Correspondent's Notebook
In the heart of Australian politics
8 April 2011
Listen: MP3
Radio Australia recently farewelled its esteemed Canberra correspondent, Linda Mottram, who has been reporting from the Australian capital for two and a half years.
Radio Australia reporter, Joanna McCarthy, will be filling her shoes for the next three months.
Here she tells us about adjusting to life as a reporter in the nation’s political hub.
Make-up of a suicide bomber
1 April 2011
Listen: MP3
It has been a year since the Moscow Metro was hit by a terrorist attack, carried out by the so-called Black Widow suicide bombers.
The ABC’s Moscow correspondent, Norman Hermant, travelled to the village home of one of the bombers to speak to her father.
Despair on the Mekong
25 March 2011
Listen: MP3
The controversial plan to build the first in a series of dams on the Mekong River has local communities fearing the impact on agriculture and fish stocks, concerns which have not yet been heard.
Independent scientific advice recommends the dam projects be frozen. Zoe Daniels went to investigate.
One town’s strength
18 March 2011
Listen: MP3
Many thousands of people are still unaccounted for after Japan’s earthquake and tsunami, and efforts continue to reduce the danger emanating from the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant.
Nerves remain on edge, millions of people are without water, power and fuel – and hundreds of thousands of others are homeless in freezing conditions.
Sacred bones coming home
11 March 2011
Listen: MP3
This week London reporter Rachael Brown looks at the return of the skeletal remains from London’s Natural History Museum of 138 indigenous people, to Australia’s Torres Strait Islands.
It will be the single largest return of Torres Strait Islander ancestral remains to date. The repatriation follows a long campaign by Australia’s indigenous leaders who regard the removal of the remains, during the 19th Century, as an affront to local customs.
India’s debt trap
4 March 2011
Listen: MP3
There is a dark side to micro-finance in India – the country’s deadly rural debt trap. The average income for each rural household there is only around 50 US cents a day. Annabelle Homer has been travelling in India with the help of the not-for-profit Crawford Fund, which promotes international agricultural research and development. And as she reports, many poor farmers are struggling, failing to meet their debt repayments and – tragically – turning to suicide as a way out.
Bougainville looks to the future
25 February 2011
Listen: MP3
Papua New Guinea’s island of Bougainville, once the scene of bitter civil war, is on the cusp of a new era.
Last week the Papua New Guinea government signed a reconstruction agreement with the Bougainville autonomous government worth almost $AU200 million and moves are afoot to re-open the Panguna cooper mine. Pacific Economic and Business reporter, Jemima Garrett looks at the challenges ahead.
Politics fails desperate arrivals
18 February 2011
Listen: MP3
Linda Mottram reports from Canberra, where both sides of Australian politics have faced claims of grave failings in an immigrant society, giving a glimpse of weaknesses on issues at the heart of social stability.
Malacca patrol
11 February 2011
Listen: MP3
Gavin Fang has been in Malaysia, where authorities have been cracking down on people smuggling amid accusations of human rights violations.
Pacific, EU talking ‘aid-for-trade’
4 February 2011
Listen: MP3
This week, Liam Cochrane follows the developments from trade talks between the Pacific and the European Union, which have taken place in the Samoan capital of Apia.
