup. Al Jazeera's Rageh Omaar travels the country and talks to South Africans from various backgrounds and perspectives about their life during and particularly after the most succesfull FIFA World Cup to date.

 

In June 2010, the eyes of the world were on South Africa as it hosted the FIFA World Cup. For ordinary South Africans, it was also a month-long reprieve from the usual bad news about crime, corruption, and poverty that has plagued the nation in recent years. But it is only now, months after the World Cup has been over, that South Africa can finally assess how it moves forward and how it overcomes the huge number of challenges it faces.