Afghan Money Pit & the Pacification of Rio S2, Ep1
14 Mar. 2014 Afghan Money Pit & the Pacification of Rio
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 ...
Greenland Is Melting & Bonded Labor S2, Ep2
21 Mar. 2014 Greenland Is Melting & Bonded Labor
Shane Smith embarks on an expedition to investigate why Greenland is melting, and the fact that the resulting sea level rise will mean devastation sooner than expected. Fazeelat Aslam visits the bonded laborers of Pakistan's brick kilns, and learns how certain organizations are fighting back by rescuing the workers from their modern slavery.
American Scrap & Children of the Drones S2, Ep3
28 Mar. 2014 American Scrap & Children of the Drones
'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 ...
A Syria of Their Own & White Gold S2, Ep4
4 Apr. 2014 A Syria of Their Own & White Gold
'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...
Terrorist University & Armageddon Now S2, Ep5
11 Apr. 2014 Terrorist University & Armageddon Now
'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. '...
Rocky Mountain High & North Korean Defectors S2, Ep6
25 Apr. 2014 Rocky Mountain High & North Korean Defectors
'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 ...
The Pink Gang Rebellion & Genetic Passport S2, Ep7
2 May 2014 The Pink Gang Rebellion & Genetic Passport
'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 ...
The Resource Curse & Deliver Us from Drought S2, Ep8
9 May 2014 The Resource Curse & Deliver Us from Drought
'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 ...
Crude Awakening & Enemy of My Enemy S2, Ep9
16 May 2014 Crude Awakening & Enemy of My Enemy
'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 ...
Playing with Nuclear Fire & No Man Left Behind S2, Ep10
23 May 2014 Playing with Nuclear Fire & No Man Left Behind
'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 ...
Heroin Warfare & the Coldest War S2, Ep11
6 Jun. 2014 Heroin Warfare & the Coldest War
'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 ...
Surveillance City & The Forgotten War S2, Ep12
13 Jun. 2014 Surveillance City & The Forgotten War
(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, ...
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