Vanilla Slice

Behind our craving for vanilla-flavoured ice cream, cakes and chocolate, or for vanilla-scented perfumes, there's a rattling tale of fast money, skulduggery and the precarious fate of an iconic animal.
A few years ago, the humble vanilla bean sold for $80 a kilo. Now it's $800. In vividly beautiful, dirt-poor Madagascar, supplier of most of the world's vanilla, that means good times roll.
Vanilla is the best, vanilla is the crazy money. No income better in Madagascar - and I think the world! – Yockno, who is swapping tour guiding for vanilla farming.
By day, Prisco is a hustler who buys and sells vanilla in the street. By night, in a seedy bar, he sings of his love for the bean, and what it can get him…
Girl, come and weigh the vanilla, there's enough for whatever you want! – Prisco's song lyric
Prisco is a bit player in a vast vanilla ecosystem. In the vanilla hub of Sambava, brokers plough money into shiny multi-story mansions. In big export warehouses, women sort their way through hillocks of beans. They're frisked before they go home, just in case they've filched any.
In rural areas at harvest time, small farmers guard their crops overnight from roaming thieves. If the farmers catch them, justice is swift and sometimes deadly.
They can do crazy things to them – Yockno, tour guide and vanilla farmer
Long before the tense harvest, there's an operation that demands the utmost delicacy. Each vanilla flower must be hand-pollinated – a trick invented by a 12-year-old slave boy in the 1840s. Using a tiny thorn, Yockno shows reporter Adam Harvey how it's done.
So what I do is push this tongue up….
It's all precision – and timing. Each flower is ready for pollination for only one morning each year.
…. and I press softly the male to the female. So now it's done.
Vanilla is surely sweet for Madagascar's people, but not for its most celebrated characters – the exquisite lemurs popularised by the Madagascar movie. High vanilla prices are putting pressure on the lemurs' habitat as forest is illegally cut to grow the beans.
But as Harvey and the Foreign Correspondent team trek deep into the jungle, they discover – to their delight – that lemurs are hanging on defiantly. Our cameras capture them – bamboo lemurs, white-headed lemurs and critically endangered silky safakas, one of the world's rarest mammals – in all their glory.
Trailer
Recently Updated Shows

Teen Titans Go!
Teen Titans Go! is a character-driven comedy series focuses on the funny that happens in between saving the world and living together as teenagers without adult supervision. The comedic mayhem of the animated series is punctuated by pranks and the occasional need to fight crime, but it will also deal with the everyday issues of adolescence. With epic staring contests to decide who does the laundry, a series of quests and battles to construct the perfect sandwich or fighting crime in Jump City, one thing is for sure, these Titans will always be ready for an adventure inside the house and out.

Dark Winds
Based on the iconic Leaphorn & Chee book series by Tony Hillerman, Dark Winds is a psychological thriller that follows two Navajo police officers in the 1970s Southwest, as their search for clues in a grisly double murder case forces them to challenge their own spiritual beliefs and come to terms with the trauma of their pasts.

Hell's Kitchen
In Hell's Kitchen, aspiring chefs are put through an intense culinary academy to prove they possess the right combination of ingredients to win a life-changing grand prize.

WWE Monday Night RAW
WWE Monday Night RAW is World Wrestling Entertainment's (formerly the WWF and the WWWF before that) premiere wrestling event and brand. Since its launch in 1993, WWE Monday Night RAW continues to air live on Monday nights. It is generally seen as the company's flagship program due to its prolific history, high ratings, weekly live format, and emphasis on pay-per-views. Monday Night RAW is high profile enough to attract frequent visits from celebrities who usually serve as guest hosts for a single live event. Since its first episode, the show has been broadcast live or recorded from more than 197 different arenas in 165 cities and towns in seven different nations: including the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom twice a year, Afghanistan for a special Tribute to the Troops, Germany, Japan, Italy and Mexico.