After the January issue of Fine Tuning went to press, we received schedule changes for the January program schedule of Frontline. The previously announced series, News Wars, will be aired in February. Here are the Frontline programs, beginning Tuesday, January 9.

Return of the Taliban
January 9, at 10 p.m.

After the fall of the Taliban five years ago, some experts warned of a nightmare scenario: The Taliban and Al Qaeda would escape from Afghanistan into neighboring Pakistan and set up new command centers far out of America's reach.

That nightmare scenario has come true. The Taliban controls large parts of the lawless tribal areas along the border. In a video obtained by Frontline, the Taliban demonstrate their brutal brand of justice.

After executing 17 people, said to be thieves, in front of a crowd of hundreds, they hung the bodies on poles for three days. "We have killed these people and sent them to God," a Taliban gunman says to the camera. "God will bring them to justice."

Frontline correspondent Martin Smith (Hunting bin Laden; Truth, War and Consequences) returns to the Afghanistan-Pakistan border and presents a rare look inside this secret sanctuary in Return of the Taliban. In a region long suspected of harboring Osama bin Laden and strictly off-limits to U.S. troops, Smith explores the complex web of alliances among the Taliban, Al Qaeda fighters and the Pakistani military, and analyzes the consequences for U.S. policy.

Hand of God
Tuesday, January 16, at 10 p.m.

In recent decades, more than 10,000 children were reportedly abused sexually by Catholic priests in the United States. In Hand of God, filmmaker Joe Cultrera explores the very personal story of how his brother –– Paul –– was molested in the 1960s by their parish priest, Father Joseph Birmingham, who allegedly abused nearly 100 other children. Producer Joe Cultrera tells the story of faith betrayed and how his brother Paul and his family fought back against a scandal that continues to afflict scores of churches across the country.

"I was inspired by my brother's strength of spirit in surviving his abuse," says Joe Cultrera. "His story was unlike any I had seen in the media. I thought a detailed film about his and my family's experience would prove healing and freeing for others."

Paul would keep his secret for nearly 30 years, until he decided to confront the Church and launch his own private investigation into whether the Archdiocese of Boston had covered up allegations against Birmingham by moving the priest from parish to parish, thereby placing more children in danger.

 "The film created an opportunity for my family to deal with these issues in a very intimate way," says Joe.  "We have emerged as a more understanding unit. One of my hopes is that the film will inspire other families to talk."

The Meth Epidemic
Tuesday, January 23, at 10 p.m.

Speed. Meth. Glass. On the street, methamphetamine has many names. What started as a fad among West Coast motorcycle gangs in the 1970s has spread across the United States, and despite lawmakers' calls for action, the drug is now more potent, and more destructive, than at any time in the past decade. In The Meth Epidemic, Frontline, in association with The Oregonian, investigates the meth rampage in America: the appalling impact on individuals, families and communities, and the difficulty of controlling an essential ingredient in meth — ephedrine and pseudoephedrine — sold legally in over-the-counter cold remedies.

Methamphetamine abuse started in California and Oregon, but spread rapidly into the Midwest. Now the drug has reached the East Coast. "Meth has made a steady march across the United States," says Steve Suo, a reporter for Portland's The Oregonian, who has followed meth from the beginning. "Right now you have Mexican methamphetamine flooding in through Atlanta, and from there [it] fans out both south and north." The discovery of meth labs in states from Maine to Florida foreshadows a new crisis on the East Coast: "They can expect to see increased car theft, increased identity theft É domestic violence, child neglect, drug overdoses and just a lot of mayhem," says Suo. Indeed, statistics show that meth can trigger a surge in other crimes: In Oregon, a staggering 85 percent of property crime, as well as a majority of muggings, car thefts and identity thefts, has been linked to the drug.

"The Meth Epidemic" tells the story of two potential solutions to the crisis and examines why neither was fully tried.

The Cell Next Door
Tuesday, January 30, at 10 p.m.

Frontline goes inside a terror cell accused of planning mayhem and mass murder in Atlanta and Toronto in summer 2006. Self-proclaimed Muslim fundamentalist Mubin Shaikh, who spent two years inside the cell as a police informant, tells Frontline about the cell's plots and politics. Intelligence agencies consider the cell to be the most serious homegrown cell discovered so far in North America.

Like a clone of cells that have grown all over Europe, the cell attracts clusters of young men, often of immigrant parents living in the suburbs, who resist their parents' culture and modern consumerism to become a "Jihad generation." In a co-production with the CBC's The Fifth Estate, Frontline follows these radical Islamists from Atlanta and Toronto to the training grounds of Pakistan.