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Australia's leading international affairs program featuring fascinating, in-depth stories from the ABC's unrivalled network of foreign correspondents.
1996
2009
Which way is Mecca in space? Helen Vatsikopoulos ponders this and other imponderables when she meets Malaysia’s “it” man, the hunky former male model Dr Sheik Muszaphar Shukor, who’s become the country’s first astronaut.
2015
For the first time ever Palestine's football team qualified for the Asian Cup, played in Australia. We follow the highs and lows as players are caught up in a brutal war at home and dramas on and off the pitch in Australia.
2016
Does gender equality free women from family violence? Campaigner Rosie Batty & reporter Sally Sara journey to gender equality heartland, Sweden to find out. What they discover will surprise.
2023
Japan is confronting the possibility of war. New military bases on the country's remote southwest islands have the locals worried about the impact on their idyllic life and the prospect of becoming a target.
2017
Thousands of travellers, many of them young Australians, are flocking to the Amazon to chase the highs of the ayahuasca plant. Tragically, some never return. Hamish Macdonald investigates.
2018
This is the inside story of 104-year-old activist David Goodall's last days in Europe as he farewells family and campaigns for the right to die, up to his final hour.
Australia is detaining, cuffing and deporting more New Zealanders than any other group. Guest reporter Peter FitzSimons finds it's riling Kiwis and straining relations across The Ditch. Is this how we treat an old mate?
2014
With breathtaking speed, Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered the armed takeover of a key part of a neighbouring country and dared the world to do something about it. Eric Campbell is there for the countdown.
For 50 years David Frost has shared the world’s stage with the powerful, rich and famous – and this week he shares it with Foreign Correspondent’s Mark Corcoran.
What would you do if you discovered your adopted children were stolen and trafficked, and not willingly given up by their parents, as you’d believed? South Asia correspondent Sally Sara investigates the insidious trade of children in India, and joins an Australian family in their moving search for the truth.
In Antarctica the race is on for scientific supremacy and to find an ice-scientist’s Holy Grail … a 1,000,000-year-old ice core. It’s thought that’s where the secrets to understanding global warming have been snap frozen. And the best place to look – the vast Australian Antarctic Territory.
South Asia correspondent Sally Sara with the cricket tragics of Lahore, as Pakistan is wiped from world cricket's tour map.
Washington correspondent Tracy Bowden uncovers one of the biggest killers in America - the US health system. Lack of insurance is now the third leading cause of death in the US, after cancer and heart disease.
Dambisa Moyo is a Zambian-born economist who says aid is killing Africa. In her new book, Dead Aid, she argues that official aid is easy money that fosters corruption and distorts economies, creating a culture of dependency and economic laziness.
Cholera is a preventable disease, yet there’s an epidemic raging in Zimbabwe. At least 4,000 are dead, and some 90,000 infected. Filming secretly and posing as tourists, reporter Andrew Geoghegan and producer Mary Ann Jolley uncover the true extent of the crisis.
China’s exponential growth took Australia along for the white-knuckled ride. It fuelled our resources boom and had economic optimists forecasting decades of good times. How things change.
He’ll have you believe he’s a quiet goat farmer and a keen horseman who just happens to think he might make an ideal Indonesian President one day. But looks can be deceiving and there’s little doubt Prabowo Subianto’s pursuit of Indonesia’s top job will be ruthlessly efficient and purposeful.
When people in remote villages in Zanskar get sick, chances are they’ll turn to the “Oracle”. The Oracle is a faith healer who goes into a trance so a Tibetan spirit can take over and dispense medical advice. It’s all part of a complex system of folk healing that has spread to this isolated district in north-west India, from neighbouring Tibet.
He's in the fast lane to the top in South Africa but there’s powerful evidence the man following the trail blazed by Mandela has been on the take. Reporter Andrew Fowler investigates whether Jacob Zuma - the man most likely to become the next President of South Africa – took bribes from a French arms company.
They were hiding for their lives, hunted by gunmen who’d brought India’s biggest city to a standstill. In this chilling ‘insider's’ account of a terrorist siege, two Australian business people tell of their remarkable survival trapped inside Mumbai’s Oberoi Hotel, during the attacks last November.
It’s turned out some fearsome warriors in the past but can America’s prestigious military academy West Point manufacture the brass that will ultimately prevail in what’s now being dubbed ‘Obama’s War’ – Afghanistan?
How and why did a bunch of illiterate, dirt poor Africans transform themselves from simple cray-fishermen into the fearsome, gun-toting gangs mugging giant, sophisticated shipping off the coast of Somalia and gouging multi-million dollar ransoms? Marauding foreign fishing fleets took their lobsters.
Very few have seen it in the wild but those who have say it’s the most beautiful of the big cats. The Snow Leopard prowls the roof of the world in dwindling numbers. Can it be saved?
For more than four decades, tens of thousands of Colombians have been kidnapped or killed in South America’s longest-running civil war. Now Colombia’s hard-line president Alvaro Uribe insists it’s coming to an end. But will this country's most popular president ever, win the right to run for a third term in office? And at what cost to South America's oldest democracy?
It was big, it was shiny and it was brassy. Few things symbolised the wealth and optimism of a post-war America more than the big car and the Motown sound. And perhaps few things symbolise the decline of American capitalism more than the sight of the country’s biggest car makers going cap in hand to Washington begging for a bail out. General Motors has until June 1 to come up with a survival plan, or face bankruptcy.
Every year thousands of young Australians pack their backpacks, book their EuRail passes and make for Europe, leaving their parents to worry and fret about their wellbeing and their ability to cope with foreign languages and customs. God forbid anything should happen to them.
They're big men with even bigger secrets. The cloistered world of Sumo hides myriad rituals and traditions, bone-jarring training schedules even humiliating and painful punishment. As scandal rocks Japan's venerable sport, Foreign Correspondent opens the door on life inside a Sumo stable.
Foreign Correspondent presenter and reporter Mark Corcoran, who has spent a decade observing the dangerous world of South Asian narco-politics, takes us on a journey through Afghanistan's dark political underbelly.
How did a 15 year old boy, Alexandros Grigoropoulos, shot by a policeman in Athens six months ago become a cause celebre? Why was his name and the manner of his death invoked by students, anarchists and even terrorists as epitomising all that is wrong with the Greek government?
In a Venezuelan slum a young girl practices on her clarinet and dreams a big musical dream. On a stage in New York City an 80 year old clarinettist takes his final bow to rapturous applause. The two are worlds apart but joined by the profound, elevating forces of music.
It’s raw, it’s instant and it’s rocked authoritarian Iran and riveted world attention. It’s the phenomenal new-media broadcast by Iran’s angry, dissenting young that’s capturing a disturbing, perhaps defining collision of rebellion and repression. Digital dissent vs. bullets and batons - will the new technologies bring change in Iran?
A perilous year undercover - ducking the authorities and informers and risking decades in jail – has resulted in an unforgettable Foreign Correspondent with a team of Burmese cameraman capturing the plight of a pitiful new cast of Burmese – The Orphans of the Storm.
Kilometres of high concrete walls snake through Belfast in Northern Ireland - graffiti daubed and grim. They divide Catholic neighbourhoods from Protestant. They’re called the Peace Walls. But do they keep the enduring hatred and suspicion locked outside or inside?
The Uighurs. Who are they and why is the Chinese government flattening vast tracts of their magnificent cultural capital, Kashgar? Is it for safety or to secure against separatists and potential terrorism?
It's an idyllic tropical atoll, but amid the coconut groves are billions of dollars of high-tech surveillance equipment. Mark Corcoran reveals a hitherto top-secret, Club Med style nuclear missile test range which "sees" everything that moves across a third of the globe and in deep space.
When Venezuela’s socialist firebrand Hugo Chavez lost his best enemy and saw global capitalism teeter you might think he’d be jumping for joy. Not so.
A year ago Foreign Correspondent flew into the scandalously unsafe skies over PNG to examine why the nation’s aviation industry sustains so many fatal accidents and dangerous incidents then struggles to examine those crashes and near misses and fails to apply stricter safety standards.
They’ve been scarred so deeply they’re shockingly disfigured and yet they’ve refused to bow their heads or withdraw from the world. They’re the remarkable women who’ve survived acid attack and who have overcome their injuries to transform their lives.
It’s a staggering national habit and it’s grown into a juggernaut of a killing machine claiming an annual toll eclipsing the Aceh tsunami. Welcome to the warning-free, smoking free-for-all that’s become Big Tobacco’s big new frontier.
Are mobile phones the new blood diamond? Is our insatiable appetite for the latest electronic gadgets actually fuelling despair, deprivation and oppression in another part of the world … even threatening the survival of central Africa’s magnificent gorillas?
Most African adoptions don’t have a Hollywood ending. A Foreign Correspondent investigation in Ethiopia exposes a booming international adoption trade out of control – mothers duped into surrendering their children and some foreign families unsure if their adopted child was really an orphan after all.
In Iceland, the financial crisis is called the kreppa and a year after it hit, the whole country is still well and truly in it. Thousands are losing their homes, unemployment is ten times higher and Britain is demanding it pay back billions of dollars lost in Icelandic investments.
He’s got money to burn, enormous political and personal power, and well, a problem. Beautiful women. Why can’t Silvio Berlusconi behave himself and why do Italians shrug off his sexual escapades and say so what?
Paul Kenyon travels three thousand miles along the most dangerous illegal immigration route out of Africa. Many die crossing the Sahara, or at sea on the way to a better future in Europe - but can the survivors convince those who follow, that Europe in recession is no longer worth the risk?
In California massive wildfires are met with massive force – but it comes with a multimillion dollar price tag. With fires on the increase around the world, is money and manpower the answer or is there a better way?
It’s claimed Japan’s ferocious and feared Yakuza murder, extort and intimidate according to an honour code. But where is the honour in the squalid new enterprise now adding to their billion dollar criminal turnover?
What brought down Air France flight 447? The families, friends and fellow workers of the 228 people who perished when the Rio-Paris flight ditched in the Atlantic mid-year are all desperate for answers. But with airlines relying on outmoded technology that may never happen.
With its giant wind farms and pedal-pushing population, Denmark looks like a model global citizen setting a shining green example for all comers to the Copenhagen Climate Summit. Look a little closer though and there are some grubby realities.
Foreign Correspondent’s 2009 spins to a close with an inside look at the stories, characters and issues that moved, provoked and enthralled our audience. It’s a fascinating, behind the scenes edition featuring some things we didn’t show you along with updates, insights and candid reflections from some of the team.
Foreign Correspondent follows the remarkable journey of a Vietnamese adoptee as she desperately searches for the mother she lost nearly 40 years ago.
An exclusive with the Mayor of London - Boris Johnson. Philip Williams follows the star of British politics across London and asks: What challenges will he face if he gets the top job of Prime Minister?
Penguins and partying, Foreign Correspondent travels to Antarctica, the world's biggest natural laboratory, but it's not all work and no play for the dedicated scientific community who live there. Eric Campbell reports.
Hundreds of young Western educated women are running away from home to marry radical Islamic fighters and live in the self declared "Islamic State" in Syria and Iraq. We go into the secret world of the online recruiters.
In the slums of India, lives are being changed by an Australian enterprise providing jobs & clean energy to some of the poorest people on the planet. South Asia correspondent Stephanie March reports.
Qatar's triumphant bid for the 2022 World Cup is under fire not just because of the FIFA corruption scandal. Migrant workers now building its multi-billion dollar facilities endure wretched living & working conditions.
A French photo-journalist tells how he survived 10 months as a hostage of Islamic State terrorists while five of his fellow captives were taken away and beheaded. Should ransoms have been paid to save their lives.
Once shackled by mass illiteracy, South Korea now tops global academic league tables. But as North Asia Correspondent Matthew Carney reports, its stressed out students also rank as the unhappiest in the developed world.
Foreign Correspondent goes in search of a baby boy who was born via surrogacy in India but left behind by his Australian parents. Samantha Hawley reports.
With just minutes to spare, mother-of-two Mary Jane Veloso escaped the firing squad that executed Australia's Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran. Find out how she was saved and whether she will make it home to her children.
Greece is broke but now has to deal with a flood of foreign boat people fleeing war and poverty. From the picture postcard island of Kos, Barbara Miller reports on the great migration.
Sally Sara journeys across Ireland to discover why this conservative Catholic country became the first in the world to say yes to gay marriage in a popular vote.
For the first time, journalist Peter Greste reports his own story: the trumped up terrorism charges, his 400 days in Egyptian jails, and the long hard fight for freedom of speech.
Peter Greste's own story of his joyful homecoming after 400 days in an Egyptian jail - and the tense build-up to the final verdict on terrorism charges.
A diving stock market, a wobbling economy and a new security crackdown: where is China heading? Tapping into voices you've never heard, Stephen McDonell reports on the changing face of the superpower.
With the US poised to lift its 55 year trade embargo, reporter Eric Campbell tells the remarkable story of how one American farming family befriended Fidel Castro and helped end Cuba's isolation.
Sally Sara meets the grass roots, social media-driven activists who are turning politics on its head in Spain. Now that they've got the power, what will they do with it?
Donald Trump was supposed to crash and burn but he is streaking ahead of his rivals in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. Emma Alberici asks why the bombastic billionaire is defying the pundits.
The inspirational story of a former Buddhist monk and the home he built for abandoned children in the Himalayan foothills. His newest charge, a traumatised little girl called Tashi, is his toughest challenge so far.
Carpenter Barry Kirby's life turned upside down when he chanced upon a young woman dying on a bush road. The Australian tradie became a doctor with a mission: saving women's lives in the wilds of Papua New Guinea.
It's the war the world forgot. At Europe's side door nearly 8000 people have been killed and 1.5 million have fled their homes. Correspondent Matt Brown reports from devastated eastern Ukraine.
As key climate talks start in Paris, Eric Campbell looks at potential solutions to global warming - from Costa Rica's thermal power to giant North Sea wind farms and California's solar start ups.
In a Foreign Correspondent special, Sally Sara takes to the streets of Baltimore & Chicago to investigate a reawakened civil rights movement that's fighting to stop the killing of black Americans.
After 10 years as the ABC's China Correspondent, Stephen McDonell looks back at the big stories of his time based in Beijing and asks where the country is headed.
In the final Foreign Correspondent for 2015, Mark Corcoran reveals how the digital revolution is changing the way we get the news from around the world.
They're back. The crazy loans that triggered the Global Financial Crisis have morphed into "zombie mortgages" and as Paul Barry discovers, they're cutting a swathe through some American cities.
A mob sexual assault on young women revellers on New Year’s Eve snapped Germany’s celebrated tolerance of mass migration. What happened? Why was it hushed up? How has it changed the nation?
Liam Cochrane travels to the source of most of Australia’s heroin - the vast opium fields of Myanmar, where poppy production has more than doubled in a decade. What will it take to stop the opium trade?
Inside the life of Pino Maniaci, the irrepressible Sicilian journalist who campaigns daily against the Mafia, defying constant threats to his life.
A budding ski industry has sprung up in the remote alps of Afghanistan. But this enterprise – and the local people - face the menace of a resurgent Taliban.
Undercover cameras provide a rare window into one of the world's most secretive countries, revealing how Saudi Arabia ruthlessly crushes internal dissent - and how some people are fighting back.
Thousands of Australians book their holidays on cheap foreign airlines - but how safe are they? This special report reveals troubling evidence about the safety of some Asian budget carriers.
Hairy hipsters, beautiful girls, funky cafes, pulsing live music - this is modern Iran, where young artists and musicians are testing the tolerance of the Islamic regime. Matt Brown reports.
A giant leap for mankind or a hazardous lurch into the unknown? A tiny Australian venture is racing to rule the skies, as drone companies vie to deliver mail, medicines & pizzas to your door. Zoe Daniel reports.
Mark Willacy travels to radiation-poisoned Fukushima to uncover startling new evidence about the dangers that still lurk there and the near insurmountable task of cleaning it up.
Anatomy of a military scandal. Why did US forces attack a Medecins Sans Frontieres hospital in Afghanistan, killing 42 people? An Aussie doctor is among the survivors who tell their chilling stories.
Quit Europe or stay? It's the English who hold the whip in hand in the coming UK vote - and many want out. So what's up with the Poms? Lisa Millar explores the essence of "Englishness".
A puff of rumour grew into a tempest of accusations and led to the jailing of seven people for alleged child abuse at an elite international school in Jakarta. Was justice served or was it a case of moral panic?
As supporters battle to free seven people jailed in a child abuse scandal at an elite Indonesian school, Foreign Correspondent digs into the evidence - and turns up some surprises.
It's the question posed after Orlando & every other massacre: Will America ever regulate guns? Lisa Millar revisits a mother who lost her little boy to a mass shooter and who - remarkably - sees positive signs of change.
It deposed tyrant Saddam Hussein but caused hundreds of thousands of deaths, lit sectarian conflict and helped the rise of ISIS. Was the Iraq war justified? Thirteen years on, a major inquiry is set to pass judgment.
How do you free troubled kids from the violence and poverty of South Africa's broken townships? For starters, you teach them surfing. Sally Sara reports on the idea that's inspiring youngsters to unleash their best.
Eight or more students shot, universities boycotted, a Prime Minister fighting for his political life. Eric Tlozek looks behind the unrest afflicting Australia's nearest neighbour, PNG.
As China's economy stumbles, Matthew Carney taps into the anger of a growing mass of unemployed workers and meets a labour activist who's risking his freedom to fight for their rights.
As the world's newest nation teeters on the brink of civil war, the young people of South Sudan are pushing back, seeking peace through music and the power of radio. Sally Sara reports.
Hamish Macdonald obtains exclusive access to rebel Republicans as they plot to railroad Donald Trump's presidential campaign.
A generation of athletes treated like lab rats by their own country. Sarah Dingle reports on the human cost of the widespread doping programs run by the former East Germany in the 70s and 80s.
In a playground of international powers, it’s children who are dying from bombs, bullets and hunger. Sophie McNeill and cameraman Aaron Hollett report from the Yemen war zone.
For the first time ever, white Britons are a minority in London. This film delves into the lives of the dwindling cockney tribe of the East End as they struggle with immigration, "white flight" and loss of identity.
More than 60 million Chinese children are growing up without their parents, paying the price of their country's dash to prosperity. Matthew Carney reports on the generation left behind.
When award-winning Australian filmmaker Bob Connolly reunites with the characters of his acclaimed PNG Highlands trilogy, he is shocked at how their fortunes have changed.
Elephants roaming Scandinavia, wolves chasing bison in Europe - endangered animals are being reintroduced to wild places as part of a radical and controversial idea called "re-wilding".
Oil-rich Norway has adopted the radical goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2030. But, as Eric Campbell reports, there's a catch to this green revolution.
Who'll be next? Fear and paranoia grip Turkey after a failed coup and a payback purge, as Sally Sara reports.
He was a showman, a wheeler-dealer & one-time rank outsider who shocked Washington's establishment. Now he's set to lead the free world. So who is President Trump? Emma Alberici reports.
Independent Russian journalists forced to flee their homes following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, have been given sanctuary in neighbouring Latvia where they are broadcasting news of the war to counter Putin's propaganda.
In the Philippines online child sex abuse is flourishing and demand by Australian perpetrators for live streaming is increasing. Reporter Stephanie March embeds with police who are catching abusers and rescuing children.
The extraordinary Sepik River region in Papua New Guinea, known as the second Amazon, is under threat.Tensions are running high over logging and a mine proposal amidst claims of land grabs, police brutality, even killings.
In Cambodia, Chinese organised crime syndicates are running global cyber scam operations using workers who have been trafficked and enslaved in secure compounds. The syndicates have strong ties to the ruling Hun Sen regime.
Somalia is one of the most dangerous places on earth. Almost two decades of terrorism has taken a huge toll. Now the African nation is facing its worst drought in 40 years with significant areas on the brink of famine.
Three years after Brexit and Britain is broken. The country's cost of living crisis is now fuelling separatist movements. In Wales where one in three children live in poverty, the call for independence is getting louder.
The island paradise of Fiji is a popular tourist destination. But away from the resorts the reality of climate change with devastating cyclones and rapidly rising sea levels is forcing Fijians to change to survive.
The Persian Gulf nation of Bahrain is reinventing itself as a liberal oasis and its capital Manama has become the place to party for young Saudis who can do things that are forbidden in their own country.
The US State of Florida has become the centre of America's culture wars as Governor Ron DeSantis pursues a right-wing agenda focused on gender and race laws which some hope will take him all the way to the White House.
North Korean defectors overcome huge odds to escape to a new life in the south but instead of finding happiness they are often overcome with loneliness and isolation. Still living in fear, they rarely speak out publicly.
Fentanyl is the main source of drug overdoses in the United States, supplied by the infamous Mexican Sinaloa cartel. The drug is making a fortune for the cartel, we go inside to see the luxurious lifestyle.
It's almost a decade since ISIS forces swept through Iraq and Syria but the legacy of their brutal caliphate remains. The Yazidis of northern Iraq were slaughtered and enslaved by ISIS. Today the search continues for the missing Yazidis who have still not returned home.
Thousands of statues stolen from temples across Cambodia and sold to collectors and museums are being tracked down as part of a global treasure hunt. The inside story of how several stolen antiquities ended up in Australia.
In India the Modi Government is being accused of waging a war on Bollywood, the country's most powerful cultural force. Filmmakers who criticise the government or resist pressure to produce pro-Hindu content face a backlash.
Almost a year since widespread protests over women's rights erupted on the streets of Iran, young Iranians who are still defying the country's repressive regime, talk about the price they are prepared to pay for freedom.
In Canada Australian firefighters join an international team in a desperate battle to help combat the nation's worst forest fires in recorded history. An area of 32 million acres has been scorched in this climate catastrophe.
In Germany an anti-State 'sovereign citizens' group is increasingly engaged in acts of terrorism. Intelligence authorities are worried about its connections with a right-wing extremist party gaining popularity in the polls.
A year after the Uvalde school shooting in Texas the community is still traumatised. They're angry about the inadequate police response on the day and they're determined to change the law on the sale of deadly assault rifles.
Barbados was the first British slave society in the Caribbean. Now, two years after becoming a republic, there is a growing demand for institutions and the descendants of slave owners to make amends for the sins of the past.
NBA superstar LeBron James has put his name and his money behind an extraordinary social experiment in his hometown of Akron. Paul Kennedy travels to Ohio to see how the plan is coming to life - and whether it's working.
A billion-dollar illegal drug trade is funding the Syrian regime under President Bashar al-Assad. Insiders reveal details of the drug operations and the links to members of the president's family and the Syrian Armed Forces.
Argentina is on its knees with inflation rates over 100 percent and 40 percent of the population living in poverty. There's hope that mining the country's vast supply of the rare metal lithium could solve the current crisis.
Before the war, 2023 had been the deadliest year for Jews and Palestinians in the occupied West Bank in 15 years. This program looks at the rising tensions between the two before the brutal terror attack by Hamas.
It's got more oil than any country on the planet but its people eat garbage and gangsters rule. Defying a media ban, Eric Campbell goes undercover in the onetime socialist idyll of Venezuela.
India's building boom has spawned a "sand mafia" that is plundering the environment and even killing those who get in its way. But as Samantha Hawley reports, some people refuse to be intimidated.
China is executing a masterplan to dominate world football, pumping billions of dollars into buying foreign players, coaches & entire European clubs & grooming new generations of its own young stars.
It's famed as the city of peace and love, but San Francisco is digging in for a fight over President Trump's order to expel millions of undocumented migrants. Stephanie March reports.
A band of inspired young Australians are deploying a new weapon against a global scourge - the great gobs of plastic polluting our oceans. Europe Correspondent Lisa Millar tells how they're doing it.
Foreign Correspondent tells the true story behind the legendary movie The Great Escape - and the overlooked role of Australians in breaking out of the "escape proof" German POW camp.
Foreign Correspondent takes a spectacular journey into the wilds of Mongolia in search of an ancient, imperilled tradition - the Kazakh golden eagle hunters.
Australia is a tough place to buy a home. But we're not alone. So what are other countries doing to tackle high cost housing - and what bright ideas can we pinch from them? Hamish Macdonald hosts this special report.
In this special tribute episode to Mark Colvin Foreign Correspondent reports on his legacy as a foreign correspondent, as well as a virtual correspondent, harnessing Twitter as a portal to dive into big, breaking stories.
For the first time, British investigators tell the inside story of the bizarre murder of former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko. In a tale that's stranger than fiction, a teapot is the murder weapon.
British investigators continue to tell the inside story of the bizarre murder of former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko. In a tale that's stranger than fiction, a teapot is the murder weapon.
Labour is praying for one of history's great comebacks in Britain's election. But something once unthinkable may be happening in Wales. Are the tough, working class Welsh flirting with the Tories? Philip Williams reports.
A Foreign Correspondent exclusive: Unprecedented access inside Bali's notorious Kerobokan jail.
A new space race is on, as tech companies rush to launch thousands of tiny satellites that will tell us more about what's happening on our planet than ever before. But will the information be used for good, or for harm?
ABC NEWS & The New York Times collaborate on a special in which New York Times National Correspondent John Eligon examines the state of race relations in Australia through the fresh eyes of a journalist from Missouri.
Tiny Estonia is digging in against potential attacks from its giant neighbour Russia. And it's employing defences far more creative than guns and boots on the ground. Eric Campbell reports.
Matt Brown reports from Kenya on a radical cash experiment that challenges our deep-rooted notions of charity and may hold the seeds of a revolution in social welfare.
Jamaica's rich music heritage got hijacked by a vicious and violent brand of homophobia. But along came a new generation of artists who, with a little help from the Internet, are wresting it back. Eric Campbell reports.
Terror at a pop concert. Children die. Sirens, grief, fury. How does a city recover? Hamish Macdonald deep dives into Manchester's Muslim community to find hard & revealing conversations going on.
Thousands of people have been caught up in a brutal new ISIS battleground on Australia's doorstep. One of them was ABC correspondent Adam Harvey, who took a bullet to the neck. This is his story, and theirs.
Foreign Correspondent returns for a new season. Rising sea levels threaten to flush a vast stash of highly radioactive plutonium into the Pacific Ocean. But thats not the only toxic fallout from a legacy of nuclear tests.
Vladimir Putin crushes opponents, but a growing army of young Russians are fighting back. Their gift to the strongman on his 65th birthday? A show of defiance and a demand to quit. Eric Campbell reports.
He fled Saddam Hussein's brutality to become detainee #982 in an Australian refugee camp. Now Munjed al-Muderis is a world-leading surgeon giving amputees a second chance at life. Sophie McNeill tells his inspiring story.
While Australia says 'yes', the country with more gay people than most says an implacable 'no'. But in China, a determined group of young men and women just won't take no for an answer, as Matthew Carney reports.
The old is new. Ditching conventional careers, a generation of hip young Italians is rediscovering the grand tradition of "Made in Italy". Hamish Macdonald takes an exhilarating road trip to meet them.
A year into Donald Trump's presidency resurgent white supremacists are preaching hate. Now left-wing activists are hitting back with their own shock tactics. Stephanie March goes inside a controversial radical group.
A cruel trade is tearing baby orangutans from their jungle homes to be sold abroad. Samantha Hawley gets a smuggler's story - and meets the warriors risking their lives to save the great apes from extinction.
Is the world going mad when Greenlanders fight drought & brushfires & catch warm water fish? A decade after seeing a farming boom in Greenland, Eric Campbell returns to see how locals face climate change.
A tropical paradise is racked with bankruptcy then smashed by a killer hurricane. In rides a cavalry of digital evangelists selling hi-tech revolution. Will they save the day? Eric Campbell reports.
Are attacks on white South African farmers aimed at terrorising them off the land? Should Australia offer them special haven, as some MPs here have suggested? Jonathan Holmes investigates.
China sent Australia's recycling industry into a spin when it banned most waste imports. Now it's tackling a home-grown rubbish crisis. Bill Birtles looks at China's own war on waste and asks: is it winning?
There's a new push in Australia to build giant incinerators to burn waste. Is this the way to go? Those clever Swedes think so. Foreign Correspondent sends War on Waste's Craig Reucassel to Sweden to investigate.
Sean Dorney got thrown out of PNG for his reporting yet he received one of its top honours. He skippered its footy team and fell for a local girl. Now suffering motor neurone disease, he makes an emotional final visit.
Berlin was Holocaust headquarters - but for young Israeli Jews it's the paragon of cool. Eric Campbell tracks one of the odder modern migrations as he goes inside Berlin's Jewish diaspora in Homeland.
Is it OK for a man to proposition a woman in the street or at work? Some leading French women say yes. In Paris, guest reporter Annabel Crabb asks what happens when #MeToo rubs up against Pepe Le Pew.
A wild piece of coast was threatened by malls and McMansions... until a reclusive billionaire couple arrived with the gift of a lifetime. Zoe Daniel reports.
China is marrying Big Brother to Big Data. Every citizen will be watched and their behaviour scored in the most ambitious and sophisticated system of social control in history. Matthew Carney reports.
It's a Greek tale of tragedy, heroism and mind-blowing incompetence. Eric Campbell tells the story of the world's deadliest bushfire since Australia's Black Saturday in 2009 - and the fury in its aftermath.
Sally Sara follows the trail of a woman accused of involvement in serious, violent crimes in her homeland. Now living quietly in suburban Australia, the families of the dead are demanding she return to face justice.
In Dubai, Australian Marcus Lee was accused of a multi-million dollar fraud he never committed. But it took him 7 months of jail time and a legal battle lasting years before he and his wife Julie would be free.
In the second part of our exclusive report, Foreign Correspondent hears how Marcus and Julie Lee eventually escaped, and examines the controversial deal in more detail, hearing from all the main players for the first time.
Foreign Correspondent investigates India's booming international surrogacy industry by following Australian couples hoping to start or build their families by paying Indian women to bear them a child.
The uplifting story of a group of gutsy grandmothers from Canada, who have built a remarkable connection with Africa. Led by a powerhouse 89 year-old expat Australian.
Shaker Aamer, hands and feet shackled, was dragged into Camp X-Ray, Guantanamo Bay prison more than 4,500 days ago. No charges, no trial. North America correspondent Lisa Millar inspects the infamous prison, Guantanamo Bay.
The experiences and stories of some of the children convicted of fighting for the Taliban who are currently being held in special prisons across Afghanistan.
Eric Campbell reports from a conflict zone in the South China sea. In a world exclusive, Foreign Correspondent reports from the island dispute threatening war with China.
An immunisation program saw Polio retreat from the developed world - then a concerted campaign in the '80's all but wiped it out in the developing world. So why has Pakistan become a polio hotspot with cases on the rise?
China has changed dramatically since the crackdown and wholesale slaughter in Tiananmen Square 25 years ago. For the first time Australia's embassy staff assemble with their first-hand accounts of the days that stained China.
The Hariri's are an ordinary family who've had their lives shattered by war. Like 2.8 million other Syrian refugees, this family thought they were leaving their home for only a few weeks, but will they ever return?
Hundreds of cannabis businesses are aiming to make it an industry to rival beer. But there is a growing opposition of voices warning that a new Big Tobacco is being created.
As judgement arrives for Australian journalist Peter Greste and his Al Jazeera colleagues in Egypt, family and key players feature in this special report by ABC Middle East correspondent Hayden Cooper.
What happens when a vacuum-sealed, strictly-controlled nation opens its doors and ushers in aggressive international businesses, hungry global developers and curious tourists? Sally Sara reports from Yangon, Myanmar.
Jane Cowan investigates the booming international surrogacy business and an unscrupulous operator preying on the dreams and life savings of clients.
Sally Sara travels into the mountains of Laos, to meet the brave women hunting for bombs.
Foreign Correspondent presents an extraordinarily intimate and confronting journey as a violent, criminal king-pin leaves his turf behind to head to Syria's frontlines to fight a war he doesn't really comprehend.
Scottish/Australian reporter Barbara Miller returns home to see whether the Scots really are prepared to be brave and vote for independence?
Eric Campbell travels to the Arctic Circle in Norway where he reports on a radical experiment being watched by the rest of the world, including Australia.
Foreign Correspondent travels to Dili, East Timor and witnesses a country facing a myriad of health problems. We follow the challenging daily life of Dr Dan Murphy as he treats people overwhelmed by the diseases of poverty.
An in-depth look at the rise of militarism in Japan as tensions with China coincide with major changes to the country's pacifist constitution. The story exposes the deep rifts in Japanese society over the issue.
A special report on the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone. Our team, which was the last camera crew into the hardest hit areas before a Government lockdown, has been at the frontline for one of the worst weeks in the Ebola crisis.
Whether you enjoy tuna on a sandwich, or as sashimi, you need to know that Pacific stocks are being fished out at an alarming rate. Can the small equatorial paradise of Palau turn the tide by banning foreign fishing vessels?
The kingdom of Upper Mustang, Nepal is the last outpost of authentic Tibetan Buddhism. Cut off from modernity, foreigners were banned until 1992. Now a road is being built all the way to China. Can the unique culture survive?
Off an isolated country laneway on a remote area of Irish bog, sophisticated forensic technology is being rolled out in an attempt to crack a notorious cold case.
Sally Sara meets the new generation of Soweto. The black township was once a byword for suffering and squalor but it's always had an unassailable spirit and now it's undergoing a dramatic transformation.
As Australia lifts its terror alert to high, China is intensifying its crackdown on a resident Muslim community in the remote northwest of the country in what it claims is its own war on terror. Stephen McDonell reports.
Sally Sara goes inside some of Kenya's toughest jails to investigate an innovative program that is seeing convicted criminals learn how to set themselves free, using the justice system.
In an Australian TV first, Sophie McNeill hitches a ride on an Italian navy boat as more than 800 people are plucked out of the Mediterranean, just a tiny drop in an ocean of people fleeing Libya to seek asylum in Europe.
2010
If they stay they face intimidation, violence even death. If they go they put their lives and life savings in the hands of people smugglers, run the gauntlet of naval patrols and the perils of the sea itself. They are the Tamils of Sri Lanka and many of them are choosing to take the high water over the hell at home. For some it's a case of if at first you don't succeed, try again.
It's a lifetime. Short, urgent and definitive. One hour to save those who can be saved - soldiers, civilians and the enemy critically wounded in the war in Afghanistan. Another defining feature - the surgeons, medics and patients are very young. Welcome to M.A.S.H. 2010 or to update another long-running American TV show - Gen Y Hospital.
How does a deeply personal spiritual offering from India's poor to their Gods suddenly become a super-expensive, must-have style accessory in the haute salons of Europe, Asia, USA and Australia. Fire up the Benz, cue the hip-hop track and set the GPS for a collision course with faith, fashion and truckloads of money.
A 7 year old Ethiopian girl is portrayed as destitute and in grave danger. She is in fact 13 and has been well cared for much to the surprise of her adopting family. Then there are the children told they're just visiting a foreign land who are in fact on a one way ticket. This is the powerful next instalment of Foreign Correspondent's investigation of international adoption in Ethiopia and the United States that began with 2009's Fly Away Children.
They imagined a breathtaking future-world, burned billions of dollars to summon it out of the sand and hundreds of thousands of expats and investors stampeded into Dubai for a piece of the action. But when the sands suddenly shifted it wasn't going to be quite so easy getting out.
It's thought a single, fluffy pillow killed a Hamas operative in Dubai. But it took 27 secret agents with pilfered passports and a bag of disguises to administer it. We investigate the incredible case of overkill and over-exposure that's astonished even the most hard-boiled of spies.
The dominant face of the United States has long been white. Soon, when the nation looks in the mirror it will see a tanned, smiling Latin American face looking back. In a relatively short space of time a downtrodden minority will become a majority - restless and assertive.
When it comes to stem cells, mainstream scientists in the UK and America tell us their potential is both exciting and unlimited. But, they hasten to add, treatments for most illnesses are still years away and more research needs to happen. For Wilma Clarke, there is no doubt. Her three-year-old daughter, Dakota, born with a rare condition that left her almost blind and suffering from balance problems, can see things that she could not see before.
It's not Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya or Somalia. But it is - arguably - the most dangerous place in the world to be a journalist. That's one reason we know so little about a massacre in November 2009 that claimed the lives of more than 30 reporters.
Beware, Greeks bearing debts! Olympus-sized debts that would give Hercules a double-hernia and that threaten to swamp the nation like some modern day Atlantis. Sink or survive there's plenty of pain ahead in the land of fakelaki. What?
In fashion conscious France it's much more than a simple case of what not to wear. It's a case of what should be illegal to wear. The push is on to outlaw cover-all Islamic dress in public places.
Before Haiti there was Aceh - a catastrophic natural event claiming tens of thousands of lives, destroying towns and villages and drawing enormous global sympathy and billions in aid. What is life like now for those traumatised survivors in this historically divided place?
Is the Chinese economy a bubble that's about to burst, taking Australia down with it? Stephen McDonell looks for answers all over this vast country... from young Beijing rock stars to the owners of the tallest building in China, and the lonely residents of a brand new ghost town in Inner Mongolia.
Few in the world had heard of it and very few could get close to pronouncing its rolling, rambling tongue-twister of a name. And yet - suddenly and spectacularly – a volcano called Eyjafjallajokull impacted millions of lives and blew away billions of dollars. But did the greatest aviation grounding since WW2 really have to happen?
Not so long ago it was thought worry and stress triggered the chronic pain of stomach ulcers. So how would yesterday's doctors have reacted to scores of peaceful, meditating Tibetan monks rolling up to the surgery complaining of crippling pain. Thankfully, new medical science has sorted it all out. Oh and a dedicated team of Australian helpers.
They say they wanted to blow the lid on Japan's super-sensitive whaling program. They were sure they'd found the red-hot evidence. But when they took their find to the authorities they were arrested and charged with crimes that could put them away for 10 years. What was in the box?
It's perched on a perilous fault-line but California can't blame the San Andreas for this big black bottomless pit. It's a frightening financial hole engulfing the most populous state in the USA and there seems no way to fill it. Time to think outside the square. Or, just out of it.
So, you're in a highly sensitive job working on a top secret project but something's not right. In fact you think it's very, very wrong. Go public and you risk your job, perhaps jail – maybe even your life. Stay silent and many other lives may be endangered or life-savings imperilled and malignant corruption festers. What do you do? Hurry – time is ticking!
Suddenly, explosively, the world began to bleed and a devastating stain began to spread. Why did it happen and where will it end? This is the story of cheap mistakes and an almighty mess told by the men who escaped with their lives and people of the gulf coast who've lost their livelihoods.
Both legs blown away by a mine, he sat on a chair outside his family's house and watched the world go by. This was his hopeless lot for five long, bleak years until a life-altering chain of events. He now walks tall, is second-in-charge of the clinic that helped him and feels like he is standing on the sky. Out of strife, a story to ignite the human spirit.
He's a Hummer-driving bachelor with a soft-spot for saccharine R&B love songs, living the high life in Tokyo. And yet there he was on the World Cup centre-stage bawling his eyes out for his beloved North Korea and its so-called Dear Leader, Kim Jong-il. Where on earth does Jong Tae Se come from? Well, prepare to enter the detached and – for some – deluded world of the Zainichi.
Prepare to enter the real Washington DC and prepare to have your illusions shattered. It's where the powerless live. Neglected, poor, black and waiting impatiently for Obama's promise. But they've got one thing that raises the roof, shakes the foundations and makes them forget about being forgotten. It's called Go Go.
The world's car manufacturers are shifting gear and heading for greener pastures. They're designing, building and selling more and more hybrids and electric vehicles and that means they need more and more of a very precious metal for their batteries. But where's The Big Celldorado? A remote, beautiful and vast salt pan high in the Bolivian Andes. Problems? You bet!
Who does Frank Bainimarama think he is? Well, the Fijian ruler will tell you he's the difference between order and political mayhem. Don't get him wrong - he's all for democracy as long as it fits his military's model. And don't call him a dictator! He's simply a well intentioned leader who's abolished the constitution, rules by decree and decides what news is fit to publish. The strongman's opened his doors to Foreign Correspondent and we're walking in.
They're the daughters of the rubble, the sons of the dust. They're the little children who somehow survived the devastating cataclysm that shattered and crushed one of the world's poorest countries – Haiti. Some were already orphans, many more would be made so by the earthquake. The epic quake brought an unimaginable toll and while the outside world tried to help, what could possibly be done for the smallest and most vulnerable?
Is it possible to defuse a terrorist? Can a violent extremist be disarmed, mellowed and transformed into an upright citizen who values human life and religious diversity? These are some of the profound and perplexing questions confronting authorities in Indonesia as they face rampant recidivism among terrorists. Jihadis do their time only to head out of their prison cell and back into a terrorist cell.
It's a place that sends a shiver down a nation's spine, chills its soul and has a people in absolutely no doubt that history does repeat and that lightning indeed strikes twice, in one place. A place called Katyn. It was in this starkly striking forest that 22,000 of Poland's leading lights were brutally snuffed out. Close by, 70 years later a plane carrying Poland's contemporary leadership slammed into the ground. Old suspicions, entrenched animosity and of course conspiracy theories rise up in the smoke.
The world demands answers and here they are, in the most revealing examination to date of the deadly mid-year melee on the Mediterranean. Come aboard the Mavi Marmara as it sails toward Gaza and meet the leaders of the flotilla aiming to bust Israel's blockade of the Palestinian strip. Come inside Israel's top secret naval commando units, hear first person accounts from both sides and witness what really unfolded that fateful, bloody night at sea.
Forget Sex in the City, the steamy, remote jungle is where girls rule, it's sex anytime and anything goes. Bonobos are a fascinating, female-led community of carers and sharers and they're giving scientists profound insights into why we behave the way we behave. Including how human desperation, dysfunction and war are threatening these delightful distant relatives.
They've fooled their families and friends, duped hard-bitten veteran soldiers and somehow managed to grow and prosper under the radar of America's sophisticated military machine. They are the legion of liars and cheats who have fabricated service in the frontlines of war - particularly Iraq and Afghanistan. It's a despicable phenomenon called Stolen Valour. It's boomed since 9/11 and it's infuriating those who really have put their lives on the line and appalling those who've lost loved ones in battle.
Golf instructor. Sailing adventurer. Eagles fan. War Criminal? In Australia he went by the name of Daniel Snedden. In Serbia he's known simply as Captain Dragan and he's feted as a war hero. In neighbouring Croatia he's despised and accused of heinous crimes. As Dragan Vasiljkovic fights his extradition from Australia down to the wire, Foreign Correspondent examines the case for and against, through the accounts of his accusers and the vehement denials of his supporters.
They can almost hear the crackle and boom of economic development to the north and south and now little Laos wants a piece of the action. The ramshackle communist backwater doesn't have much - but it does have a good stretch of the mighty Mekong River and so Laos is planning to build dozens of dams and sell hydro-electricity to a hungry neighbourhood. Can the river they call Mother cope?
He was a Lost Boy with an incredible story, if only someone could help him tell it to the world. And then as Sudan survivor Valentino Deng found himself in a new and very foreign land he also happened to find acclaimed author Dave Eggers. The result was a searing and moving book that became a publishing sensation and catapulted Deng into the celebrity spotlight. But after ‘What Is The What’, what happened next?
This time America's hunters aren’t prepared to be very, very quiet. There's an ornery critter roaming the wilds of the west that they say is devouring native animals and farm stock and they warn it's only a matter of time before a human is attacked and killed. So they're cussin' and hollerin' for the right to hunt down the predator but conservationists and the law won't let 'em. For now, the big wild wolf is protected. So, will they take the law into their own hands?
When things suddenly go BOOM!!! chances are somebody's going to get hurt or something's going to be destroyed. In China it's both. There's a high human cost and a heavy environmental price as a tearaway, juggernaut economy thunders across a vast landscape, spreading toxic effluent and grave illness. And as we try to expose it we're challenged, confronted, threatened and secretly filmed.
It was a bit of electronic skulduggery aimed at getting shock horror, scoop exclusives on Royals, TV celebrities and politicians – anyone with a high profile and a mobile. Simply hack into their phone message bank and turn the juicier stuff into screaming headlines and raucous stories for your tabloid readers. Dead easy! So simple it was almost criminal. Well, err, it was and it’s fuelled a scandal that – just like a pesky pap – refuses to go away.
They're the stories behind the stories we brought you in 2010. How and why did one correspondent end up in a reality TV series? How do you encourage a super suspicious whistle-blower out of the shadows and which of our intrepid correspondents wept when they saw their program? There's a hell of a lot that goes into the making of Foreign Correspondent that you don't see. Here's your chance.
2011
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.
2021
Meet the formidable women in Georgia who fought for democracy and won. They faced generations of racism and voter suppression, inspiring record black voter turnout. Now their sights are set on the American South.
Once a city of protest, now a city of fear. Bill Birtles chronicles freedom's final days as Hong Kong activists face a stark choice: should they stay and fight for democracy, risking jail or flee and campaign from abroad?
He was poisoned, almost blinded, arrested and jailed but Alexei Navalny isn't cowed. He wants to force out President Putin and he's risking his life to do it. The inside story of Navalny's plan to take down the President.
The women are rising. With their men jailed, Belarusian women have stepped on to the frontlines of the revolution. Inspired by a fearless great-grandmother, they won't give up till they've toppled their President.
As Japan commemorates the 10th anniversary of the tsunami, Mark Willacy travels along the north-eastern coast to meet the fishermen and communities affected by a $17 billion project to build a new seawall running 400km.
Bali's natural beauty and rich culture have made it a top holiday destination but since COVID hit the island is struggling. Locals are now questioning their dependence on tourism and the over-development it has unleashed.
New Zealand's clean, green image hides a dirty truth. Polluted by intensive dairy farming, its waterways are some of the most degraded in the world. Will the Ardern government clean it up or will the Maori take control?
Spain has been hit hard by the pandemic, with over seventy thousand dead. Australian Lily Mayers reveals how the nation's people are struggling to survive through a once-in-a-lifetime crisis.
In a world TV exclusive, Sarah Ferguson reports on the fallout of a brutal US immigration policy that tore families apart. She tracks the journey of a mother seeking to reunite with her children after 4 years alone.
For millennia, its waters healed the faithful. Today they're the source of conflict and tension. Eric Tlozek takes us on a spectacular journey through an ancient land to unravel the mysteries of the disappearing Dead Sea.
The fallout from Brexit, as decades of peace are punctured by violence. Will the troubles reignite and Northern Ireland plunge back into violent conflict over a border dispute? Samantha Hawley reports.
Is seeing believing? Not anymore. AI can now make fake video where real people say and do things they never did. Hamish Macdonald reports on deepfakes, the technology some fear will undermine civilisation as we know it.
As China celebrates its Communist Party's centenary, relations between the world's two superpowers are in dire straits. With special access inside China, we explore the deeper forces pushing US-Sino relations to the brink.
There's a tech war being fought between the US and China. While the US has had the edge, China is catching up fast, investing heavily in A.I., robotics and surveillance. Will it overtake the US to dominate the 21st century?
Mongolia's nomadic herders have survived the harsh climate of the steppes for centuries. Now they're facing the new and unpredictable threat of climate change, with more extreme weather. Can these resilient people adapt?
Tens of thousands missing, many more murdered. So why are Mexico's violent drug cartels operating with impunity? We go inside the most powerful cartel to meet the footsoldiers. Corruption, they say, goes right to the top.
A military coup, a young democracy shattered. Six months on Myanmar's Gen Z is resisting, boycotting the military and its businesses. Many are in hiding, some are picking up guns. Is the country on the brink of civil war?
The right to an abortion in the US is on the brink. Guaranteed by the Supreme Court 50 years ago, that right has been wound back by the states. With the Court about to reconsider the issue, many states could ban it overnight.
The dark side of the world's fashion addiction. Many of our old clothes, donated to charities, end up in rotting textile mountains in West Africa. This is a story about how our waste is creating an environmental disaster.
The Taliban is back. Even before foreign forces have withdrawn from Afghanistan, the hardline Islamic force has seized control of the country. In the lead up to the takeover, Yalda Hakim asks its leaders how they will rule.
Since the start of the pandemic, 21 delivery workers in South Korea have died. Unions blame overwork. As demand for home deliveries explodes, the pressure on sorters and drivers is relentless. Now they're fighting back.
From Europe to the US, coal is under fire. Environmentalists are circling, mines closing. As coal declines how will communities fare? We go to the US & Spain to see how different regions are managing the dying days of coal.
Europe's museums are stashed full of Africa's cultural heritage, much taken in colonial times. Some was looted, some traded. The museums say they're the rightful owners but others say the objects belong in Africa.
One Spanish yacht, a quarter of a million square kilometres of sea. Boatloads of desperate men, women and children fleeing for their lives. Can a Barcelona crew help thousands on a risky journey and steer them to safety?
Three young people. Three stories of living differently in China. This generation is richer than their parents but the pressure to achieve and fit in is heavy. They're finding their own way to rebel in search of identity.
In the era of New Space, billionaire Elon Musk is blazing the trail. He's building a gigantic starship to fly humans further than ever before. Sarah Ferguson reports on one man's extraordinary mission: Destination Mars.
The site of the world's worst nuclear accident Chernobyl is now a tourist destination. Linton Besser visits the exclusion zone to see the devastation of nuclear meltdown, government-sanctioned cover-up and radiation sickness.
2013
In a special investigation reporter Eric Campbell goes undercover with the world's top ranger, Australian Sean Willmore - to expose ivory traders and their rampant, black trade.
Who was Prisoner X? A special Foreign Correspondent investigation to crack an international super secret.
Emma Alberici investigates the paradox of the modern Italian state - a country that the European Union simply can't afford to go the same way as some of its neighbours.
In the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre, reporter Lisa Millar examines the incredible power and influence of the National Rifle Association
Zoe Daniel reports from India, where a woman is raped almost every 20 minutes. But Joyti's story stood out, and her family tells Zoe that they're determined to bring about change.
Foreign Correspondent explores the mysterious and stunningly beautiful underground lakes and rivers of Mexico - the largest subterranean river system in the world, and it's under threat.
As the bombs and ballistic missiles rain down on the divided ancient Syrian city of Aleppo, Matt Brown follows the life of an 11 year old boy who just wants to go to school and play football with his mates.
When Ireland's Food Standards Authority announced that it had found beef products sold by popular food brands contaminated with horse meat, it was the start of a scandal that spread around Europe and to parts of Asia.
Did the U.S. and its allies sponsor the use of torture methods in Iraq?
Mark Willacy reporting from Taiwan, where there are fears that a fourth nuclear power plant being constructed close to an active seismic fault could be the setting for another Fukushima-style disaster.
Eric Campbell takes a 1,000km road trip to the fabled Saharan desert city of Timbuktu, which has just been liberated by French troops after radical Islamists invaded.
In part two of his road trip through the West African music centre of Mali, Eric Campbell finally reaches the town of Timbuktu, where he finds out what happened to ordinary people during the occupation by hardline Islamists.
Economics Correspondent Stephen Long meets shocked, angry residents of this sun drenched Mediterranean island who've had their savings - including their pension funds - seized.
Stunning revelations emerge from a special Foreign Correspondent investigation.
Australia's leading international current affairs returns with the first of a captivating two part investigation into China's booming drug culture and surging supply chains out of Myanmar.
Foreign Correspondent's explosive investigation into China's booming drug culture and surging supply chains out of Myanmar continues, following big shipments of drug ingredients all the way to Australia.
With the world's biggest sporting events heading their way, Brazilians are getting ready to party. So why are they so upset? Lisa Millar goes to Rio to find out.
In a little, remote Indian school in July, 55 kids sat down to their government-supplied lunch. Very soon 23 would be dead. What happened? A Foreign Correspondent investigation sheds new light.
It's got sun, beaches, spectacular scenery and hoards of holiday makers. It's also the number one European destination for murder. Foreign Correspondent examines the brutal, dark heart of a tourist playground.
The Enemy Within. A rare journey into Pakistan's wild, western no-go-zone where until recently the Taliban brutally enforced their doctrine. They've gone, but for how long?
We get up close and personal with the ageing rock stars of Rapa Nui - Easter Island's mysterious stone statues. While scientists race to save the gigantic statues, the locals hope those same statues will save their community.
Their lives intersected in a war zone where the crack combat doctor and the foreign correspondent shared one of the most harrowing days of their lives. Sally Sara tracks down Marc Dauphin - a life saver shattered by PTSD.
Sally Sara met the 'can-do' combat doctor in Kandahar. But when he made it home he struggled with PTSD. So many returned soldiers are ticking time bombs. Sally Sara investigates the impact of PTSD and how to beat it.
Going to school in Taliban-controlled Swat Valley, Pakistan was a dangerous act of defiance and Malala Yousafzai was shot in the head. Incredibly, she survived. Now Malala is a global icon for education.
Would you work for .13 an hour? That's the tough new reality for two former professionals you'll meet in this disturbing assessment of America's economic reality.
The Winter Olympics are coming and Russia is putting out the welcome mat to the world - that is unless you are gay. Putin's Russia is now a place to stay firmly in the closet - or face jail or worse.
Earthquakes. Tsunami. Nuclear Emergency. The chilling set of dominoes that dropped in March 2011 and devastated northern Japan have now largely coalesced into one word - Fukushima.
In multi-cultural Britain police struggle to deal with honour crime as women from south-Asian and middle-eastern backgrounds are controlled, abused and sometimes murdered by their families. Foreign Correspondent investigates.
Highly endangered Sumatran tigers are barely surviving in the wild - but captivity for these magnificent animals can be just as threatening - Foreign Correspondent investigates the zoo from hell.
The monster waves & wind of Typhoon Haiyan caused destruction & despair on Bantayan Island, but it's a forgotten corner of the typhoon tragedy. Little help has reached them but the islanders are determined to help themselves.
2022
Reporter Yalda Hakim returns to Afghanistan for the first time since the Taliban took power. She finds a war-ravaged country on the brink of starvation and economic collapse, and a new terror threat on the rise.
Flying solo in Japan. A rich and powerful nation is facing a social crisis. Millions of young singles are turning their backs on marriage and children - will it create an epidemic of loneliness? Jake Sturmer reports.
The brutal cost of our green energy future. In the Democratic Republic of Congo we expose the shocking truth about the mining of cobalt, a metal essential to making the batteries in electric cars, laptops and mobile phones.
The world is watching on in shock as Putin's army invades Ukraine. Two countries with a shared history spanning centuries are fighting in the streets of Ukrainian cities. We explore both sides of this dangerous conflict.
Before Ukraine, there was Syria. Now in its 11th year, this ongoing conflict is Russia's forgotten war. Syrian journalist Yaman Khatib, who fled in 2016, returns to his homeland to see how people who stayed are faring.
Once the owners of vast tracts of forest and mountains, Chile's largest indigenous group the Mapuche are fighting to take back what was lost. Eric Campbell is in central Chile where a rebellion is met with military force.
In Mexico, 10 women are murdered every day. In this compelling true crime episode, Sarah Ferguson goes on the road with Mexico City's femicide detectives, as they visit crimes scenes, gather evidence and solve cases.
In this month's presidential race France is swinging to the right. Candidates on the far-right are polling around 30%. The left is divided, xenophobia rife. Has the nation that champions equality and fraternity lost its way?
A rare glimpse inside Israel's ultra-Orthodox communities. Traditionally, men study the Torah while women work and look after the children. Now, some in this rule-bound world are pushing the boundaries of what's acceptable.
For years a ruthless mafia ruled Calabria through intimidation and violence. Now a magistrate is taking them on, charging hundreds in one of the biggest trials in decades. Can the Italian state beat its most powerful mafia?
Since Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine in February, about 30,000 Russians have fled to Georgia. Reporter Eric Campbell travels to the former Soviet republic to meet the brave people opposing Putin and his war.
Forced into exile 36 years ago, the Marcos dynasty is poised to take power again in the Philippines. The son of dictator Ferdinand Sr, Bongbong, is much loved - but how has the family restored its tarnished reputation?
It's a slice of paradise for some but behind the postcard facade, native Hawaiians have a different story to tell. Reporter Matt Davis visits the Hawaiian Islands to hear from people fighting to keep their culture alive.
A troubled man. His missing father. A secretive kingdom, faraway. Like many who were abandoned by their Saudi fathers, Jared wants to meet the dad he never knew. Will this rigid society welcome the children it left behind?
In Nebraska, a grim search is underway. A community is trying to locate the graves of indigenous children who died after being taken from their tribes and sent to boarding school. A powerful story on facing a painful past.
He started as a low-level spy. He ended up president for life. For two decades, former Moscow correspondent Eric Campbell has tracked Putin's rise to power, speaking with his school teacher, friends, patrons and enemies.
Across Thailand a quiet revolution is underway. Hundreds of women are defying generations of Thai tradition and ordaining as Theravada Buddhist monks. Mazoe Ford follows two Thai women on a deeply spiritual quest.
Wyoming is the most pro-Trump state and respected Republican Liz Cheney is about to find out what that means. Kathryn Diss travels through the spectacular wilderness to talk with locals about the upcoming primary elections.
In remote north western Myanmar, a civil war you've never heard of is underway. The people of the Chin State are locked in conflict with Myanmar's military machine. Matt Davis gained exclusive access to the Chin resistance.
In the oceans of West Africa, it's a poachers' paradise. Foreign ships are illegally raiding these rich fishing grounds, leaving little for locals. Now the tide is turning, as activists help governments push back the boats.
An intimate and moving story of families stretched to the limit. In China, as people live longer, dementia is on the rise. With few government services, ordinary people are sacrificing everything to care for their own.
The mighty Colorado is under threat. From the Rockies' snowy peaks to Mexico, the river is a lifeline for tens of millions of people. We journey along its waters to see places and meet people changed by a drier world.
A few months ago, Sri Lankan protestors had a moment of triumph, storming the presidential palace and occupying its grounds. Now a new president is cracking down, putting many in jail. We ask, will the movement surrender?
In the French city of Marseille, there's a war on drugs. The police are cracking down on gangs dealing from estates in the city's north. The dealers say it's the only way to survive. We gain rare access to both sides.
The mighty rhino is making a comeback. In Zimbabwe it was poached to near extinction in the 2000s. We visit a wildlife sanctuary, with an elite anti-poaching squad, to see how the animal is being brought back from the brink.
From zero tolerance to decriminalisation, Thailand's u-turn this year on cannabis laws is lighting up a billion-dollar industry. Officially it's for medicinal use but the legal grey area means 'ganja' lovers are celebrating.
In chat rooms and online forums, men are trading sexually explicit images of women, often without consent. This program investigates a flourishing sub-culture and finds one community of women is especially vulnerable.
In Scandinavia, the indigenous Sami have their own parliaments. But a new wave of green development is putting pressure on Sami lands, testing the power of their voice. What lessons can Australia learn from the Sami?
Putin's recent losses on the battlefield have emboldened Ukrainians. Steve Cannane travels to the warzone in northern Ukraine to meet the people freed from Russian occupation and hear stories of trauma, courage and defiance.
2024
Fake fashion is big business. From Gucci to Balenciaga, replica brands are everywhere. The trade is run by crime syndicates implicated in human trafficking and even terrorism. This story goes inside the counterfeit industry.
Indonesia has embarked on a radical plan to relocate its congested and sinking capital Jakarta to the jungles of Borneo. A new $45 billion mega city is currently being built but critics say it's too expensive and too remote.
The horrific events of October 7 and its aftermath have dramatically changed the lives of Palestinians and Israelis. With widespread loss of life and devastation, suspicion and revenge are boiling over and fear is everywhere.
In Punjab, northern India, the Sikh separatist movement is fighting to create its own independent Khalistan nation. Separatist leaders have accused the Modi government of targeting Sikhs around the world including Australia.
Italy's population is ageing and with towns dying out residents in Sicily have undertaken a grand social experiment. They're selling abandoned houses to newcomers for just one euro in a bid to breathe new life into old towns.
In the jungle of central Vietnam lies Son Doong, a magnificent underground cave passage, the largest in the world. Undisturbed for millions of years, its future has been placed in doubt with plans to make it a tourist mecca.
Eighty years since Japan and the Allied forces waged a battle at Guadalcanal, Solomon Islanders are still paying the price with thousands of unexploded devices left behind and the threat of leaking oil from rusting warships.
In Japan the ancient sport of sumo is wrestling with how to accept women competitors on an equal footing, challenging deeply held traditions. We meet the women who are trying to modernise attitudes in a sport they love.
The UK illicit drug market is worth an estimated 9.4 billion pounds a year. In small towns in the north of England, drugs are being warehoused and sold by criminals who make large sums of money and lead enviable lifestyles.
In the decades since the Korean war, over 200,000 children have been adopted to families worldwide. Now as adults, adoptees are demanding investigations into falsified documents, duplicate identities and even stolen children.
Across Ukraine increasing numbers of women are running newsrooms and reporting the war from the frontline. While male colleagues have joined the fight, women are working hard to ensure isolated communities are kept informed.
Immigration has become a defining issue in this year's US Presidential Election race. In Texas, the Republican Governor has politicised the problem by sending busloads of immigrants to Democrat cities like New York.
In the US political tension and deep division are causing concern for thousands of Australians who now call America home. Some are horrified by the state of affairs and are planning to leave. Others hail Donald Trump a hero.
In the Arctic, tensions between Russia and NATO nations are escalating in the Norwegian territory of Svalbard, one of the most geostrategic places on the planet. Russia is being accused of provocation and even sabotage.
With Hong Kong's protest movement effectively silenced and with activists either fleeing or ending up in jail, the city is being remade. More than 100,000 people have left and the new arrivals are coming from mainland China.
Corruption, drug use and fraud are not what you expect from Thailand's Buddhist monks. A series of scandals is engulfing the religion. Go on patrol with the monk police and undercover agents trying to bring them into line.
In the tourist mecca of New Caledonia tensions between the French government and the indigenous Kanak people have resulted in violent uprisings. The push for independence has created ongoing deep divisions in the country.
A bouquet of flowers is the go-to gift for many occasions, but the world is paying a high price for out of season blooms. We go behind the scenes of the billion-dollar flower trade to reveal the true cost of flowers we buy.
Australian doctor Ken Elliott tells his extraordinary story of being held captive in the Saharan desert by Al Qaeda terrorists for more than 7 years. Dr Elliott was 81 when he was kidnapped with his wife from Burkina Faso.
To combat its reputation as the most dangerous country in the world El Salvador has declared war on its gangs and built a mega prison capable of housing up to 40,000 inmates. Critics call it a 'black hole of human rights'.
Bali is one of the world's most popular tourist destinations, but the demand from holidaymakers and now digital nomads is turning paradise into a construction zone. Will cashed up foreign developers change the island forever?
Across New Zealand tensions are high with Maori protestors warning the country is facing a watershed moment on race relations. The protestors are angry about the rollback of Maori programs by the conservative government.
Copper theft is a billion-dollar crime that's causing chaos in South Africa. Across the country police and armed contractors are waging war on the criminals who are cashing in on one of the world's most sought-after metals.
The US state of Michigan is one of a handful of battleground states that will determine who will be the next American president. Will Kamala Harris' late injection into the race give the Democrats the boost they need to win?
2012
In China they're setting blistering speed records. From the go-fast, rich kids quickly amassing stables of super-cars to the developers building sky-scraping hotels - start to finish - in just 14 days. One local rich list estimates China has almost a million millionaires, 600 billionaires and the numbers keep growing at a staggering rate. Private jets are flying out of showroom hangers at mach 1. The economic transformation of China has been electrifying, but with Europe teetering and the U.S. plodding can the biggest tiger of all keep on roaring? The super-rich you'll meet in our 2012 return certainly think so.
If Europe's going down the gurgler why are the good burghers of Bavaria singing, dancing, laughing and toasting their good fortune over a litre of beer or six? Well, they have a secret. They even have a word for it that only Germans really understand. It's called Mittelstand and it's made many of the businesses in this uber enterprising part of the world solid, successful, optimistic and fearlessly forging into the future. Germans have another word for how that makes them feel about the many of their basket-case neighbours in Europe: Schadenfreude - a kind of delicious pleasure at the misfortune of others. If only they didn't have to prop them up.
They're two women from utterly different worlds so what do a seasoned Australian television producer and a 19 year old student from Kabul, Afghanistan have in common. It's a shared hope for the ascendency of female rights, aspiration and opportunity in one of the most dangerous and oppressive places on earth. The outsider is shaping some of the country's TV drama, tackling confronting issues that challenge the orthodoxy. The teenager is boldly fighting violence in the street and at home. It's a massive battle against an age old order but don't discount her - Noorjahan Akbar isn't about to take a backward step.
There's a new resident moving into America's cities and suburbs, peeking over backyard fences and casting a shadow over shopping malls. Some folks are being right neighbourly and are welcoming the new arrival. But many more are fretting about how the stranger might dramatically impact their safe and peaceful suburban lives. It's setting neighbour against neighbour and dividing communities. Honey, meet the Frackers.
If life's two certainties are death and taxes then who blinks first in a face-off between God and The Taxman? Italians are buckling up for very bumpy, very bleak ride into economic gloom and doomdom but many are asking if everyone's paying their way - particularly the very wealthy. The Catholic Church for instance. As a get-tough Government doles out some harsh medicine, it has at least signalled the Church may need to toss a lot more into the collection plate. But will it come to pass?
Bird flu is already aggressively lethal so why did laboratory researchers engineer a super strain that can be contracted far more easily, just like normal flu? It's a question that has provoked raging arguments within the scientific community and provoked an extraordinary reaction from security agencies worried about the prospect of bio-terrorism. At the moment there's a tense truce between the camps but inevitably the research projects will publish their work. Some experts also believe it's only a matter of time before the bug itself leaves the lab and goes to work on a very unprepared world.
Have visa, will travel. Sounds simple, but until now, it just wasn't that easy for journalists to visit one of Asia's most fascinating and under-reported countries. Now Burma has lifted the curtain and the ABC's South East Asia correspondent Zoe Daniel and her crew have been able to travel widely and openly there for the first time, talking to ordinary Burmese and showing the rest of us what this beautiful place looks like. It's still early days for the reform process and no-one really understands why the changes are happening, but one thing seems clear - Burma will be the next hot spot on the tourist trail.
They're young, feisty, smart and well travelled and they want to reclaim the destiny of their island home. In a relatively short time - not much longer than many of them have been around - Bali has gone from a sweet, spiritual, low key holiday destination to an international tourist hotspot sinking under the weight of mega-hotel developments, raucous bars and clubs and the garbage, detritus and waste that millions of tourists generate. Meet the surfer, the rocker, the activist and the princess saying enough's enough: Give us back our Bali!
If your children had been snatched by your partner and taken overseas you'd hope the law would be on your side and the authorities would do everything in their power to retrieve them. Well, not if they've been taken to one particular country with an infamous reputation for protecting kidnappers. Japan has become a refuge for nationals who've swiped their children from homes around the world and the catalogue of heartbreak is enormous. Unless, as one parent in our investigation has done, you side-step the law, hire some burly help and stop at nothing to get your children back.
They really should remake The Great Escape - one of the all-time classic war films - and this time get it right. Perhaps it should begin on the cadet grounds of a Sydney school and focus on two young students, feature Manly Beach and an encounter with a German surfer suspected of being a Nazi sympathiser - and move through its dramatic crescendo as the two Aussies emerge from a tunnel they'd helped build - against-all-odds - under and out of a super-secure POW camp. Then it should lose the Hollywood ending. The real story of the Great Escape is rich with coincidence, determination, grit and endurance. But is it triumphant? Judge for yourself as Foreign Correspondent tells the untold story of The Real Great Escape. We even find that German surfer - now 93 - and correct generations of misunderstanding.
It's unquestionably the world's highest national beauty pageant, it may also be the world's smallest but it must be right up there with the strangest. Certainly when you think of Tibet you're far more likely to think of the Dalai Lama, Buddhist spirituality and the struggle for an independent homeland. You're less likely to summon images of a wanna-be Donald Trump-style impresario in silver threads, swimsuit shoots by mountain streams and beautiful girls aiming to be the next top beauty on top of the world. That's the Miss Tibet pageant and - perhaps surprisingly - it's as catty and competitive as any beauty contest. But is it, as its promoter claims, all about liberation and empowerment or is it a cynical exercise in exploitation? And what will the Dalai Lama make of it all?
Take your marks, world, the Games of the XXX Olympiad are set to start soon and they will be inescapable. The London Olympics will have unprecedented reach as social media supercharges conventional media coverage and takes the spectacle to ever more eyeballs. Close to the action though - in the shadows of the venues - you'll find eyeballs rolling with contempt and tut tuts of disgust as some Londoners do their best to turn the 5-Ring-Circus into a Grumpylimpics.
Foreign Correspondent celebrates 20 years of Australia's finest international television reporting with 'That Was Then This is Now', a one-hour special featuring the return of much loved alumni to reflect on their most memorable moments and - for former host and reporter Jennifer Byrne and former Europe correspondent Tony Jones - a return to the scenes of their landmark reporting for the program. Jennifer reprises an early assignment in New York on the spectacular dot-com boom of the late '90s and chases the internet revolution forward with characters from her original story. Tony heads back to Bosnia and his powerful reporting of the Balkans' conflict of the '90s. Some things change dramatically and fundamentally alter the way we live our lives, others remain mired in the past and barely change at all.
Obesity is no longer just a rich country's problem. It's now taken hold in poor and emerging countries and is rapidly developing into an insurmountable health crisis. Type 2 diabetes, heart disease and some cancers are on the march in nations ill equipped to treat sufferers or educate others about the dangers of getting too fat. It’s predicted that by 2030 one billion people will be obese, so how will the world cope with its ever expanding waistline?
It's a spectacular collision of real and virtual worlds and the consequences are potentially earth shattering. On one side, South Korea, the most wired place on earth with an internet that sizzles into 90% of all homes, powers commerce and super-charges entertainment including a national obsession with internet games. On the other side, North Korea, arguably the most paranoid and dangerously unpredictable place on earth, with a million-strong army and, we reveal, a super-secret team of state-authorised hackers looking to bring chaos to the neighbourhood and beyond.
Laurens Wildeboer is a war veteran who vowed he'd never return to the scene of his service. He'd seen too much, suffered too much and wanted nothing more to do with Vietnam. And yet here he is on a return mission, 43 years since his first trip there as a young soldier. He had learned of an effort by other vets to help Vietnamese find their fallen and among all the trauma and guilt he'd been holding onto was something very tangible - a box containing the personal effects of an enemy soldier - a battered diary, a book of handwritten poetry and a scarf. Finally, it's time to let go.
Together their future was very uncertain, almost certainly bleak. They'd been surrendered by their parents and shunned by their village. Separated, they had better chance of a normal life but there were risks as well. Conjoined 11 month-old twins Stuti and Aradhana had the best medical expertise on their case, including three specialists from Australia. In this emotion charged journey into India, Foreign Correspondent discovers best intentions, love and a crack international surgical team offer hope, but there can be no guarantees.
Psst! Wanna turn 99 cents into a billion dollars? Sure you do. Trouble is, it turns out to be a pretty popular pursuit and if you're going to rise above the crowd you'll need one little stroke of genius, plenty of self confidence and an unshakeable belief in your idea. Then you'll have to crack access to movers and shakers with faith and money to help you on your way. Oh and then you'll need plenty of luck. Tick all those boxes and you may just become the next App gazillionaire watching the world downloading your byte-sized e-gadget and your bank balance shooting to the stars.
It's a boxing promoter's dream bout. A pay-per-view, box-office knockout right up there with the Rumble in the Jungle and the Thriller in Manila. In the red corner a hulking great Ukrainian world champion by the name of Klitschko. In the blue corner a man-mountain Ukrainian world champion by the name of Klitschko. What? That's right the heavyweight boxers are brothers and they're the biggest things in the ring right now. Unfortunately mum won't let them fight each other so the dream bout's just that. But the Klitschkos are about to fight one of the biggest bouts of their careers together, entering the political arena to save their beloved Ukraine. Let's get ready to rumble!
Any comfy views you have about your personal security, privacy and safety are about to be seriously challenged. Foreign Correspondent sounds the alarm on the swarms of private and government drones gathering in American skies and surely bound for the rest of the world. Live streaming cameras and the ability to carry other payloads. Tens of thousands of them. But who's at the controls? Police, immigration patrols, journalists, protesters, paparazzi? You?
Israel has been running two very different operations aimed at stopping Iran developing nuclear weapons. One is very public, the other undercover. As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presses Israel's allies to intensify action against Iran and even threatens his own armed strike if Iran crosses a red line of nuclear development, Israel's intelligence agency Mossad is taking a more personal approach. It's been training its sights on the brains within Iran's atomic program.
The Land of the Long White Cloud is now the Land of the Long Loud Scream. In a spectacularly successful marketing makeover, New Zealand has transformed itself into a magnet for thrill-seekers from all around the world, turning adrenalin into a billion dollar rush. If you want to throw yourself off things or out of things or into things that in turn roll, slide or fall from breathtaking heights - all in a setting of spectacular scenery - then this is the destination.
The young Tallahassee tailgaters party in the football arena carpark, slugging rocket fuel from jars and chanting in unison: 'No Obama! No Obama!' Across town, the party faithful watching the Democrat National Convention are just as exuberant and emphatic. 'What's the biggest misconception about Barack Obama?' one is asked. 'Misconception? I can’t think of a single negative thing about him!' One patch of Florida; two polarised views. Welcome to the swingingest election hotspot in America with the biggest bounty of all-important electoral votes among the swing states. If you want the White House you really should be trying to get Florida in the bag.
We've seen and heard a great deal about the economic apocalypse thumping Greece. Violent protests, enormous pain, staggering job losses, lives destroyed. But that’s not the complete picture. Meet the Greeks turning national disaster into personal triumph. They're not sitting around under the thunderheads of austerity waiting for the economy to turn and the sun to shine again. They're taking matters into their own hands.
It once commanded an empire that occupied an enormous swathe of the world, now the world wants a big slice of Mongolia. It's boomtime in this isolated and undeveloped nation as global miners are racing to stake their claims on vast riches that rival, perhaps even eclipse Australia's resources bounty. So, if you can't beat 'em join 'em and local mining giant Rio Tinto and developer Leighton are right in the thick of the action. But profound questions are being raised about the impact on environment, the proud traditions of nomadic herders and the ability of a small, unsophisticated government to deal with slick, lawyered-up multinationals.
One day you've got a roof over your head and you're doing your best to feed, raise and protect your family with very little at all. The next day you're huddled in the pouring rain wondering what happened to the shack you called a home. That's the parlous, unpredictable reality for thousands of Cambodia's poor, forcibly evicted from their houses in the name of progress. The country's march to modernity is coming at a profound human cost as aggressive developers, corrupt officials and bulldozers roll over the top of some of Asia's most vulnerable people. But a brave group of women are taking a resolute stand.
2020
While Australia ponders opening new coal fields, Germany has reached an agreement between government, mining and energy companies and unions to phase out brown coal by 2038 in return for a $60 billion injection of funds.
Sam Hawley gains rare access to the reclusive kingdom of Saudi Arabia as it begins a campaign to become a tourist destination. But is the notoriously repressive, brutal regime ready to open itself up to the outside world?
Reporter Sally Sara travels to Nepal to uncover an ugly truth: many children living in the more than 500 orphanages across the country are not orphans but victims of traffickers, who prey on poor families in remote areas.
A young Syrian leader fighting for peace and prosperity for her country is brutally murdered, soon after President Trump pulled US troops out of north Syria. Reporter Yalda Hakim asks, who killed Hevrin Khalaf and why?
Sex, drugs and people smuggling. Emma Alberici braves a no-man's land near Naples to report on a ruthless new criminal group moving in on the Italian mafia. Will the Nigerian mafia be as hard to root out as the local mob?
Europe's Coronavirus epicentre and a system at breaking point. Italy in lockdown with thousands of new cases reported every day, hospitals in the north swamped and patients young and old are dying. Emma Alberici reports.
While the world shuts down, Singapore has been open for business. Learning from the SARS outbreak Singapore acted on its pandemic plan even before the new virus arrived. Eric Campbell explores the secrets to its success.
Take an epic journey across Antarctica with a crack team of scientists on a mission to unlock earth's secret history. They plan to drill hundreds of metres deep to find atoms in a bid to illuminate our climate future.
After years of war the US government and the Taliban are making a 'peace deal'. But what does the Taliban's return to power mean for Afghan women? Will migrant Afghani workers returning home from Iran spread COVID-19?
New York City is the epicentre of the US fight against the COVID-19 outbreak. We follow paramedics, police, ICU nurses, overworked doctors and volunteers on the frontline despite a lack of personal protective equipment.
A deeply divided nation in the throes of a culture war. The Polish government and Catholic Church are forming a holy alliance to denounce Western-style liberalism. Now feminists, gay people and liberals are fighting back.
Lebanon's young and old, rich and poor, Muslim, Christian and Druze have united to try and overthrow corrupt and incompetent leaders. They face hyperinflation, currency collapse, high unemployment, power cuts and COVID-19.
A secret war on Australia's doorstep. Sally Sara reports from inside the escalating conflict in Indonesian-ruled West Papua. There have been protests, fighting, a security crackdown, hundreds dead and thousands displaced.
India has enforced the world's biggest lockdown. When the government ordered people to stay home, millions of migrant workers left the city for their villages so they wouldn't starve. Is the cure worse than the disease?
Coronavirus has hit Britain hard with the highest death toll in Europe and forecasts of the deepest recession in 300 years. We look at England through the lockdown and hear people's fears and hopes for life after corona.
She's a young doctor. He's the Russian President. He insists he's got the virus under control. She says he's lying. We follow the medic who's learned to fight without fear and the leader who's afraid of losing control.
The laid back, self-proclaimed 'rainbow people' of Trinidad and Tobago are dealing with an increase in illegal migration, gang crime and piracy on-sea. Andy Park visits during peak party season, the festival of Carnival.
What began as a hashtag seven years ago has transformed into a global movement for justice for black people. Sally Sara reports on #BlackLivesMatter, the force galvanising rage and grief sparked by George Floyd's death.
Being a single man in China is tough. Young men face pressure to provide a family heir but finding a bride isn't easy. With 30 million more males than females, many bachelors are taking desperate measures to get hitched.
Sweden is doing COVID differently. Its high-risk strategy allows cafes, schools and gyms to stay open, trusting citizens to do the right thing. But with over 5000 dead, many are asking - is the Swedish model working?
Born in Timor, raised in Indonesia, a group of East Timorese stolen during wartime is now returning home. But will reunion with long lost family heal old wounds? This is a moving story about the power of blood and memory.
Foreign Correspondent investigates North Korea's secret fishing fleets, exposing smuggling operations which make millions for leader Kim Jong Un. As they illegally fish further out to sea are they breaking UN Sanctions?
Falun Gong has morphed from fringe quasi-religious group into a powerful player in America's conservative media landscape. Using social media they try to get Trump re-elected so he can continue his war of words with China.
US Bureau Chief David Lipson travels through the northeast swing states to speak with voters about the coming presidential election. Will this fractured country survive the ultimate democratic stress test?
2019
In India's far east, wild elephants are in deadly, daily conflict with people. Siobhan Heanue follows the clashes as roaming herds get squeezed by shrinking forests and a growing human population.
What drives Tatyana, 21, heavily pregnant and with two tiny kids in tow, or 13-year-old Daniel, to make an epic trek over thousands of kilometres? Eric Campbell tells the stories of the people behind Donald Trump's wall.
Vanilla hustlers in dusty streets. Vanilla brokers in vanilla-built palaces. Vanilla crops threatening rare lemurs' jungle homes. On a wild ride through Madagascar, Adam Harvey finds there's nothing plain about vanilla.
It's touted as Europe's most beautiful island - but the people of Sardinia are getting sick and dying mysteriously. Fingers are pointing at secret bomb tests and war games by the world's armies, as Emma Alberici reports.
Two young men escape the misery of Manus Island to forge new lives in North America. Reporter Eric Tlozek charts their progress and their pitfalls over 18 months.
This is no armchair spectator sport. ABC Indonesia Correspondent David Lipson ventures into the fanatical, often deadly, arena of Indonesian soccer.
As Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un ready for their late February summit, we take a unique and inspiring journey into rural North Korea where local doctors join with international volunteers to heal the sick.
They sound like science fiction, but radical remedies to slow global warming are on the way. Eric Campbell goes in search of crazy brave ideas to save the world.
A radical experiment in democracy and women's rights is under way in the old badlands of Islamic State. But as Yaara Bou Melhem reports, it could be crushed in an instant.
The "Floating City" is sinking under rising seas and the weight of mass tourism. Now Venice's residents are fighting to reclaim it, as Samantha Hawley reports.
A secretive billionaire family pushes a pill that triggers more deaths than guns or car crashes. From backwoods Appalachia to hi tech San Francisco, Conor Duffy investigates America's opioid scourge.
Democrat or despot? Brazil's new strongman is cracking down on rampant crime - but many fear the "Trump of the Tropics" is turning his country into a police state. Sally Sara reports.
In the season return, Craig Reucassel investigates the future of food, where plant and animal cell-based meat substitutes challenge America's multi-billion-dollar meat industry.
Is Taiwan the next flashpoint? As Hong Kong protesters take to the street to fight the rising power of China, a younger generation of Taiwanese also confront increasingly hardline Chinese attitudes. Bill Birtles reports.
Ukraine is the new 'go-to' destination for couples desperate to be parents. But Samantha Hawley uncovers an industry out of control that exploits surrogate mothers and leaves babies abandoned.
Reporter Eric Campbell was living in Barcelona when the Spanish state cracked down on its 2017 independence vote, clubbing voters and firing rubber bullets. He explores how this cultural capital suddenly became a warzone.
The site of the world's worst nuclear accident Chernobyl is now a tourist destination. Linton Besser visits the exclusion zone to see the devastation of nuclear meltdown, government-sanctioned cover-up and radiation sickness.
The inspirational women of Rwanda who have turned pain into hope. They lived through one of the worst atrocities of the 20th century but the power of love and family saved them.
As Australia grapples with a spate of deaths at music festivals, triple j presenter Tom Tilley heads to Europe to see drug testing in action. But is it the only way to keep people safe?
It's been an open secret for years, Catholic priests fathering children in breach of their vows. After suffering in silence and shame those children are speaking out, demanding answers and recognition from Rome.
They're young, passionate and want to save the planet. We profile three young activists inspired by Swedish teen Greta Thunberg to mobilise the public and demand action on global warming with climate strikes and at the UN.
'What is Danish?' asks comedian Ellie Jokar. Born in Iran, now a Dane, Ellie struggles to understand why her once friendly country has pulled up the welcome mat. Hamish Macdonald explores a nation with an identity crisis.
Foreign Correspondent travels to Europe to investigate the decline of the insect population, threatening entire ecosystems. Reporter Eric Campbell discovers the causes and the steps in place to reverse the decline.
Alaska's indigenous tribes are fiercely proud of their pristine land and traditions, but as Trump pushes to open up its protected wilderness for oil exploration, Zoe Daniel asks could it be under threat?
2026
NATO is facing its biggest security crisis since WWII. A wave of "hybrid" attacks blamed on Russia has left member states in fear and on high alert. Now Donald Trump's demand for Greenland is threatening the alliance. (Return)
Switzerland's iconic mountains are truly one of the wonders of the world, famous for their dramatic snow-capped peaks. But the Swiss Alps are under threat and in turn putting centuries old villages below them in grave danger.
A revolution is taking place in Indonesia. President Prabowo Subianto is nationalising and militarising his nation's economy to deliver a self-reliant future. But some are warning Indonesia could be returning to the Suharto era.
After Donald Trump ordered the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro the focus shifted to the country's vast oil reserves. Now the US is trying to revive Venezuela's oil industry. But who will be the beneficiaries?
Greece is one of the world's most popular tourist destinations, but the actual population of Greece is in freefall. There are far more deaths than births, young people have left in droves and migration is deeply unpopular.
Ireland isn't known for being one of the world's hottest surfing destinations. But in winter surfers head to the village of Mullaghmore, braving the freezing North Atlantic to take on waves as big as multi-storey buildings.
When a young Muslim American who called himself a democratic socialist was elected Mayor of New York City the world took notice. Zohran Mamdani is America's newest political star with an agenda to make his city affordable again.
Fiji is ground zero in the Pacific's drug crisis. Breathtaking quantities of methamphetamine and cocaine are being trafficked through Fiji and on to Australia, fuelling a wave of addiction and corruption in the Fijian community.
From South America to the Solomon Islands, Foreign Correspondent reveals the tactics used by cartels to send eye-watering quantities of drugs across the Pacific. We go on the hunt for the "narco subs" used by drug lords.
The US and Israel's war against Iran could not have come at a worse time for Saudi Arabia. The region's instability is impacting a multi-trillion dollar economic and social transformation underway in the Kingdom.
In India, marriage has become a $100 billion industry with families spending more on weddings than ever. But for many the pressure to spend big is becoming a financial burden as they grapple with the true price of love.
2025
When football chief Luis Rubiales kissed a player on the lips after Spain won the 2023 Women's World Cup it shocked many. With Rubiales on trial for sexual assault players reveal they have endured a misogynistic culture for years.
Three years of war in Ukraine has taken its toll. On the frontline and in makeshift hospitals volunteer medics work tirelessly in difficult and dangerous situations to save and repair the lives of soldiers wounded in combat.
Consumers of popular tea brands are assured by guarantees the product they are buying is ethically and sustainably produced. But in Sri Lanka the independent certification schemes are failing both tea workers and consumers.
In the Indian state of Bihar, the world's largest "prohibition experiment" is taking place. Booze was banned to curb high rates of domestic violence, but it's resulted in a thriving bootleg industry with deadly consequences.
The feud between Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and his deputy Sara Duterte has unleashed a war between the country's most powerful dynasties, involving allegations of corruption and even the hiring of a hitman.
Botswana has more elephants than any country on the planet. But what's been hailed as a great conservation success story is fuelling anger as increasing numbers of elephants cause havoc, destroy crops and even kill people.
Three months after wildfires reduced large parts of Los Angeles to ash, residents who lost everything weigh up whether they can risk going through it all again as experts predict the severity of the fires will only get worse.
When a former Al Qaeda commander and his allies swept the Assad regime from power in Syria, it caught the world by surprise. There was jubilation over the fall of a brutal dictator but questions remain about what comes next.
Tokyo has become the number one destination for food lovers with more Michelin star restaurants than its nearest rival Paris. As record tourists numbers visit Japan, Tokyo's top chefs unveil the secrets behind their success.
After more than half a century of armed conflict in Colombia more than a hundred thousand people are still missing, presumed dead. The government is on a mission to find the bodies to bring closure to the country's dark history.
US President Donald Trump has said one way or another America is going to own the Danish territory of Greenland. Its strategic location and rare minerals make it hot property, but Denmark is adamant the island is not for sale.
A wellness revolution has captured the White House. Donald Trump's ex-wife Marla Maples reveals the inside story behind the Make America Healthy Again movement and the role she played in uniting Robert F Kennedy Jr and Trump.
The former Soviet republic of Georgia is fighting for its very existence as a democracy. With dissenters being jailed and a raft of draconian laws passed, opposition figures claim neighbouring Russia is pulling the strings.
On the Mexican border 10,000 troops have been deployed to stop the traffic of the deadly drug fentanyl. The show of force by Mexico follows the threat of crippling US tariffs, but can the crackdown stop the drug cartels?
Eighty years since the horrific bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the last survivors are angry Japan is still refusing to accept responsibility for the needless harm it caused its own people by not surrendering sooner.
Four years since the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, this story looks at the daily lives of children living under Taliban rule. This is a generation whose lives have been upended and who must grow up quickly to survive.
In Spain protests against mass tourism have erupted across the nation. Angry locals demand action to stop hordes of tourists from occupying their cities. Tourism is being blamed for a housing crisis that's forcing locals out.
In Bangladesh student protestors who led an uprising which forced a brutal dictator to leave the country have now emerged as a new political force. As election day looms, is their dream to create a "new Bangladesh" realistic?
Donald Trump's 2nd presidency has taken off with breathtaking speed. His radical agenda has captured everyone's attention including the 100,000 Australians who call the US home. What's life like for them in Trump's America?
In rural China, a strict one-child policy saw many girls abandoned by their parents who only wanted boys. Many of these unwanted girls were given away to foster families who raised them to be future wives for their sons.
In the Northern Ireland town of Ballymena locals are waging a war on migrants, attacking their homes and running them out of town. There's speculation paramilitary groups are behind the mob violence as hit lists of migrant's houses circulate throughout the community.
For Gaza's one million children growing up isn't guaranteed. For almost two years more than 18,000 kids have been killed as Israel wages war to destroy Hamas. An intimate look at the toll the war is taking on Gaza's littlest.
An uneasy calm has returned to Iran. In June, the country was in the grip of a 12-day war as Israel targeted Iran's nuclear facilities. Reporter Jonathan Miller is in the Islamic Republic to find out if the world is any safer.
