SATURDAY 04 JULY 2009

SAT 19:00 Crude Britannia: The Story of North Sea Oil (b00lh03b)
Episode 3

Three-part series combining archive footage and eye-witness accounts to tell the dramatic narrative of North Sea oil and gas from the 1960s to the present. It charts the decades when the country made the most of its North Sea windfall, with scarcely a thought about where it came from or of the men and women who brought it to us. Through the story of oil, the series offers a fresh perspective on British politics and society and a timely insight into the state of our economy today.

The first Gulf War of 1991 brought home the fragility of global supplies of energy. Suddenly our North Sea oil and gas were more important than ever, but there were problems looming on the horizon. As oil reserves were used up, oil companies were about to face their biggest challenge yet.

Getting rid of redundant platforms brought them into a dramatic confrontation with an environmental movement that was growing in confidence and influence. As the flow of oil began to slow down, the oil men and women had to venture into ever deeper waters in the search for new supplies. Their quest would inspire a new generation of awe-inspiring underwater technology.

With North Sea oil and gas still supplying most of Britain's energy, it may be that the extraordinary national adventure, which began 40 years ago in the North Sea, is far from over.


SAT 20:00 Iran and Britain (b00hq1w7)
Documentary in which writer and journalist Christopher de Bellaigue explores the fraught but often surprisingly intimate history of Britain's relations with Iran, and asks why Iranians think that if something goes wrong in Iran then Britain must have something to do with it.

De Bellaigue has lived in Tehran, speaks fluent Persian and knows well the phenomenon of 'Uncle Napoleonism', the notion that the cunning British are 'out to get you' that has been a common attitude in Iranian society for 100 years.

He looks at some key events in the relationship, notably Britain's role in the overthrow of several Iranian governments, its control of Iran's oil and the on-off support for Iran's democrats.

Meeting prominent Iranians, including Uncle Napoleon's inventor and others with direct knowledge of these events, he examines the foundations and justification for these Iranian suspicions and asks if they are still there after 30 years of isolation.


SAT 21:00 Iran and the West (b00hmrvt)
The Man who Changed the World

Militant Islam enjoyed its first modern triumph with the arrival in power of Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran in 1979. In this series of three programmes, key figures tell the inside story.

Former US president Jimmy Carter talks on television for the first time about the episode that, more than any other, led American voters to eject him from the presidency. Iran's seizure of the US embassy in Tehran and the holding of its staff for 444 days took more and more of Carter's time and energy. His final days in office were dominated by desperate attempts to secure the release of the embassy hostages. Those who sat in the White House with him, planning how to rescue the hostages, how to negotiate their release and, finally, wondering whether anything could be rescued from the disaster, all tell their part in the story.

Other contributors include former vice president Walter Mondale, ex-deputy secretary of state Warren Christopher and former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski. The other side of the story is told by top Iranians: Ayatollah Khomeini's close adviser, Grand Ayatollah Montazeri; his first foreign minister, Ebrahim Yazdi; his negotiator with the US, Sadeq Tabatabai; and the founder of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, Mohsen Rafiqdoust.


SAT 22:00 Iran and the West (b00ht3p7)
The Pariah State

Second episode in the documentary series marking the 30th anniversary of the Iranian Revolution.

Inside stories are told by two ex-presidents of Iran, Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami, by two founders of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, and by leading westerners including Secretaries of State George Shultz, Warren Christopher and Madeleine Albright.


SAT 23:00 Iran and the West (b00hydcg)
Nuclear Confrontation

In part three of this landmark series from Norma Percy and the team that made the multi-award winning documentaries The Death of Yugoslavia and Elusive Peace: Israel and the Arabs, contributors including Iran's President Khatami tell the inside story of the West's continuing nuclear confrontation with Iran. The film also shows a rare moment when they worked together.

US State Department insiders tell how, after 9/11, Iran played a key role in helping America to topple the Taliban in Afghanistan - only for President Bush to put Iran into his 'axis of evil' immediately afterwards. Jack Straw, then foreign secretary, and President Khatami describe how Iran offered to help the US and its allies in their war against Saddam Hussein - help that, given Iran's powerful contacts in Iraq and the West's subsequent difficulties there, might have made a crucial difference.

Jack Straw, his successor Margaret Beckett, and Joschka Fischer of Germany describe how they struggled to find a compromise between Iran and President Bush's hardliners over Iran's nuclear programme. John Sawers at the UN reveals an extraordinary secret deal that Iran proposed a few years later.


SAT 00:00 Wallander (b00g2j5f)
Series 1

Before the Frost

New policewoman Linda Wallander is waiting for her first big case at Ystad police station and her father, Inspector Kurt Wallander, is getting on her nerves. When her childhood friend Anna mysteriously disappears she is thrown in at the deep end and soon needs her father's help on a fascinating and very dangerous investigation.

In Swedish with English subtitles.


SAT 01:30 Iran and Britain (b00hq1w7)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]


SAT 02:30 Crude Britannia: The Story of North Sea Oil (b00lh03b)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]