2009-06-23 16:32:03 -

Wide Angle : , THIRTEEN’s Emmy Award-winning international affairs series, returns to PBS for its eighth season on Wednesday, July 1 at 10 p.m. and continues weekly through September 9 (check local listings). This also marks the return of acclaimed news commentator Aaron Brown as the program’s anchor and interviewer.

The only series of its kind, Wide Angle brings deeper international coverage to American viewers by telling the human stories behind crucial global trends.

Wide Angle is a production of THIRTEEN in association with WNET.ORG – one of America’s most prolific and respected public media providers.

North Korea’s arrest and conviction of American journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee and its renewed nuclear ambitions have again placed the country prominently in the headlines. Wide Angle lifts

the iron veil on those who dare to escape Kim Jong-Il’s regime with Crossing Heaven’s Border – a moving story about North Korean defectors’ desperate journeys to freedom, premiering July 1 at 10 p.m. on PBS (check local listings).

In the past decade, up to 100,000 North Korean defectors have risked their lives to cross into northeast China to escape the authoritarian regime of their Communist country. Many live in hiding, work illegally and have no access to education or medical care. If caught by Chinese authorities, they are repatriated to North Korea where they face severe punishment, even execution. Only a lucky few succeed in reaching their goal of asylum in South Korea. Crossing Heaven’s Border reveals the plight of three North Korean defectors through the point of view of intrepid South Korean journalists who filmed undercover for ten months to capture the haunting stories. With access to an underground smuggling network, the reporters follow a group of defectors on a grueling and dangerous 10-day journey through China and Southeast Asia in the hope of settling as free citizens in South Korea.

The eighth season of Wide Angle will also feature The Market Maker (July 22 at 10 p.m.), a timely report about an Ethiopian economist who is on a mission to end hunger in her famine-plagued country by implementing the nation’s first commodities exchange. Aaron Brown travels to Africa to present history in the making as Eleni Gabre-Madhin works to revolutionize an age-old market system whose inefficiencies have been partly responsible for the country’s persistent food shortages.

Other Wide Angle episodes this season include the story of a grieving Palestinian father who donates his dead son’s organs to Israeli children in Heart of Jenin (July 8 at 10 p.m.); an intriguing true-life tale straight from the storyboards of a James Bond film revealing the extreme lengths the international community will go to in order to control one of West Africa’s most valuable resources – oil; and an updated presentation of Birth of a Surgeon (July 15 at 10 p.m.), last season’s award-winning story about midwives in Southern Africa who are trained to perform life-saving surgeries – with Aaron Brown reporting on the ground from Mozambique.

As the season’s highlight and finale, Wide Angle continues to spotlight the global crisis in access to basic education with the third dramatic installment in its critically acclaimed Time for School : series. Time for School 3 follows the educational trials and tribulations, successes and failures of seven children in seven different countries, who have been observed by Wide Angle’s cameras since 2003. This time around, the children attempt the difficult transition to middle school. And with obstacles ranging from poverty to gender inequality to the armed violence of the Taliban, it’s far from certain that they will succeed. Time for School 3 airs September 2 and concludes September 9 (check local listings).

Wide Angle anchor Aaron Brown will introduce each film and follow many of them with thought-provoking interviews with observers and experts about the issues raised in the documentaries. Brown will also participate in interactive web chats following the broadcasts.

Visit the Wide Angle website – www.pbs.org/wideangle : – for original reporting, web-exclusive videos, and to watch full episodes.

Wide Angle is a production of THIRTEEN in association with WNET.ORG. Tom Casciato is Executive Producer. Nina Chaudry is Senior Producer.

Funding for Wide Angle is provided by PBS, Ford Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Foundation, Josh and Judy Weston, the Estate of Helen Roseman, Bernard and Irene Schwartz, The Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation, and the Dr.

Robert C. and Tina Sohn Foundation. Corporate support is provided by Mutual of America Life Insurance Company. Additional funding for educational materials is provided by The Overbrook Foundation.



Press:WNET.ORGGloria Park, 212-560-2063 parkg@wnet.org : mailto:parkg@wnet.org