On Assignment

Fronted by Rageh Omaar, ITV News's award-winning team of specialist journalists contribute in-depth reports from around the world and the stories behind the headlines. The following reports will air in this programme: TURKEY – PRESIDENT ERDOĞAN: THE MOST SUCCESSFUL DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENT? - RAGEH OMAAR Rageh Omaar travels to Turkey to gain a deeper understanding of the man some call the world's most successful democratic politician – President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. A successfully fought referendum recently gave him sweeping new powers, potentially extending his Presidency until 2029. For decades Turkey has been seen as the bridge between Europe and the Middle East, but Erdoğan's expanded powers, which include the ability to bring back the death penalty, suggest that that gap between the continents is widening even further. Almost a year on from the failed coup to topple him, Rageh visits Istanbul, a divided city, to discover how President Erdoğan has gone from overcoming a hostile takeover to convince an entire nation to hand him even more authority. BALI – THE SHACKLING OF MENTAL HEALTH PATIENTS - DEBI EDWARD In Indonesia, severely mentally ill people are shackled by their families in sheds, small rooms and back yards, sometimes for years on end. A lack of accessible and affordable mental health services, and a high level of superstition in the country, has resulted in up to 18,000 individuals being subjected to this treatment, say Human Rights Watch. Debi Edward travels to the Indonesian island of Bali, where she meets some of the patients who have been locked up and tethered, including one man chained by his leg in a dark room and kept completely naked for his own safety. Debi discovers why many families resort to shackling, and what is being done to help stop this archaic practice. POLAND – 35 YEARS ON FROM THE RISE OF SOLIDARITY – TIM EWART Thirty-five years since he was ITN's Warsaw Correspondent, Tim Ewart returns to Poland on

Just days after his inauguration, President Trump asked what the hell is going on in in Chicago? In the windy city, the murder rate has surged in the past few years. Penny Marshall discovers that solving Chicago's gun crime problem is a complex and highly divisive issue. Steve Scott is in Berlin to meet former East German athletes who were subjected to state-sponsored doping in the 1970s and 80s, and hears how the drugs they took, often without their knowledge, have had chronic life-changing effects. Nina Nannar travels to the Moroccan desert city of Ouarzazate - which has had a starring role in hundreds of movies and TV series from Gladiator to Game of Thrones - to find out what life is like living on a real-life film set.

Geraint Vincent travels to Donetsk in Eastern Ukraine, which three years ago was taken over by Russian-backed separatists and is now an illegal quasi-Russian state, self-proclaimed as the 'Donetsk People's Republic'. Penny Marshall visits the Mexico City suburb of Ecatepec, one of the most dangerous places on earth to be a woman, to meet those who live with the threat of violence on a daily basis. Nearly a year on from the failed Turkish coup, Rageh Omaar travels to Istanbul to find out how President Erdogan has gone from avoiding a hostile takeover to persuading voters to grant him sweeping new powers.

John Ray is in Malawi where physical assaults against people with albinism have increased rapidly in recent years, and he meets those who have survived some of the most savage attacks. Dan Rivers travels to the lowest point on Earth, the Dead Sea, which is rapidly shrinking, causing sinkholes and disastrous effects for the area's tourism and natural environment. Juliet Bremner visits the former Soviet republic of Armenia, a small country with a big claim to fame - it dominates the world at chess.

Rageh Omaar presents more fascinating and revealing stories from around the world. Neil Connery visits the Champagne region of France to find out what the future holds for the country and its new president Emmanuel Macron, the youngest French head of state since Napoleon. Dan Rivers spends time on the set of a popular Middle Eastern drama made in Syria, to find out how the TV industry is alive and thriving despite the war. John Irvine travels to the Holy City of Jerusalem to see if restorations on the Church of the Holy Sepulchre have helped restore relations between the Christian denominations that run the Church.