Good evening. There's a new missile scare in the Gulf this evening with the London Times newspaper reporting Iraq may be holding, but not yet using, Soviet-built SS-12 missiles.
The missiles that could reach Israel and Saudi Arabia are thought to have been stored in Iraq by the USSR in a bid to avoid conditions in a 1987 missile treaty.
The SS-12, designed for nuclear warheads, is a lot more accurate than the Scud.
Looking to a time when the war is over, US Secretary of State James Baker has revealed the US plan for stability in the region.
It includes an end to arms proliferation, a role for Iraq, Iran and Israel, the reconciliation of Israel and its Arab neighbors, and the rebuilding of Iraq and Kuwait.
If we are going to redeem the sacrifices now being made by the brave men and women who defend our freedom with their lives, then we must fashion a peace which is worthy of their struggle.
For the first time since the Gulf War started, Israeli troops have thrust north of their self-declared security zone in south Lebanon.
Army reports indicate vehicles and guerrilla bases used by the PLO faction Fata were destroyed.
And the vast oil spill unleashed in the Gulf last month is now approaching the Saudi coast, bringing new threats to bird and marine life and desalination plants.
A survey over just two kilometers of coastline revealed 400 out of 600 birds were drenched in oil.
The reports from the field indicate heavy losses in wildlife species, such as the marine turtles, cormorants, grebes, gulls and waders.
The capture and killing of Iraq's President Saddam Hussein is an objective the Allies have yet to spell out.
In part, that's because it would go beyond the UN resolution on the crisis and perhaps cause the USSR to withdraw its support for the Gulf expedition.
Every move the Allies make in the region is watched by the Soviets, whose future support also depends on domestic politics in Moscow.
Dateline's Vivian Schenker is speaking to Dr. Peter Shearman from Melbourne University.
Dr. Shearman, thanks very much for joining us. How solid is Soviet support now for the US-led coalition against Iraq?
Well, I think it's fairly solid in terms of the original objectives of the United Nations Security Council resolution to force Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait.
But many commentators, politicians, military personnel in the Soviet Union are concerned that that objective has been expanded to get Saddam Hussein out of Iraq.
So I think that there's been a fairly cohesive and consistent policy from August right through until the present in support of UN resolutions.
But there's some concern that the United States and its Allies are exceeding that objective.
When you say that there's some concern, how strong is that concern? I mean, are they likely to weaken their support, to pull out at any stage?
Well, I think we must understand that in the Soviet Union, like in many other countries, including those of the Allies,
there are many people who are anyway opposed to the whole venture in the Gulf.
In the Soviet Union, many members of the military were anyway opposed to the American intervention on January the 17th.
And so long as the leadership in the Kremlin can argue that the objectives are the same as they were through the United Nations resolutions,
and I think they have a much better chance of maintaining a cohesive and coherent foreign policy.
So they're likely to stay solid as long as the United States perhaps doesn't go too far. What would too far be?
Well, too far I think would be to articulate an objective, which was to remove Saddam Hussein from Iraq,
to undermine the regime in Iraq, and perhaps some people have spoken about war crimes trials.
Just who are the Soviets' Allies in the Middle East at the moment, in the Gulf area,
and has that changed since the upheavals in the Soviet Union of the last year or two?
Yes, it has changed. Since 1986-87, the Soviets have been trying to befriend the more moderate Arab states.
Traditionally, the Soviets have supported the more radical Arab states with their maximalist demands against Israel.
In recent years, the Soviets have established relations with Saudi Arabia, with Kuwait, and with the Gulf Emirates.
And also in more recent months, has moved towards the full establishment of relations with Israel, which were broken after the war in 1967.
All of those changes, of course, have happened under the leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev.
How essential is he to a continuation of the current policy?
I mean, if he goes in the foreseeable future, and that, I gather, is an option at least,
what then happens to the Soviet Union's position in the Middle East?
Well, it depends very much upon who succeeds him.
If it is a hard-line military bloc, then we might well see some changes in Soviet foreign policy.
I don't think we're going to go back to a Cold War situation, because the world has changed.
It's no longer an East-West bipolar world system that we're confronted with now, but a more complex multipolar one.
But we must remember that the Soviet Union has had a treaty of friendship and cooperation with Iraq since the 1970s.
It's had good cooperative economic, political, and military ties with Iraq for the last quarter of a century.
And many members of the military, should they be a strong force in any future government in the Soviet Union,
may well wish to re-establish those ties with Iraq.
Is it possible that there are behind-the-scenes negotiations going on at the moment anyway?
That there are members, perhaps of the Soviet military, saying to the Iraqis behind the scenes,
hold on, Gorbachev won't be around forever, and in that case we might be prepared to step in and help?
There may well be some military personnel sending messages to the Iraqis that the Soviets are not going to become engaged in this militarily,
and that ultimately they'll try and use the United Nations to create a ceasefire situation.
But under no circumstances would the Soviet Union engage militarily on the side of Saddam Hussein.
Okay, what difference would the new Foreign Minister make?
Andrei Biasmernik, Alexander Biasmernik, I don't think makes that much difference.
Shevardnadze himself said that he is a good diplomat and will follow in his footsteps in line with new political thinking in Soviet foreign policy.
But having said that, he has made some statements critical of the Americans trying to link Iraq with the Baltic Republics.
Peter, can I ask you just finally, how many Soviets would there be in Iraq? Is that possible to estimate?
Well, it's very difficult because it changes by the day.
Certainly up until last week there were 42 Soviet officials in the embassy in Baghdad,
but I believe that figure has been reduced substantially in the last few days.
Regarding advisors in Iraq, I think most of those left after January the 17th.
Dr Peter Sheerman, thanks very much.
Thank you.
Vivienne Schenker with that interview.
Novice investors and profit-taking saw the Australian stock market fall 4.2% today, down to 1344.5.
Japan's Nikkei index was up 152 yen to close at 24,104.
And gold gained $3 at $364.25.
Finally, tonight, the Gulf War, as seen by just one of the more than one million military people on both sides.
Lance Corporal Keith Dorsett is a United States Marine,
but his thoughts and maybe music would be understood by a lot of soldiers.
Good night.
Music.
Spare time, well we get a good deal.
Time to myself, get maybe four or five hours a day, and it's usually right there.
I just kind of throw myself in there.
And I don't come out until I have to.
It's like an escape.
It is an escape.
It's an escape, it's a...
Hear that?
Playing.
None of that.
I don't like to hear that.
So when I'm playing, I don't hear it.
The people around me when I'm playing, they don't hear it.
We just hear, we hear the pity pats of home, the kids running around the street.
Mr. Softy, na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na.
We hear our families calling us.
It's just an escape.
Music.
Whatever happens in 1991, one current affairs program will bring you the complete story.
Dateline.
It's as if there is this great reservoir outside of time and space from which everything is drawn or everything is made.
Next on the wisdom of the dream, Jung's discovery of the collective unconscious.
The link between the sand paintings of the Indians and the myths we create in our own dreams.
The connection does have one basic recurring theme.
It's the theme of extraterrestrial intelligence.
It demonstrates that the second center of the psyche, the self, is all ready to be discovered.
The wisdom of the dream continues 8.40 Friday on Connections.
Coming soon to Movie of the Week, a brilliant black comedy from the coolest director working in America today.
Jim Jarmusch takes a pilgrimage to the heart of Elvis country on the mystery train.
And the most talked about film to come out of the Soviet Union since Glasnost.
From the new wave of Soviet filmmaking comes Little Vera, a realistic look at youth culture.
And an outrageous comedy from the surreal Louis Bunwell, the discreet charm of the bourgeoisie.
Coming soon to Movie of the Week.
Music
Good evening, welcome to Movie of the Week. I'm David Stratton.
Our film tonight is The Master and Margarita, an adaptation of the famous book by Mikhail Bulgakov.
About the devil himself, loose in Moscow in the mid-1920s.
If you've read Bulgakov's book, you'll know that it would have been extremely difficult to make into a film.
Apart from anything else, one character is a high living cat who can shoot a gun and play chess.
Very difficult to put into a movie.
The film was made as a co-production between Yugoslavia and Italy.
And we're showing the Italian version tonight.
It was produced in 1972. And that's when I first saw it in Yugoslavia.
Where it was considered very daring.
And where it won several prizes for its director Alexander Petrovich.
The story concerns Nikolai Maksudov, played by the late Ugo Tonjazi.
A playwright so brilliant that he's known as Maestro or Master.
He gets in trouble with his new play, which tells the story of Pontius Pilate.
The powers that be consider it to be anti-communist.
The writer's union stops the production.
And the critics attack it without seeing it, saying, do we need to see it to discuss it?
Well, just as the Maestro seems to be in the deepest trouble, he's helped by the mysterious Professor Voland, played by Alan Cooney.
Voland, it seems, is the devil himself.
What follows is a series of bizarre, sometimes comic, sometimes tragic incidents.
All of them linked around the theme of unnecessary censorship.
At a time when the Russian Revolution was being stifled.
The film was shot in Belgrade, which stands in for Moscow.
And there are a lot of fine Yugoslav actors in the cast.
Margarita, a strange girl who enters the Maestro's life, is played by the American actress Mimsy Farmer.
So here it is, the Maestro and Margarita.
Well, those of you who know Mikhail Bulgakov's marvellous book, The Maestro and Margarita,
will have realised that the film's director, Alexander Petrovich, was forced to make some pretty major changes to the original.
In fact, Petrovich said at the time that his film is not so much an adaptation of the book as based on ideas from the book.
But I think it's an entertaining and quite important film in its own right.
When I first saw it in Yugoslavia in the summer of 1972, it made an enormous impression on me.
I went straight out to buy Mikhail Bulgakov's book and enjoyed it even more than the film.
The film, though, is fascinating and was still considered quite a daring one to make in Yugoslavia in the early 70s.
It was a co-production with Italy and tonight we saw the Italian version.
Incidentally, the Polish director, Andrzej Wajda, whose Land of Promise we showed last week,
made a film version of the story within the story, the play, at about the same time that Petrovich was making this film in 1971.
Wajda's film is called Pilot and the Others and it remains one of the least seen of his films.
Well, next Thursday on Movie of the Week I have for you a film by the Swiss director, Claude Goretti,
and it stars Gerard Depardieu. It's called Not as Bad as All That and it's about a man who turns to crime when he's hit by economic hard times.
It's one of Gerard Depardieu's very early roles. Not as Bad as All That, next on Movie of the Week.
And from me now, good evening.
Pierre is a happily married man. He loves his wife. He loves their young son.
They all live happily together above the family furniture business.
So who is he running from? Why does he burn all their furniture?
Who's the redhead? And why does he go out wearing a beret, dark glasses and a false nose?
Gerard Depardieu stars in David Stratton's Movie of the Week. Not as Bad as All That, Thursday night at 8.40 on SBS.
In 1934 Joseph Stalin waged one of the most senseless purges in the history of communism.
Faithful party followers were forced to sign confessions to crimes which were never committed.
The true horror of the Stalin years exposed in The Hand of Stalin, 7.30 Saturday.
You've been watching Take Two, another chance to see some of our most requested programs.
If there's an SBS program you would like to see again, call the Take Two line and record your request.
The number to call 0055 222 02.
On Friday, a candid look at one woman's work in Hong Kong's The Walled City. A place of violence, drugs and prostitution.
I looked around Hong Kong to see what there was to be done and was really overwhelmed.
Once you begin to see needs, they are not ending.
Struggling against overwhelming odds, her faith has brought hope to thousands.
A lifetime commitment to The Law of Love, the first in a two part series, 7 o'clock Friday.
The summer of 48 was like any other. Girls from all over Italy flocked to the northern rice fields.
But the harvest of 48 was to be the year of bitter rice.
Then at 10.15 Edward G. Robinson.
He's a thief. He stole from me, from his employer, from Catherine Marsh.
My wife, I mean my former wife is correct.
A guilty man found innocent.
Mr. Cross, nobody gets away with murder.
At 8.40, Bitter Rice. Followed at 10.15 by Scarlett Street. Saturday night cinema classics on SBS.
It's as if there is this great reservoir outside of time and space from which everything is drawn or everything is made.
Next on the wisdom of the dream, Jung's discovery of the collective unconscious.
The link between the sand paintings of the Indians and the myths we create in our own dreams.
Science fiction does have one basic recurring theme.
It's the theme of extraterrestrial intelligence.
It demonstrates that the second center of the psyche, the self, is all ready to be discovered.
The wisdom of the dream continues 8.40 Friday on Connections.
Being a warrior is a dirty job that someone has to go.
There's one's reputation to uphold and a cunning foe to defeat.
Battling overwhelming odds, the situation often looks hopeless.
But when the enemy starts kicking on the women, warriors don't get mad, they get evil.
The Colossus of Rome concludes our season of Sword and Sand Olympics, Monday at 9.30 on SBS.
The Colossus of Rome.