Foreign Correspondent - Season 20

From the lawless confines of a dirt poor nation an accused terrorism mastermind sends out a rallying call for fanatical foot soldiers and they come running from near and far. We set off for Yemen on the trail of disaffected young Australians joining up for jihad.

It's an extraordinary feat of endurance and will. Salma el Tarzi is a popping, fizzing bundle of energy and exuberance who was in Cairo's Tahrir Square from the outset, leading a corner of the protest. Despite the violent counter-attacks, the cold nights and the fear of government retribution, she was there at the end when belligerent Hosni Mubarak let go.

When the going gets tough, even the toughest and most resilient in Ireland get going - overseas. They have to. Ireland’s economy is on life support, jobs have been obliterated and if the nation is to get itself out of a black hole of debt things will probably get worse. And so they’re packing their bags, bidding an often heartbreaking farewell to family and friends and heading in droves to places with prospects. Australia’s high on the list.

It's where heavily armed citizens take border security into their own hands and it's where, in the words of one prominent critic, you can have a long criminal record, a history of drug abuse or be on a terrorism watch list and buy a gun 'quicker than it takes to order a burger and fries at McDonalds'. It's also where, in January this year, a gunman massacred six and tried to kill a federal politician. Welcome to Arizona.

Who is killing the intrepid reporters of Russia and why aren't they being caught and brought to justice? There's a bulging casebook of horrifying murder mysteries that sends a shiver through Russia's newsrooms where simply reporting for work can be deadly dangerous. And while killers and attackers go unpunished, critics blame the most powerful man in Russia for creating an environment of fear and intimidation that's enabling the muzzling of media, even the killing spree.

One former US president called him the Mad Dog of the Middle East. His fingerprints are all over a catalogue of despicable acts including terrorism. So why did the West welcome Libya's Colonel Muammar Gaddafi back into the mainstream? As he digs in against a potent uprising and now facing a United Nations air patrol, this is the inside story of how powerful governments shrugged off his heinous acts and made Gaddafi richer and more powerful than ever before.

It could be the most misrepresented and misunderstood nation on earth. It's unlikely you'll find farm animals roaming inside family homes while women haul ploughs in the field. There's no such thing as a designated town rapist and anti-Semitism is not a rampant and unifying national phenomenon. The Kazakhstan of Borat Sagdiyev is - for Kazakhs and for many outsiders - an appalling fiction. But is the real story a great deal better?

For a short, terrifying time it was main street in the high noon of a nuclear showdown. The world has never been as close to atomic warfare than the Cuban Missile Crisis. Now, little Cuba sits out in the Caribbean like a piece of old Soviet flotsam - rusting, slowly sinking, adrift in dramatically different world where old friends live it up in a free market frenzy. How long before the lid comes off Fidel Castro's vacuum-sealed island nation?

In an idyllic, crystal clear patch of the Pacific, locals are learning what goes down must come up - and they're told the consequences will be devastating. Lurking at the bottom of a giant blue lagoon - a pinprick in the enormous ocean expanse - is a huge, ticking, time bomb threatening very soon to disgorge tens of millions of litres of thick, bunker oil, destroying the environment and a fragile island economy. The recent Pacific tsunami threatened to unleash the black tide but - thankfully - it passed without incident. But very soon something's going to give.

In a violent sandstorm it's hard to know what's real and what's not. And so in the little Arabian island of Bahrain when push came to shove and protest turned to uprising the swift, uncompromising and overwhelming response kicked up a thick, gritty cloud over the Kingdom. One thing is clear though - this wannabe Dubai might claim it's open for business but if you’re selling political reform and democracy the shutters come down and brutality ensues. We go undercover to see how authorities kept a lid on revolution. It's not pretty.

He doesn't host his own cooking show. He doesn't endorse a line of high-end kitchenware or churn out glossy recipe books by the tonne. His career path certainly had its destination in Europe as a Masterchef making haute cuisine for the affluent. Instead he's making a difference on the streets of southern India, shattering caste barriers, feeding the forgotten and sustaining lives. Among the helpless and destitute of Madurai he's a genuine celebrity chef. See Krishnan Narayanan's Akshayatrust.

A rising rap star, a documentary maker, a teacher who happens to be gay. In many places around the world they're free to get on with their lives. Iran is not one of them. And while authorities have made it almost impossible to scrutinise life in Iran since 2009's uprising and crackdown, a graphic picture has finally emerged. It's Iran through the eyes of brave young people who paid heavily for their dissent - tortured, jailed, blacklisted - but who somehow managed to escape the clutches of a stifling regime to tell their stories.

He was watched at every turn. Trailed by secret agents everywhere he went. Every conversation and meeting observed. The black Hondas of the local security services followed him from city to city, village to village. For China correspondent Stephen McDonell, this report was proving a difficult assignment. But in China these days, this is what happens when the story is about a group which is making the Communist Party very nervous.

Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, David Berkowitz. Three of America's truly gruesome figures of criminal infamy who killed and killed again. In the annals of crime, serial killers are relatively rare. But out on a bleak, windswept stretch of New York's Long Island seashore police investigating a cluster of ten murders are grappling with the chilling prospect that more than one serial killer is responsible. They're not going to solve this in a nice, neat commercial half-hour.

He was a cheeky skylark who zoomed past our camera and tried his best to get into our story. He was so persistent we finally relented and so a little boy on a bike got his cameo. That was a year ago, long before a monstrous series of waves loomed up and wiped away his town. Thousands were killed or missing. What happened to the boy on the bike and others we met during our assignment?

It was once a jet-set jewel. A hip, snazzy playground for entertainment A-listers chasing a tan, socialites looking to be seen and suave politicians and rich business types looking to mingle. Acapulco, Mexico was fun-filled, sun-filled and star struck. Now it's blood soaked as Mexico's drug wars shift into new ground. But a growing number of Mexicans are saying Hasta La Madre – 'we've had enough!'

They're two darlings of Jakarta's fashion obsessed, social set. One's a former top central banker mired in claims she jumped into the job off a pile of bribes. The other's a brassy financial high flyer also accused of a super-charged rise to the top on criminal deals. They're both starring in separate, sensational courtroom dramas exposing the murky goings on - top to bottom - in Indonesia's banking system. After all - down the ladder - if you don't pay your credit card bill you might end up dead.

It's a big southern land, with beautiful beaches, sun worshipping citizens and a mother lode of natural riches fuelling a remarkable economic boom that's the envy of the rest of the world. Sound familiar? Of course it does. Only the numbers popping out of Brazil's phenomenal financial growth leave Australia in the shade. And while the US and Europe were smashed by the global financial crisis, Brazil stepped on the gas. Very soon it will be the 5th largest economy in the world. Milagroso!

A big black question mark is creeping across Spain, shaking and shocking a growing number of mothers and fathers of still-born babies and prompting them to dramatically rethink the fate of their children. Did they really die or were they sold to other families in a macabre, callous and widespread black-market trade that's only recently been uncovered? And stepping into this murky saga is an apparent foreigner who was one of those stolen and sold and who's only now returning to his real birthplace in search of his natural mother and the truth.

Once he stood higher than anyone else on earth and almost 60 years on - in many parts of Nepal - Everest conqueror Sir Edmund Hillary is still a giant, revered for the schools, community programs and health projects he's fostered and supported. But can his legacy endure an entrenched family rift with his son, daughter and many old mountaineering mates on one side and his widow June and her family and friends on the other.

How low could they go and how high did it reach? Like a cluster bomb, the phone hacking scandal keeps on exploding, taking more and more casualties, killing The News Of The World - one of the world's most successful tabloids - and shaking a very powerful global media empire.

She's the stoic, enduring face of the struggle against military rule in her poor and brutally oppressed country. Persistently pushing against the heavy hand of the junta, her dignified perseverance - even during years of house arrest - has made Aung San Suu Kyi a towering figure of inspiration at home and abroad. But at 66 is the Nobel Peace Prize winner and democracy icon still the best hope for freedom in Burma? After a risky path to her front door, we find Aung San Suu Kyi expansive, candid and resolute but time is passing and genuine change seems as far away as ever.

They didn't stand a chance. When a powerful earthquake shook Christchurch at lunchtime on a February afternoon earlier this year, the relatively modern CTV building was reduced to a mound of rubble in a matter of seconds. 116 lives were lost. Now, as anguish turns to anger in New Zealand's second largest city we assess disturbing allegations that the building was fatally flawed and so many people didn't have to die.

Two scenes from candid cameras tell a troubling story. In one, wild and gravely endangered Sumatran tiger cubs cavort in their forest home. In the next, a bulldozer ploughs through frame. Not far from these hidden lenses are some the world's biggest paper producers and serious questions are being asked about their impact on remote, delicate ecosystems. And as Australia wrestles with its carbon future why are some of our biggest retailers stocking tonnes of office paper produced by the world's largest paper plant under some of the world's biggest greenhouse plumes?

It's very rare and you'll only find it up in the very rare air. And even if you have the lungs, stamina and perseverance to get there you'll need razor-sharp eyes, hardy hands and knees and plenty of patience to find it. So what is it? Well it's part-monster, part-mummy and depending on who you talk to it has a multitude of super powers from heart health to sex aid. On one of the strangest journeys we've ever undertaken, we go in search of, er - what to call it? The mile-high grub? No.

It's a harrowing human drama growing more urgent by the day. Hundreds of thousands of lives are at stake, among them tens of thousands of children in immediate danger of starving to death. As the world's attention swings between chaotic swoops and loops in global financial markets and rampaging looters stomping a glass-shard-strewn swathe through the UK's high streets, an epic humanitarian emergency is struggling for attention. Now, Foreign Correspondent shines a light on the famine in - and tragic exodus out of - Somalia. You can help.

Diamonds ignite passions. They symbolize beauty, glamour and romance. But how can something so beautiful also bring so much harm? In Zimbabwe they've been at the centre of violence and bloodshed that until now has been shrouded in a massive cover-up. Now - in this special investigation - we present compelling documentary evidence of an army-led massacre of workers in a remote diamond field and ask where the orders came from.

It's home to a movie studio that helped shape the world's enduring image of the British. In the years following WW2, Ealing produced quaint, loveable comedies and stout, rousing dramas which defined the Brits as mannered, enterprising, stoic and quick-witted. Then one night, earlier this month, Ealing produced something very different - a shocking, real-life horror show. The quiet, comfortable London suburb was suddenly under siege from hoards of rampaging hoodies. Who were they, what drove the madness and will Ealing and other trashed neighbourhoods ever be the same again?

He compares Islam to communism and fascism, the Koran to Mein Kampf and he holds the balance of power in the Netherlands. Geert Wilders is Europe's incendiary, polarising Stop-And-Go-Back man and he won't rest until he kills multiculturalism stone dead and shows Islam the door. Just a decade ago, the Netherlands was one of the most welcoming countries in Europe now it's leading Europe's anti-immigration backlash. Wilders went to ground after 69 people were massacred in Norway by an anti-immigration fanatic. Now, in his first interview since that atrocity, he's as strident and determined as ever and he wants to bring his message to Australia.

In the shadow of a giant nuclear power plant, a determined woman refuses to budge from her little wooden shack. She's not going to let the powerful nuclear company take her family home - no matter how many millions of dollars they wave at her. The stubborn stand-off has become an inspiration for a widening resistance to nuclear power in Japan where more and more people are refusing to accept the industry's safety assurances. They're pointing to the recent Fukushima catastrophe and saying we don't want that here.

What would happen if people around the world who are concerned about the plight of Palestinians all stopped buying Israeli products and ceased using Israeli services and urged many more to do the same? Would their actions alter the course of events, change an intractable stand-off, succeed where so many peace proposals, special envoys, intense diplomacy and of course armed conflict have persistently failed? We go behind the global grassroots campaign railing against Israel with boycotts.

In Shangri-La, once you visit you may never want to leave. The mystical, magical, mythical destination is supposed to be a heaven on earth. China's real Shangri-La - high in the mountains of the south west - is a picture of blissful simplicity but it's beginning to rumble and grow. The surrounding countryside is home to many ethnic Tibetans leading uncomplicated, rudimentary lives but they're about to feel the winds of change. China's economic boom is closing in on Shangri-La and the locals will need to get ready for what's coming their way. An Australian is helping them prepare.

It launched with massive fanfare and a radical agenda to change the way news was reported. It offered anonymity to whistleblowers and a platform to freely publish information to a global audience. WikiLeaks was an instant sensation as it exposed the hidden deeds of governments and corporations. But now its controversial founder Julian Assange finds himself isolated - deserted by many of his former partners and friends and fighting extradition. His organisation is damaged and can't currently receive the leaks that are its lifeblood. Can WikiLeaks survive?

After Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, will Syria be the next Arab dictatorship to fall to people power? For months a popular uprising has been fighting an unseen and bloody battle against the Syrian regime. But despite being cut off from the outside world, a determined group of activists has been secretly filming inside Syria and can now tell the dramatic story of those struggling against President Assad and the truth about his brutal crackdown against his own people.

Who would have thought that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints would ever become this hip? There's a multi award-winning Broadway blockbuster based on Mormon missionaries, two TV series featuring polygamous families, a slick new advertising campaign aiming to demystify the religion and two Presidential candidates who also happen to be of the faith. It all adds up to what's being called "a Mormon moment". But popular culture success may not be enough to overcome the deep suspicions many Americans still harbour towards what some regard as a heretical, secretive cult. Is America really ready to vote for a Mormon President?

With their country finally liberated from the Gaddafi regime, thousands of Libyans who fled decades ago in fear of their lives are at last free to come home. We accompany the prominent opposition figure Mansour El Kikhia on his emotional journey from the United States, where he campaigned against Gaddafi for 33 years, to his home city of Benghazi, where the revolution that eventually overthrew the regime began, and on to Tripoli, where a transitional government is taking its first tentative steps in remaking the country.

Just nine months ago, Egyptians were celebrating their revolution and savouring their sweet victory. Hundreds of thousands of protesters camping in Cairo's Tahrir Square stared down the 30-year dictatorship of President Hosni Mubarak. Foreign Correspondent was there for the moment of triumph as he was forced from power. But was it really a victory or has the revolution been hijacked? We return to Tahrir Square, and the charismatic woman at the centre of our story, Salma el Tarzi, to find out what happened next.

There's no doubt asbestos is a dirty, deadly word. In Australia the scandals of Wittenoom and the long-running James Hardie saga have ensured a widespread awareness that asbestos kills often slowly and painfully. In a career uncovering the health hazards of asbestos, reporter Matt Peacock might have thought he'd seen it all. Then he went to India. In a global investigation, we expose a shocking trade and follow the dusty trail from the sub-continent back to another nation readily exporting the stuff it considers too dangerous for locals. Canada.

Banking used to be the very model of prudence. Now much of it resembles an extreme sport where the line between risk and recklessness has been wiped out. As the Occupy movement moves in on major cities around the world, we meet some of the extreme players who crashed and burned mountains of other people's money, and ask are rogue traders really maverick loners or products of a system that's thrown away the rule book?

The secret agents had been buzzing around China Correspondent Stephen McDonell so intrusively he knew he had to make them a part of the story but the moment he made that decision they vanished. What did he do to ensure they'd come rushing back into view to star in his story? What happened when Mark Corcoran found himself in Egypt's Tahrir Square and at the centre of one of 2011's biggest stories and began to lose his voice? When Japan shook, Mark Willacy was on assignment in Japan's south far from his young family in a shaking, shuddering Tokyo. How did they cope? All the answers ahead as we take you behind some of the year's assignments.