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 Australian…
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, t…
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 …
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 'qu…
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 wor…
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…
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-Semi…
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…
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 expa…
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 thic…
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 affl…
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 li…
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 …
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 Y…
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 …
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 …
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 t…
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…
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 so…
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 suppor…
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…
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 …
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 los…
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…
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 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 swo…
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…
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, stoi…
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 multiculturalis…
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 h…
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 o…
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 simplic…
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 ex…
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 out…
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 ne…
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 jo…
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. Forei…
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 …
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 …
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 b…

