Season 21

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.