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.

Just ten days ago, I arrived in Australia’s capital Canberra.

Canberra has something of a reputation among, well, non-Canberrans, for being a fairly dull town.

Perhaps it’s something to do with its origins.

Canberra’s very existence was a compromise – a way of splitting the difference in the long-standing rivalry between Sydney and Melbourne.

When Australia became a federation more than a century ago, the two cities were vying to be the national capital.

Neither side was willing to tolerate the idea of the other becoming the jewel in the nation’s crown.

And so the compromise went something like this: a rural district between the two cities would be found and named the capital.

The lucky winner? Canberra: a city designed from scratch to house the nation’s government.

Ask any non-Canberran about Canberra and you’ll probably get a reference to it being a great, big country town; a haven for public servants; cold in winter and well, cold in summer.

But for a journalist, Canberra offers the parliamentary press gallery, and that’s a pretty good reason to spend three months, as I am, living in the city that always sleeps.

The role of the Canberra correspondent is to explain Australian politics for an international audience.

It’s not an easy task.

How do you explain the elaborate back-story of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s disposal by his once loyal ally Julia Gillard?

How do you explain the allegiances of the rural parliamentary independents who were once members of the conservative National Party who would rather form government with the centre-left Labor party than ever cast their lot with the Nationals again.

How do you explain the very Australian in-jokes about Abbott’s swimwear, Bronwyn Bishop’s hair, Julia Gillard’s voice or Mark Latham’s temper?

There’s a lot of explaining to do.

Radio Australia’s task is to represent Australian issues, values and voices to our neighbours in Asia and the Pacific.

A big part of that is covering what goes on in Australian politics.

At the same time, as reporters, we have to distinguish what’s going to be of interest to our audience.

That means making a judgment about what issues will resonate with an international audience, and what issues are too parochial or irrelevant.

Foreign policy issues will always get a run – like Australia’s involvement in the Afghanistan war, or our engagement with the big powers of US and China.

And issues that directly involve our neighbours will also be high on our news agenda – climate change, asylum seekers and immigration, defence and trade.

For other Australian stories, the aim is to cover the story in such a way that provides appropriate context and allows our neighbours to better understand the issues and arguments that are shaping Australian politics.

These are the considerations that guide us and that make reporting for RA on federal politics from Canberra a unique experience.

I’ve arrived in the city just as parliament takes a six week break, so the whole place is fairly quiet.

For now, I’m enjoying that.

Canberra, for all the jokes, is a beautiful city.

It’s framed by mountains and the streets are lined with fragrant gum trees.

It’s a nice change from the choking traffic jams, crowded trains and urban sprawl of my home town, Melbourne.

Canberra also has the natural advantages of a capital – the National Gallery, the National Museum, the Portrait Gallery, the Botanic Gardens and of course, Parliament House.

And what’s wrong with public servants anyway?

The ABC’s Moscow correspondent, Norman Hermant, travelled to the village home of one of the bombers to speak to her father.

One year ago, Mariam Sharipova, a 28-year-old teacher with degrees in mathematics and psychology, strapped 1.5 kilograms of TNT to her body and boarded Moscow’s metro during the peak-hour commute.

Twenty-six people were killed when her bomb exploded.

Mariam Sharipova was one of two bombers to strike the metro that morning on March 29.

Her story begins in a land of drab post-Soviet towns and stunning vistas.

She was from Dagestan, a violence-plagued Russian republic in the north Caucasus, bordering Chechnya.

Predominantly Muslim, Islamic insurgents carry out more attacks here than in any other part of Russia.

They operate from the mountains and from remote villages that can only be reached by treacherous roads, often impassable in winter.

It is in one of these villages that we meet Mariam Sharipova’s father, Rasul Magomedov.

Not long after the bombing, he saw a picture of the head of one of the suspected suicide bombers.

He recognised his daughter immediately.

For almost a year Rasul says he has thought every day about what his daughter did and why.

“She was clever, she was perceptive, she processed all this information inside herself. She was not quite an open person. That’s her upbringing,” he said.

After college, Mariam returned to the village of Balahane to work as a teacher.

Like many young Dagestani Muslims, her beliefs were becoming more radical.

The family says she destroyed all pictures of herself and she was believed to have secretly married an insurgent, who was later killed.

It is suspected another militant ordered her suicide mission.

Her father still says it was an honourable way to die.

“Why are people, for the sake of an idea, inspired by a person, prepared to go to death?

“Why is it not allowed to go there for the sake of Allah when you are promised a paradise?

“These authorities do not want to understand that, and in the entire world, rulers do not understand,” he said.

There were nearly 120 insurgent attacks in Dagestan in 2010, but the government has a simple message: it won’t back down.

The republic’s first deputy Prime Minister, Rizvan Kurbanov, has overseen the campaign to cut off the flow of new recruits to militants.

He says someone is trying to impose an idea on them that Muslims are persecuted by certain occupiers.

Mariam Sharipova was not the first person from Balahane to fall under the influence of Islamic militants.

Small and isolated, the village has a reputation for producing Islamic fighters.

Russian security forces regard this place as a nest of militants.

Painted in the village are the signs of the resentment brought by the heavy hand of the security forces, the names of fallen insurgent leaders.

Svetlana Iseyava works with a group that tries to track the scores of young men who routinely disappear.

Human rights workers say many are rounded up by the government as suspected militants, detained, tortured, sometimes killed.

She said: “One has just to approach this problem with understanding and it is required that our government should pay attention to the residents of Balahane. The federal forces should not perform raids here using columns of weaponry. One should just work with the people.”

For years Russia has tried to eliminate Islamic insurgents here by force and the insurgency only grows stronger.

Mariam Sharipova’s father says it’s time for a new strategy for the government.

“Change your attitude and that’s it. Nothing else is required. The tanks are not wanted, neither are army personnel carriers, no bombing required – all these expenses are not required. Just change your attitude to the people and finally reach an agreement.”

But no one believes the insurgent’s main demand, a separate Islamic state in the north Caucasus, is up for negotiation and the government seems convinced the so-called “black widow” suicide bombers from Dagestan will soon be a thing of the past.

Deputy Prime Minister Mr Kurbanov said: “Preventative work is being done in the sense of seeking personalities who strive to recruit our women compatriots and I assure you we have achieved serious results. I believe we shall shortly eradicate this evil.”

That confidence is not shared in Balahane and the other remote and increasingly devout Islamic villages of Dagestan.

Independent scientific advice recommends the dam projects be frozen. Zoe Daniels went to investigate.

Evidence shows heavy machinery has already been moved into the site, with the project expected to get the greenlight from the Mekong River Commission as early as this weekend.

For generations, Tarn Chansuk’s family has been fishing the Mekong.

Here in northern Thailand, the 5,000 kilometre river they call ‘Mother’ forms a natural border with Laos and supports those who live along both sides of its banks, but lately Mother Mekong’s bounty has become unreliable.

Locals say that since dams were built in China and on nearby tributaries, the water level has been highly variable and the number of fish has dwindled.

CHANSUK: Somebody said it is because of dams. It was not like this before. In the past the water rose in the morning and fell in the evening. It’s changed.

Today, Tarn heads home with nothing.

About 60 million people live along the Mekong, as it winds its way through Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.

It is the largest inland fishery in the world and it is a vital transport route and source of irrigation, but there are now plans for 55 dams in Laos and two in Cambodia.

Eleven are across the lower main stream of the river.

The first, at Xayaburi, is just upstream of here.

A community advocate confirms that villagers on the Thai side of the river are already struggling due to the changed flow from dams on the upper reaches.

COMMUNITY ADVOCATE: The level of water now is rising and falling daily without warning.

She says promised consultation with local communities in both Laos and Thailand about the new dam has been a farce.

That is despite promises made by those proposing the dam.

PHOMSOUPHA: The consultation has been made on a household basis, village basis and community basis.

This 71-year-old woman was born here, but she says no-one has asked her how the development of the river has affected it or about the new dam proposal.

People who farm in the river bed during the dry season now constantly have their crops washed away when water is released from upstream dams.

LOCAL WOMAN: The soil washes away with the water until there’s no soil left.

Six months ago at the height of the wet season we followed the river for a thousand kilometres, from northern Laos to the Cambodian border.

Laos people told Radio Australia the same story: that they are gradually losing their river-based livelihoods.

Environmental groups warn of falling biodiversity in a region that rivals the Amazon and the possible extinction of threatened local species if mainstream dams disrupt fish migration and breeding.

The Laos Government, in the seat of power Vientiane, was then awaiting an independent scientific report commissioned by the advisory body the Mekong River Commission, which is jointly funded by the Mekong Basin countries.

That report has since recommended a 10-year moratorium on Lower Mekong mainstream dams, yet the first one looks like being approved anyway.

Professor Philip Hirsch from Sydney University says evidence is that roads have been built in and some construction equipment has certainly been moved into the dam site.

HIRSCH: This, again, goes against the spirit if not the letter of the Mekong agreement.

Professor Philip Hirsch runs the Mekong Resource Centre at the University of Sydney.

He says key information has not been released by the Laos Government and Thai developers to allow an informed decision to be made on the dam.

HIRSCH: So here we have a consultation process that’s being done without the release of the environmental impact assessment report.

That is despite a request from a number of countries, including Australia which is the main financial backer of the Mekong River Commission, for the decision to be delayed.

Laos plans to export its hydro power, understandably aiming to drive desperately needed economic growth.

Local environmental groups warn that the impact will be irreversible.

Nerves remain on edge, millions of people are without water, power and fuel – and hundreds of thousands of others are homeless in freezing conditions.

Japan correspondent Stephen McDonnell visited the devastated northern prefecture of Iwate and the stricken town of Onasaka.

The snowy coastal mountains of Iwate are now the temporary home for many thousands of soldiers. Japan’s Self-Defence Force is mounting a massive disaster relief effort.

This is an enormous logistical task, and given the size of destruction, tough decisions have to be made about the allocation of resources.

With this in mind, a logistic supports team sets out for the disaster zone. They are going to collect on-the-ground information about what is needed and where.

They arrive at Onasaka Town. The wooden houses of this fishing community have been obliterated.

I am introduced to Major Michihiro Sato, who has spent the morning searching for missing people.

He tells me that he has not found anyone today. I ask if there is still any hope of finding survivors.

“It’s very unlikely,” he says. But he says, “the chances are not zero per cent because people’s power to live is quite strong.”

In reality, Major Sato’s men are looking for the dead, rather than the living.

“We’re victims of the earthquake, too,” the major says.

But he adds that it is their role to help the people, so they work with a great sense of duty and responsibility.

This town thought it had a level of protection because of the sea wall which was extended to guard against tsunamis, but the waves smashed their wall to bits.

One of the reasons that this area copped it so badly is that the tsunami has come into these inlets and its power is then concentrated in one area.

Then the massive waves are channelled up the valley and just take out everything in their path.

When the tsunami struck Onasaki, people at higher ground watched their neighbour’s houses first wash inland, and then as the ocean receded, what was left was taken back out to sea.

Tuneo Cono took his daughter to inspect what is left of the town. The house belonging to his son and her brother is no longer there. They used to come here for family gatherings.

He says that the priority in Onasaki is still removing the many dead bodies, which is delaying the arrival of outside assistance to start the clean-up and rebuilding effort.

Mr Cuno is a retired construction worker. His son is a fireman and away helping others, so he and his daughter look for anything that can be retrieved from his son’s house.

But there is nothing left to take with them, not even a photo.

“We can rebuild this town,” Mr Cuno tells me.

“But not on our own. We’re going to need a lot of help.”

It is hard to keep coming up with words to describe what has happened here, but the two things that strike you are the utter force of Mother Nature to remind us how small we are, but also the strength of people to band together and look after each other in the face of such a terrible incident.

Because of shortages, the survivors here are now on one meal a day. Their lives without power and running water will be a little rough for some time to come.

At the water’s edge, helicopters continue the search for the missing and the dead.

Amidst the debris, road workers are clearing the way for vehicles.

For the moment, this sad town and its people have well and truly had the wind knocked out of them.