What would you like to read about? Given that you're seeing this on the openDemocracy website, the chances are high that you're interested in the serious issues of the day - those that relate to war and peace, humanitarian crises, justice and human rights, the environment, globalisation and development, democracy, governance and law, and much more.
Getting these important topics before the general public - and keeping them there, in clear focus - isn't an easy task, as Solana Larsen has recently written in regard to climate change and the Ankelohe Converations. Many journalists - both print and broadcast - have been sorely frustrated by editors unwilling to devote greater page-space or air-time to subjects that matter more to this rapidly warming planet's future than the latest "hot" thing - whether it be in entertainment, fashion, travel, technology or just middle-class angst.
Since 2004, the United Nations Department of Public Information has drawn up an annual list of "Ten Stories the World Should Hear More About". Acknowledging that in today's 24-hour news culture, "urgent and important stories are simply overlooked", the UN's communications undersecretary-general, Shashi Tharoor, says: "Our goal is to draw attention to those stories that must be told."
Needless to say, Paul McCartney's marriage problems and the latest antics of Madonna, Tom Cruise or the inmates of reality-TV do not make the UN list. And it won't sway news agendas at media outlets that find "foreign" news too expensive to cover, or the countries where it happens too remote, or devoid of western interests.
All too often in recent decades, nations have seen the folly - the awful consequences - of indifference to, or insufficient attention to, what is occurring around them. Western democracies were weak and short-sighted in the late 1930s, when British prime minister Neville Chamberlain labelled Czechoslovakia a "far-away country of which we know little". In the years that followed, many millions of lives were lost and Europe was left in ruins. More recently, Afghanistan, Iraq, Rwanda, Sudan and numerous other lands could equally have worn the label that Chamberlain applied to Nazi Germany's neighbour.
So here, for the record - and in no particular order - is this year's UN list. You can't say you didn't know.
- Development challenges top the agenda in Liberia as it recovers from years of civil strife;
- Asylum seekers face challenges amid efforts to stem flows of illegal migrants;
- As the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) moves boldly towards an historic election, humanitarian concerns continue to demand attention;
- Nepal's children have become the often-overlooked victims of ongoing strife in their country, their plight exacerbated by poverty and abuse;
- In Somalia, the security vacuum is compounding effects of drought;
- The plight of millions of people who have languished in protracted refugee situations for years - and sometimes decades - has serious humanitarian and security implications;
- Efforts to aid victims of the south Asian earthquake have achieved success, but reconstruction tasks remain enormous;
- In many parts of the world, an alarming number of children are held in detention without sufficient cause;
- Despite widespread perceptions that water basins shared by countries tend to engender hostility rather than collaborative solutions, water is an often untapped resource of fruitful cooperation;
- Gearing up for October elections, Côte d'Ivoire faces fear that a renewed eruption of violence will destroy any progress towards political reconciliation.
