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.