documentary

Twenty years ago, two Malaysian special forces policemen brutally murdered Mongolian woman Altantuya Shaariibuu, obliterating her body with C4 military explosives.

But the truth behind why they killed her has yet to be determined, leading to suspicions of a political conspiracy to silence her.

101 East travels to Mongolia, Malaysia, France and Australia to investigate allegations of interference in the criminal trial, Altantuya’s suspected links to an allegedly corrupt submarine deal and claims by the policemen that they acted on the orders of convicted former Prime Minister Najib Razak, who vehemently denies any involvement in the murder.

Documentary draws on 24 anonymous Israeli sources accusing military of killing Palestinians in Gaza using AI systems.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called for an investigation into the anonymous sources featured in a documentary alleging that Israel’s military killed civilians in Gaza using AI-powered targeting systems.

The award-winning film, NAZA, draws on testimony from 24 unnamed Israeli military whistleblowers accusing the army of using the systems to kill numerous civilians in the besieged territory.

“I demand that the chief of general staff, the head of the Shin Bet, and the attorney general launch a comprehensive investigation into the participants in the film ‘Naza’ and prosecute them for serious information security violations, criminal libel, and harm to Israel’s diplomatic and security interests,” Netanyahu said on X on Saturday evening.

“The film presents a false, misleading, and biased narrative that defames the State of Israel and the [Israeli military] internationally, severely damaging Israel’s standing,” he added.

In a statement last month, the Israeli military said it “categorically” rejected the whistleblowers’ allegations, calling some of their assertions “absurd’ and contradictory.

It insisted that the selection and approval of strikes “are made by human personnel only”, in line with the military’s guidelines.

Israeli army Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir has called for legal action against the participants to be considered and ordered an investigation into suspected leaks of classified military information used in the film’s production.

NAZA takes its name from the Israeli military term for civilian casualties expected in air strikes, an abbreviated form of the Hebrew phrase for “collateral damage”.

The film was awarded a special jury prize at the Venice International Film Festival and received a historic 25-minute standing ovation.

It has also triggered a political storm in Israel.

The film’s directors, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, have been accused of “treason”. Netanyahu and Culture Minister Miki Zohar have threatened to revoke their Israeli citizenship.

Last week, the head of Israel’s National Public Diplomacy Directorate, Tzipi Hotovely, awarded the creators of another film, NAZA: The Real Story, certificates of recognition for countering the “blood libels” made in the original NAZA film.

According to a statement from the Prime Minister’s Office, NAZA: The Real Story features testimony from soldiers refuting the original claims.

In contrast, 43 Israeli rights groups defended the filmmakers of NAZA and denounced the threats being directed at them, according to Israel’s Channel 12 news.

Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza began on October 7, 2023, after Hamas’s armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, and other Palestinian groups attacked southern Israel, killing 1,139 people and taking about 240 captive.

Since then, Israel has killed at least 74,000 Palestinians, including at least 21,000 children, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health.

Using interviews filmed on rooftops at night in Tel Aviv, the documentary “NAZA” uncovers Israel’s brutal methodology of warfare in Gaza since the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre that took 250 hostages and killed at least 1,200 people. The testimony offered by these insiders is under the cloak of darkness, but the light it shines on the mass killing of Palestinian civilians is so harsh it burns the conscience. (The title refers to the Israel Defense Forces’ use of an acronym for the Hebrew term for collateral damage: nezek agavi.)

Israeli directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, half of the quartet (with Basel Adra and Hamdan Ballal) behind the Oscar-winning “No Other Land,” secured one-on-one interviews with 24 Israeli intelligence personnel and soldiers, digitally altering their faces and voices while their silhouettes are framed by the lit cityscape. Sitting across from interviewer Abraham, they recount their participation in a military campaign that has killed over 73,000 in Gaza, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, and is ongoing. Used as an estimation of casualties — just put a number in front, “20 NAZA”— it suggests a battle calculation that has permitted the detachment of moral consquences.

One participant makes his need for anonymity clear: “Israel will put me in jail.” At the same time, there has been clamor for the exposure of these sources so they can be prosecuted for war crimes. The uproar over “NAZA” has also led the filmmakers to be called traitors in their country. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has threatened to revoke their citizenship.

It all speaks to the power of a well-timed movie, since much of the reporting in “NAZA” has already been published by the Guardian, a co-producer of the documentary, and corroborated by other news outlets. After its theatrical run, the Guardian will stream “NAZA” for free on its website.

The picture painted from the interview subjects, who occasionally draw sketches of weapons-screen interfaces on notepads, is of a computerized tracking-and-killing apparatus, culled from the surveillance Israel keeps of nearly every phone in Gaza. The system is augmented by AI that isn’t always accurate about a target’s presence yet is implemented with airstrikes. Eavesdropping on children is used to track a targeted father’s arrival home in a program called “Where’s Daddy?” As one person says, “You hack her phone and then kill her.”

What’s chilling about these interviews is how they don’t feel like whistleblowing but rather a fact-finding inquiry with available explainers who betray little affect or remorse, even when the topic of personal doubt arises. When one is asked whether this is genocide, the answer comes back, “Yes.” “NAZA” eschews probing for guilty feelings, though, because the point is to unearth a process of obliteration: how it works and what it looks like as implemented by the willing. “My role is technical,” a subject says.

In between these interviews are glimpses of the occasional Israeli news media snippet and at one point an archival reminder of the circumstances of Tel Aviv’s founding. But most insistently, the interstitial visuals are cinematographer Szor’s night shots of apartment facades in modern Tel Aviv: citizens at rest with their loved ones, working out or eating in front of their televisions. It’s a casual surveilling of placidity just up the coast from the atrocities we hear about. “NAZA” isn’t just tough-to-hear journalism, it’s real filmmaking, the visual juxtapositions getting us to think about who doesn’t get to enjoy a quiet evening at home, especially when remote war-waging starts to look like a goal-oriented office shift with a lunch break — or a video game.

Wherever you fall regarding the continued destruction of Gaza, what the filmmakers of “NAZA” make disturbingly clear is that the simplest machinery to spread dehumanization and death is happening now, easing its users into acceptance and rewriting everything about the moral cost of conflict. It’s stone-cold frightening.

The documentary is now available to stream on BBC iPlayer, but there is a strong viewer warning

BBC viewers have struggled to watch a heartbreaking documentary that they say “cuts deep” as a strong warning has been issued.

Just last night (Monday, October 5), BBC Two took viewers back to 2000 in a cast that shocked the UK. Damilola Taylor was just 10 years old when he was stabbed and killed in what became one of the country’s most high profile killings.

He was stabbed in the leg just metres from his home whilst leaving an after school club. For the first time for some, Damilola’s friends and family speak out about that tragic event, sharing previously unheard testimony, including that from Star Wars actor John Boyega.

Damilola: The Untold Story revisits the young boy’s killing, 26 years on as it premiered on BBC Two last night (October 5). However, for those that missed it, it can be streamed on BBC iPlayer, but viewers have warned it is a hard watch.

Taking to X, one person wrote: “I watched the documentary on bbc (yes bbc) on the senseless murder of Damilola Taylor, Rip poor little lad, heart breaking, although the documentary was focal on Damilola and the those immediately impacted, it also drew the lens back to show the amount of kids murdered.”

Another said: “I’m not sure I have it in me emotionally to watch this Damilola Taylor documentary”, as a third admitted: “That Damilola Taylor documentary is so heart wrenching.”

A fourth added: “This Damilola Taylor documentary cut deep. Imagine stabbing a 10 year old innocent boy and leaving him to bleed to death. Those two brothers are evil with so much hate in their hearts.”

A fifth replied: “It was a very hard watch. I had to pause a few times. RIP Damilola, Mr Richard and Mrs Grace Taylor.” Another penned: “The ending of the Damilola Taylor documentary, I can count my family members and school friends in that montage of lost souls. I started watching the doc as a mother, ended it as a child, if that doesn’t speak to the cycle… and its longevity then idk what does.”

Taking to TikTok to share the recommendation, one true crime fan admitted it was a “heartbreaking watch”, adding: “Be warned because it’s quite shocking.”

One person replied: “Just watched this last night… so sad.” Another commented: “Absolutely heartbreaking you’re right, so incredibly sad.” A third wrote: “This will be a hard watch.”

Taking viewers back to the final 24 hours of his life, the documentary also explores the years it took to bring a conviction. Two brothers, who were themselves aged 12 and 13 at the time, were convicted of manslaughter.

An official synopsis reads: “Made 26 years after the murder of 10-year-old Damilola Taylor shocked Britain, this documentary returns to his story with new testimony that sheds fresh light on what happened to him.

“Actor John Boyega, who was eight when Damilola died and was one of the last people to see him alive, joins Damilola’s childhood friends to return to his final months and the years of youth violence that followed his death.”

Damilola: The Untold Story can be streamed on BBC iPlayer

GEMMA Collins could be on years to come and could take inspiration from Holly Willoughby.

That’s the opinion of our showbiz expert, who has reported on Gemma since she first broke through on Towie in 2011. 

From a car saleswoman to a media millionaire, Gemma, 45, has become a cultural icon and has now diversified with a documentary on her fertility and relationships struggles for Sky.

But speaking on Showbiz Fix Uncut, our weekly showbiz podcast, our Showbiz Features Editor Fay Leyfield thinks The GC has a lot more to give. 

Fay said: “Gemma is very selective about her work and she’s made some really savvy choices and not just put her name to anything.

“She is not going anywhere and will on TV for years to come. 

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“Do you know what would be really good for Gemma is her own YouTube style chat show like Holly Willoughby.

“You know, like, those magazine style shows, she does a bit of cooking. She loves cooking as we’ve seen in her programme.

“Fashion, she’s always loved fashion.

“Hair and makeup, celebrity pals. She’s got loads of them. Like Fat Tony in the documentary, that’s been lovely to see that friendship. 

“Her future maybe won’t be traditional telly, but I don’t think she’s going anywhere.”

We discuss Gemma’s amazing career on this week’s show, which you can find on The Sun’s video hub Showbiz Fix: Uncut | The Sun  or The Sun Showbiz YouTube.

For more than 15 years, Sunday, a Ugandan asylum seeker, has lived in limbo in Japan. Once detained at the Shinagawa immigration centre, he must now regularly report to the authorities and rely on charity to help feed his children.

Changes to Japan’s immigration laws mean he could face deportation. Refusing to be reduced to a statistic, Sunday throws himself into an unlikely project: a samurai film inspired by Yasuke, remembered as Japan’s first Black samurai. For Sunday, filmmaking becomes an act of survival, dignity and hope.

Sunday in Japan is a documentary film by Antonio Rui Ribeiro, Leo Nelki and Golriz Kolahi.

Ukrainian President Zelenskyy says Moscow launched nearly 4,000 drones, aerial bombs and missiles against his country in past week.

A Russian military strike on northeastern Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, has injured at least 22 people, including children, less than a day after eight people were killed in attacks nationwide.

Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekov said on his Telegram account that a guided Russian aerial bomb hit an apartment block early on Monday, destroying two floors of the multistorey building.

He said six children were among the injured.

Russian attacks were also reported across Ukraine on Sunday.

Ukrainian Minister of Internal Affairs Ivan Vyhivskyi said three people, including a 16-year-old girl, were killed in air strikes that damaged a children’s centre in the northern city of Sumy.

Authorities in the Odesa region, meanwhile, said a “massive strike” on the south of the Black Sea region killed one person and damaged residential buildings, a shop, a hotel, a medical building, and a grain warehouse.

And in the capital, Kyiv, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said a woman and two 16-year-olds were injured and hospitalised.

“The enemy continues to relentlessly attack the Kyiv region with strike drones,” the city’s administration said.

“Sixteen sites have been damaged”, including 12 houses, a warehouse and a production facility, it added.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Sunday that three people were killed in strikes in the southern Zaporizhia region and that a Russian drone strike had killed one man in Kyiv.

Zelenskyy said in a post on his X account that Russia had launched more than 2,200 attack drones, 1,630 aerial bombs and 38 missiles of various types against Ukraine in the past week.

“If Russia were truly preparing for any real steps towards de-escalation, as it claims, particularly to American negotiators, this wave of Shahed terror would not be happening,” Zelenskyy said in later comments, referring to the Iran-developed drones Moscow has used against Ukraine.

In Moscow, Russia’s Ministry of Defence said it had bombed a Kyivstar data centre in Kyiv and another belonging to the Omega Telecom company. It said that the firms were providing services to the Ukrainian army.

Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov told the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Saturday that Moscow intended to continue its military campaign “to the end”.

Ukrainian drones struck an oil depot in Russia’s Krasnodar region on Monday, according to local reports.

Ukrainian Telegram channel Exilenova+ published footage of a large fire and identified the facility as the Pavlovskaya oil depot.

No injuries have been reported so far.

Ukraine has intensified its targeting of Russian oil infrastructure in recent weeks.

United States-led talks to end the war, which began with Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, have failed to produce a breakthrough, and the UN has highlighted the growing civilian toll.

Both sides deny targeting civilians.

A three-part series following investigative reporters and police investigators who were instrumental in holding Gary Glitter accountable for his sex abuse crimes has been paused

Netflix has paused the release of an investigative docuseries into disgraced Gary Glitter’s history of sexually abusing minors.

The streaming giant has issued a statement confirming that the three-part series will no longer be released on October 14 as they originally announced.

A spokesperson for Netflix said: “We have made the decision to pause the release of Hunting Gary Glitter originally due to launch on October 14.

“This follows new legal information we recently became aware of. We’re not able to share further detail at this time, but we’ll provide an update as soon as we’re in a position to do so.”

The synopsis for the series states: “A string of dogged journalists chases fugitive pop star Gary Glitter across the globe — from Cuba to Cambodia to Vietnam — determined to expose the child sexual abuse he concealed behind decades of chart-topping fame.

“This documentary follows their pursuit alongside the survivors who speak out, charting Glitter’s 1997 conviction, through to his years on the run, and eventual incarceration.”

The rocker, real name Paul Gadd, was a popular British glam rocker in the 1970s and sang numerous hits like Do You Wanna Touch Me and I Love You Love Me Love.

In 1999, his popularity was derailed by numerous allegations of child sexual abuse and subsequent conviction for possession of child pornography.

Later, in 2006, he was jailed in Vietnam for the sexual abuse of two girls. In 2015, he was convicted of sexually abusing three additional young girls.

In 2023, Gadd was released for a short time on probation before being reincarcerated. Police did not publicly say how he violated the terms of his release.

Featured in the trailer of Hunting Gary Glitter, the docuseries uses first-person interviews to detail Gladd’s original convictions and years hopping from country to country, including Vietnam, Cuba, and Cambodia to avoid prosecution and jail time.

The advert was released alongside the initial announcement but has now been pulled as has all the other assets from Netflix’s media website.

Hunting Gary Glitter was due to be released on Netflix on October 14 but has been paused

East Asia is facing a demographic reckoning, with societies in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan ageing rapidly.

With a drastic shortage of burial space, a lucrative new market is emerging.

From AI avatars to DNA gems, technology is bringing loved ones back to life – in digital forms – raising questions about whether it will help heal or hinder the grieving process.

101 East investigates how new technology is transforming the way we bid farewell to those we love.