Kidney Valley

A programme exploring possible causes of the MH17 Flight tragedy. Through eye-witness interviews and expert opinion the film attempts to establish what might have brought down the ill-fated airliner and all 298 people aboard.

Mica is a shiny mineral that’s all the rage in modern-day makeup, helping to give beauty products a bright gleam and natural-looking glow. This beauty, however, comes at a price that most are unaware of. Those who pay it are the poorest and the most vulnerable. RT Doc visits India’s illegal mica mines where child labour is rife. 

This place makes some tremble with fear. But in others it sparkles an unexplainable interest. A place where supernatural things are happening. 

Panning for gold may sound like a dream career that will guarantee a life of ease. But as RTDoc team finds out, it does not pay very well in Kyrgyzstan. And what's more – it will not buy you a decent dinner, let alone happiness.

Bangladesh has no metal resources of its own, so the shipbreaking yards in Chittagong, its largest second city, generate high profits for their owners. Workers though, enjoy none of the benefits of that profit; wages are barely enough to live on and there are no health and safety regulations to protect them. Injuries are a frequent occurrence and even death is not uncommon.

A year ago, Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was brought down over the territory of conflict-torn Ukraine. This tragedy shocked the world and affected families in many countries. Today, debris can still be found in the area around the crash and the investigation, surrounded by secrecy, still hasn’t reached a definitive conclusion. RTD talks to witnesses, experts and family members of MH17 passengers in a bid to understand whether the truth of what caused the tragedy will ever be established.

Can you tell truth from lies in mass media? RT Doc’s Miguel Francis-Santiago delves deep to try to understand the intricacies of information war. He meets media experts and puts together the Mosaic of Facts, showing how public opinion is manipulated, not just over the Ukrainian Crisis but throughout the world.

While the MH17 crash investigation is still underway, the absence of real evidence causes theories to be passed off as truth. In an attempt to separate fact from speculation, RTD covers Ukraine, Europe and Australia and talks to international journalists and experts, victims’ family members and witnesses.

Six months ago RTD first visited the village of Kalachi in Kazakhstan, where people are affected by a mysterious “sleeping sickness”. Since then, some have had the chance to relocate and escape the curious affliction but have the scientists come any closer to identifying the cause?
RTD returns to the “sleepy hollow” of Kazakhstan to see if the investigation has uncovered anything new.

Unmanned drones are the modern weapons of choice in the fight against terrorism. The tribal areas of Pakistan where various militant groups seek a hideout have been hit by numerous CIA drone strikes. The attacks are far from precise and it’s claimed they have often killed or maimed civilians, including children. Campaigners say that the constant presence of such an imminent yet clandestine threat from the sky causes deep psychological harm to the region’s population.

The Atlantic Ocean near the coast of Western Africa has been one of Russia's fishing grounds for decades. But these fish-rich waters also draw a lot of international competition, which gets fiercer every year as the number of fish dwindle, and can often cross the line of being legal.

In modern day Turkey, hundreds from the Kurdish minority in the South-East are said to be dying at the hands of government forces.  The Kurds have long been seeking autonomy for their region. The subject is rarely seen in the Turkish media as journalists who cover the issue have often been detained.

Afghanistan is the world’s biggest exporter of black-market opium from which heroin is made. It’s a multi-billion dollar business, responsible for around a hundred thousand deaths every year and it’s a major source of income for terrorists. RT Doc travelled to the poppy fields where death is harvested to find out why no one can put a stop to this deadly trade.