Foreign Correspondent

So one day you’re Ukrainian, the next you’re Russian. That’s the extraordinary prospect for the people of Crimea, a neglected pocket of a nation left battered and all but broke by a corrupt President and his political cronies. In the blink of an eye, protesters rose up against a government that reneged on a plan to embrace Europe. The government brutally turned on its own. As pitched battles were fought in the capital Kiev, the Russian-friendly leadership fled their luxury villas and palaces in a mass escape to foreign exile. Ukrainians dusted their hands, thrilled to be rid of politicians who’d robbed their country blind and ushered in a new leadership team. It was all too much for Vladimir Putin who quickly set about orchestrating the most audacious and dangerous manoeuvre since the Cold War. He sent his troops to take Crimea and began to mass tens of thousands more soldiers on Russia’s border with Ukraine. For Putin it’s as it should be. For many Crimean Russians who still remember life in the Soviet fold it’s as it should be. But for many others – ethnic minorities like the Tartars who’d been evicted from Crimea before– it’s here we go again. As the diplomatic frenzy unfolds and threats are issued to freeze Russian assets and the foreign holdings of Russian billionaires, Foreign Correspondent’s Eric Campbell hunkers down in Crimea to watch an epic arm-wrestle play out. America and Europe claim this is a despicable land-grab and a denial of democracy that cannot and will not be tolerated. Putin claims he’s protecting Russia and ethnic Russians in Crimea from the perils of ultra-nationalists and fascists who’ve taken over the reins of government in Kiev.

In Chile the brutal, murderous past under dictator general Augusto Pinochet is never far away. Families of those who perished or simply disappeared under his rule are looking for clues to what happened to their loved ones and they’re yearning for justice. During the Pinochet years more than 3,000 Chileans were politically targeted and killed. Fernando Ortiz was one of them - a university professor and senior member of the Communist Party, snatched from a Santiago street in 1976. His family never saw him again. We now know that Ortiz ended up at a super-secret extermination centre called Simon Bolivar where he was beaten to a pulp, injected with a lethal poison and died. We also now have a clearer picture of the scale of suffering and death inside Simon Bolivar because a witness to much of it has been compelled to go public by Chilean authorities examining myriad cases of murder and disappearance. The testimony of a man known as The Little Waiter, and other supporting accounts have generated a national and global hunt for culprits and their associates. It’s a quest for justice that leads all the way to suburban Sydney. In this special investigation, Foreign Correspondent’s Sally Sara travels to Chile to talk to the families of victims and the investigators and lawyers who are very keen to see a woman named Adriana Rivas returned to Chile to face trial. And, back in Australia, we go in search of Adriana Rivas. The Chilean Government is submitting extradition papers to Australian authorities based on 7 counts of aggravated kidnapping during Rivas’ time at Simon Bolivar. Will she face the courts in Chile or will she stay out of reach in Australia?

On Australia Day 2009, Australian property executive Marcus Lee was thrown into a seething, violent Dubai jail and nearly died. Nine months later he emerged accused of a crime he says he never committed. Despite his confidence of innocence and the wholesale lack of compelling evidence against him it took the better part of five years, trapped in Dubai, to shake the charge and the threat of a much longer prison stretch and get back to Australia. During that time he lost his house, his step-father, his grandmother and couldn’t return for their funerals. During much of that time Marcus and Julie Lee permitted Foreign Correspondent to follow their paralysing plight. Now they’re clear of Dubai and back home, they’re free to tell their story. They were locked in Dubai’s archaic and sclerotic court system – the same system that’s jailed foreigners for overt expressions of affection and rape victims ahead of their assailants. But the Lees were fighting accusations that he was part of a multi-million dollar sting involving a prize waterfront property. In Dubai financial crime is considered among the worst. Even bouncing a cheque equals prison time. Marcus Lee was implicated by authorities in a highly contentious deal involving his boss at Dubai developer Nakheel, Australian Matt Joyce, another Australian businessman named Angus Reed and well known Australian property developer Sunland. Lee, Joyce and Reed were accused of fleecing Sunland of 14 million dollars when it bought a prize chunk of the massive Dubai Waterfront development. While Dubai authorities were tenacious in their pursuit of the three it turns out Sunland was propelling much of the legal action that kept Lee and Joyce pinned down in Dubai for years. Legal action that ultimately failed and that even drew stinging criticism from a senior Australian court. In the end Marcus Lee was collateral damage in a brawl between property developers. Part 1 of this Foreign Correspondent spe

On Australia Day 2009, Australian property executive Marcus Lee was thrown into a seething, violent Dubai jail and nearly died. Nine months later he emerged accused of a crime he says he never committed. Despite his confidence of innocence and the wholesale lack of compelling evidence against him it took the better part of five years, trapped in Dubai, to shake the charge and the threat of a much longer prison stretch and get back to Australia. During that time he lost his house, his step-father, his grandmother and couldn’t return for their funerals. During much of that time Marcus and Julie Lee permitted Foreign Correspondent to follow their paralysing plight. Now they’re clear of Dubai and back home, they’re free to tell their story. They were locked in Dubai’s archaic and sclerotic court system – the same system that’s jailed foreigners for overt expressions of affection and rape victims ahead of their assailants. But the Lees were fighting accusations that he was part of a multi-million dollar sting involving a prize waterfront property. In Dubai financial crime is considered among the worst. Even bouncing a cheque equals prison time. Marcus Lee was implicated by authorities in a highly contentious deal involving his boss at Dubai developer Nakheel, Australian Matt Joyce, another Australian businessman named Angus Reed and well known Australian property developer Sunland. Lee, Joyce and Reed were accused of fleecing Sunland of 14 million dollars when it bought a prize chunk of the massive Dubai Waterfront development. While Dubai authorities were tenacious in their pursuit of the three it turns out Sunland was propelling much of the legal action that kept Lee and Joyce pinned down in Dubai for years. Legal action that ultimately failed and that even drew stinging criticism from a senior Australian court. In the end Marcus Lee was collateral damage in a brawl between property developers. Part 1 of this Foreign Correspondent spe

In Launceston, Tasmania, Kate and Paul Torney yearn for another child. The arrival for their son Ptolemy was a dramatic and damaging event that almost killed Kate and certainly ended her natural capacity to bear another child. In suburban Melbourne, Victoria, Kali and Bill Gerakas have endured a devastating procession of failed pregnancies and miscarriages. “We tried IVF for four and a half years - we did something close to 24 cycles. We fell pregnant four times ourselves and lost all four babies. It was the most devastating time in our lives.” KALI GERAKAS Both couples – like hundreds of other Australians – have decided to start or extend their families using a commercial surrogate and for that India has become a hot global destination. There are now an estimated 1500 surrogacy centres across the country. In the space of a decade or so the surrogacy industry has grown to what one industry observer has estimated to be a billion dollar industry. But it’s exploded in a place where regulation has been lagging well behind the boom. So there are pitfalls for aspiring parents and perils for surrogates as well. Many surrogates are from very poor backgrounds, have little or no education and certainly limited or non-existent financial literacy. There are concerns that some are pressed into the industry by their husbands and families as a quick way to make an otherwise unimaginable $7000AU per birth. Supporters of the industry say the money is vaulting them out of poverty and into their own homes, an education and the prospect of a much brighter future. “If you are just a critic who feels a childless person should live a life of misery and stay childless throughout their life, or a poor person is meant to remain poor all throughout their life then you’ll consider this as something wrong, as something immoral. A farm. A baby-making factory..” - Dr NANYA PATEL One of the pioneers of the commercial surrogacy business, Dr Nanya Patel grants

How did an 89-year old grandmother turn a chance encounter into a revolution? In a small country town in Canada in 2004, ex-pat Australian Norma Geggie had a glimmer of an idea – a plan to support grandmothers in South Africa who had lost their children to AIDS and struggled to support their grandchildren. The idea took off, and soon grew to involve thousands of grannies combining efforts to help their bereft counterparts living in poverty in townships across South Africa. An uplifting tale of connection between people living half a world apart.

“Should we close Gitmo? Absolutely. It’s a blight on our history and I say this as a man who helped create it.” So says retired General Michael Lehnert, who 12 years ago was given orders to build cells at the naval base at Guantanamo Bay, which the United States has “leased” from Cuba for more than 100 years. General Lehnert supervised the building of Camp X-ray, the steel framed cages, open to all weathers, which it was proclaimed would house “the worst of the worst” - terrorists involved in the aircraft hijackings which had killed 3,000 innocents in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. Lehnert says that in the wake of the 9/11 attacks the opening of Guantanamo was understandable, but can now be seen to be a tragic mistake. “I think that Guantanamo stands as a recruiting poster for terrorists,” - General Michael Lehnert One of the reporters watching in February, 2002 as orange clad figures, hand-cuffed and foot-shackled were dragged into their cells, was Washington Correspondent Lisa Millar. Returning to Guantanamo for Foreign Correspondent Millar was able to re-visit Camp X-ray, now abandoned to encroaching jungle, and to tour Camps 5 and 6 where the majority of the prisoners are held. It was an immensely frustrating experience being rushed down claustrophobic corridors, banned from filming the inmates or even talking to them off camera. One prisoner - Shaker Aamer arrived on Valentine’s Day, in February, 2002. He was in terrible shape having endured months of imprisonment and torture in Afghanistan but the camp commander brought joyous news. His son, Faris, had been born in England, joining three older siblings. Shaker Aamer has never been charged with any crime, let alone been put on trial and wants desperately to rejoin his family. Seven years ago he was cleared for transfer out of Guantanamo. But he and 153 others remain locked down - indefinitely - despite President Barack Obama’s promise five years ago to close what has

As Australian, British and U.S forces withdraw the majority of their troops from Afghanistan, they leave behind a country that remains profoundly threatened by the Taliban. 12 years of war has dented this resolute band of jihadists but it hasn’t broken them, nor their determination to turn as much of this nation as possible over to its uncompromising brand of Islam and Sharia. In a war that’s seen no end of horror and brutality, one of the more confronting tactics has been the use of children to deploy and operate mines, IEDs and as human bombs dispatched on suicide missions. In this story from the Channel 4 Dispatches team, child soldiers – many who’ve been abducted or reluctantly conscripted into service for the Taliban tell of being schooled for deadly attack. They are Afghanistan’s Taliban Generation. They’re kids like 10 year-old Neaz. At 8, he was abducted by the Taliban and groomed for a mission against the invading forces. Neaz managed to break away from camp under cover of night and hiked until he came to a police station where he turned himself in. The authorities wasted no time turning the little escapee into a star in their own propaganda war, showing off Neaz and his story of abduction and conscription on Afghan TV. Many little boys are easy targets for the Taliban. Most of the children in orphanages have lost their parents to the war. Neaz's family was murdered when their village was bombarded by the coalition forces in an attempt to kill hiding rebels. Neaz lost everyone. More than half of Afghanistan’s population is under the age of 18. They have known nothing but conflict and bloodshed. The NATO-supported Afghan government is battling to win over this dominant generation. But children indoctrinated by the Taliban and who’ve suffered or lost loved ones due to the US-led campaign will be hard to reach. They’ll carry their hardened hearts into adulthood and well into Afghanistan’s future.

Eric Campbell takes us on a journey to a place few outsiders ever get to experience – the place some say could be the trigger for the world’s next major conflict – the Spratly Islands, smack bang in the middle of the oil-rich South China Sea. In an Australian television exclusive, he catches a series of boats to reach the remote chain of islands and coral reefs that are claimed by no fewer than six countries – China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei. Many of the so called “islets” are simply specks of submerged rock in the middle of nowhere, but have been built up by competing nations over the years in order to bolster their claims of ownership. There are military forces from different countries living on different islands, often within shouting distance of each other. They’re probably the most contested islands in the world. It’s believed the undersea bed in the region is rich in oil and gas, it’s an important shipping lane, and there are vast fishing grounds to be exploited. “We call our island group the submerged Saudi Arabia of the Philippines”, the mayor of one island tells Foreign Correspondent. Mayor Eugenio Bito-onon runs a municipality with just 150 residents – Kalayaan, which means Freedomland in the local language. Posing as fishermen, Campbell and his crew go to Ayungin Shoal, where besieged marines live on a rusting, scuttled ship on the submerged reef. Chinese maritime forces attempt to stop them in a high-speed chase. The crew managed to reach the shallow coral before the vessels could block them. They found a group of hungry marines living on fish they catch on the reef as Chinese ships circle the reef 24 hours a day.

Polio should be history. When it swept the world last century it crippled and killed hundreds of thousands before the world fought back. An immunisation program saw the virus 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? And why when vaccinators set out to administer preventative drops to children are they risking their own lives? In the cities and out in the rural reaches of this complicated country, suspicion and hostility against the polio eradication program is being fanned by religious extremists, including the Taliban.

They had front row seats to one of the most shocking, violent and oppressive dramas to unfold in modern China. The Tiananmen Square massacre. They were the men and women stationed at Australia’s embassy in Beijing. Over the space of weeks then days, they saw the very best and the very worst of human behaviour. Now, 25 years on and for the first time, Australia’s eye-witnesses to that dark chapter tell how they hid from gunfire, harboured and helped key targets and focussed wider attention on the outrage by smuggling defining image out and into the global spotlight. A Foreign Correspondent exclusive.

The people who are building and managing it insist it’s a temporary, emergency shelter. The people living in it are turning it into an incredible array of proud neighbourhoods, busy commercial and retail centres, education precincts and, if love blooms and a wedding’s set, then one of the world’s most unlikely function centres as well. It’s called Zaatari. But to call it a camp would be to deny the incredible vibrancy and complexity of this community in the desert. Of course everyone wants to go home to Syria. But as they pray for their war-ravaged nation to settle and become safe again, this extraordinary city in the sand has become their home away from home.

There’s a new gold rush in America’s west, where decades of marijuana prohibition are coming to an end and Wall Street is moving in. Hundreds of cannabis businesses are aiming to make it an industry to rival beer. With predictions sales and profits will grow by 64 per cent in the next year, thousands of new businesses are entering the market. But there is a growing opposition of voices warning that a new Big Tobacco is being created. One of them is Patrick Kennedy, former Congressman and son of Ted, nephew of JFK, a man who has had his own struggle with addictions. But Cannabis Inc. is a slick operation wooing politicians with the prospect of a billion dollar industry they can tax.

International reporting can sometimes be about being in the right place at the wrong time. A time when a fascinating foreign location can be a very dangerous place - life and death can be determined by centimetres and freedom can be snatched arbitrarily. Peter Greste knows this all too well. In Somalia, a colleague standing right beside Greste was shot and killed. Later in Egypt, Greste and two colleagues from news operation Al Jazeera found themselves targeted by forces trying to reassert their authority in the restless nation. They had declared one side of the story in Egypt not just just out of bounds but a crime and despite an absence of evidence, accused the Al Jazeera trio of spreading false news and helping terrorists. With access to family and key players in the saga, this is a special Foreign Correspondent report.

What happens when a vacuum-sealed, strictly-controlled nation loosens up, opens its doors and ushers in aggressive international businesses, hungry global developers and hoards of curious tourists? Can Myanmar’s sensitive culture, fragile & beautiful heritage and infant democracy cope with this strange, invasive and transformative surge? It’s too early to tell. But it turns out some enterprising locals aren’t just standing by waiting for change. They’re taking their opportunities now and they include a power-pop princess with world charts in her sights and a former US based Google exec who’s returned home to build a business. Myanmar’s even letting in nosey reporters so we sent our own Sally Sara to witness this historic collision of past, present and future.

Hopeful, excited prospective parents, happy, helpful surrogates and a baby brokerage offering an affordable plan. What could go wrong? In Cancun, Mexico and Los Angeles, California Foreign Correspondent blows the lid on an unscrupulous operator preying on the dreams and life savings of clients, abandoning surrogates and failing to deliver despite claiming hundreds of happy customers. North America Correspondent Jane Cowan has this latest chapter of our investigation into the booming international surrogacy business.

The locals call them ‘bombies’ – small bombs only about the size of a tennis ball. But, these tiny munitions have left a deadly legacy in Laos. The United States dropped a staggering 260-million bombies on Laos during the Vietnam War - the equivalent of a bombing mission every eight minutes for nine years. Many didn’t explode on impact, leaving Laos contaminated with millions of unexploded ordnance. Forty years after the end of the war, the ‘bombies’ are still taking lives and limbs – many of the victims are children. Now, a brave band of women is going where others fear to tread, to find and destroy the explosives that litter their precious land.

Syria’s civil war has become a magnet for jihadis from all over the world. And while nations like Australia wrestle with the threat of those dangerously radicalised warriors returning home, Foreign Correspondent presents an extraordinarily intimate and confronting journey as a violent, criminal king-pin leaves his drug-running turf behind to head to Syria’s frontlines to fight a war he doesn’t really comprehend. This is a searing insight into the many different motivations inspiring foot-soldiers to Syria’s conflict and beyond, into the fold of the super-violent radicals of ISIS, wreaking terror in Iraq. Michael Brissenden narrates a Guardian Films production.

In Glasgow, the Commonwealth Games may be the biggest show in town right now but Scots have a much bigger play underway that will define their economic and political future. Very soon they’ll be asked if they want to say goodbye to England and go it alone. The independence movement is gathering support but will it be enough to carry Scotland out of the United Kingdom? And does Scotland have the wherewithall to survive let alone prosper on its own? Europe correspondent, Scottish-born Barbara Miller heads home to test the water.

On a remote but vitally important frontier, a ground-breaking experiment is underway aimed at erasing the gender divide in the armed forces, eliminating intimidation and abuse and encouraging more and more women into service. On Norway's border with Russia - more tense now NATO and Russia are sharply at odds over Ukraine – men and women are training together, patrolling together and sleeping together in a counter-intuitive effort to build a unisex force in which women are just as likely to command men in the barracks and on the battleground. Many nations are taking a close interest in this radical program, including Australia.

As doctors and healthcare workers continue the challenge of treating preventable diseases in East Timor, Foreign Correspondent reporter Sophie McNeill spends time in Dili's Bairo Pite Clinic, with an inspiring medical team providing free health care services to thousands. Diseases such as leprosy, tuberculosis, heart failure, severe malnutrition, and infant diarrhoea are common and widespread - and over 50% of children under the age of five are said to be underweight and stunted for their age. Meanwhile, deaths in childbirth are among the highest in the whole of Asia. Meet team leader Dr. Dan, who came from the U.S, set up the clinic, and decided to stay.

Ever since it surrendered to the allies at the conclusion of WW2 Japan's military effort has been homebound. The Japanese Self Defence Force has been precisely that - remaining vigilant to outside threats but constitutionally restrained from striking the first blow. Now, with an assertive China throwing its weight around in North Asia, there's a developing inclination among Japan's leadership to take its tactical lead from another playbook: that the best form of defence is attack. Many in Japan - young and old - worry that's leading their nation down a path to war.

The deadly disease, Ebola, has swept across West Africa and is now threatening communities on the east coast as well. It’s the deadliest outbreak in history and doctors have no drugs or vaccines to stop it. This special Foreign Correspondent report, from ground zero of the ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone, shows a country with some of the worst rates of infections and deaths. Our team, which was the last camera crew into the hardest hit areas before a Government lockdown was introduced, has been at the frontline for one of the worst weeks in the Ebola crisis. The story reveals how health workers, some of whom are Australians, are battling the outbreak, which includes finding homes for newly orphaned children whose whole families have died from the disease.

The world is eating a once mighty, abundant wild fish into oblivion. And with million dollar price tags on exemplary specimens it’s no wonder international fishing fleets are scouring the Pacific in search of Bluefin tuna and their relatives the Yellowfin and Bigeye. Many of those vessels will fish where they’re not supposed to and take catches they’re not entitled to. That’s made the tiny island nation of Palau hopping mad. But what can it do about one of the world’s more pressing environmental and sustainability questions? Can one of the world’s littlest countries help save the beleaguered tuna of the Pacific?

It's a place out of bounds for many of those who know it as home. Tibet. Seized by the Chinese and now tightly controlled, Tibet is out of reach for Tibetan refugees around the world who are left with distant memories of their homeland. They can only dream of its return to them and their return to it. Australian musician Tenzin Choegyal has the very vaguest recollections of Tibet. He was spirited out by his mother and father as a young boy. But he feels it's defined his spirit and now, he's determined to see it once again. To do that he has to travel though the hitherto hidden kingdom of Upper Mustang, and along a time-honoured trail that's now in competition with what passes for the 21st century up here. A major, transformative road rolling up to the Tibetan border. Will Tenzin fulfil his dream?

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 now notorious cold case. 21st century science is being used to search for the remains of Belfast man Brendan Megraw who went missing 36 years ago without a trace. Accused by the IRA of being an informer, he was murdered, his body hidden, and the story of what happened suppressed for more than 30 years. It's now known he is one of a group of victims referred to as The Disappeared - there were 16 of them all together, and to date only 9 have been recovered. Foreign Correspondent follows the search for Brendan Megraw and the quest for answers. Where are the bodies, and just what happened all those years ago and how has Gerry Adams one of Ireland best known political identities become embroiled in the affair?

Soweto. It was once a byword for oppression, suffering and squalor as South Africa's Apartheid policy sought to segregate and confine blacks to their own precincts. But Soweto has always had an unassailable spirit. It was home to Nelson Mandela before he was despatched to Robben Island prison for 27 years. It was home to the apartheid resistance — a force that ultimately couldn't be denied. Now, in a distinctly different South Africa, Soweto has transformed dramatically. Ritzy shopping malls, flashy cars rolling down the main street - there's money around. A new generation in Soweto enjoys a very different life and thanks to a remarkable woman and an amazing music program, it's possible some very gifted children will become world class musicians.

As Australia lifts its terrorism preparedness to high and despatches planes and personnel to join the fight against Islamic State in Iraq, 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. The Uighurs have inhabited the sprawling and spectacular Xinjiang province for centuries, but cells of violent separatists have brought a crackdown from Beijing that's making life extremely difficult for the law-abiding majority. Amid claims the Communist Government is trying to erase the Uighur heritage and as authorities impose new barriers to reporting in China, Stephen McDonell heads into Silk Road territory and one of China's most sensitive issues. Which explains the shadowy, ever-growing team sent to follow him.

What can you do when a dysfunctional, often corrupt and malevolent justice system sees you charged with a crime you claim you never committed, denies you adequate legal support then puts you inside a violent, Dickensian prison for the rest of your life? In Kenya, you can either accept your fate or fight. In this remarkable, access-all-areas journey through some of the country's toughest jails, we examine an unorthodox program enabling convicts to school themselves in criminal law and become advocates aiming to set themselves and other inmates free. And don't think they're being set up to fail. They've put together a pretty imposing record, winning 3,500 cases in the past decade.

For two days, an inflatable dinghy packed full of young African men floats in the middle of the Mediterranean, its occupants unsure if they will live or die. Suddenly, the San Giusto — an Italian naval ship - looms into view, plucks the jubilant men from their sagging rubber boat and they join the 140,000 people rescued at sea by Italy, so far this year. When the San Giusto has collected its capacity of human cargo, they're taken to a southern Italian port, subjected to health tests and passed through a processing centre and, for some, on through the gates to town and onto to a new life in Europe. Italy's Operation Mare Nostrum is starkly different to Australia's Operation Sovereign Borders and it has also has its fair share of critics. In an Australian television first, Foreign Correspondent takes you aboard this high-risk, politically controversial exercise conducted, as you'd expect, with plenty of Italian passion and dedication.