On average in 2002 I wrote one or two articles a month for the Suite101. Among the issues covered, elections in France and Germany were covered in four articles. In general, the erosion and undermining of democracy within "western" countries was of major concern in 2002 see: http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/inte... ).
Environmental issues were of ongoing interest, especially as in May the UN World Summit took place in South Africa. Globalisation, the G-8 summit as well as regionalisation issues were also covered, in an effort to critically accompany the political processes that push, shape, drive and define today's international affairs. To my surprise, by far the most successful article of the topic was the April report on Malaysia. It established unexpected linkages between local politics, the environment and regional hegemonic ambitions. Perhaps readers were intrigues to find out about such inter-relationships, as the article attracted well over 700 views.
Overall the topic has seen a pleasant rise in the number of visitors (recognizing that not all hits translate into an article being read). Since August, monthly hits of over 900 are recorded, up from an average of 400 in 2001. The top four articles for 2002 were
- Malaysia, environment and arms : 760 hits
- Deserts, no one's home but a place for all? : 301 hits
- French Blues and Democracy's Woes : 226 hits
- Summit Afairs : 215 hits.
So how did the Global Spin "best guesses" roll out by the end of the year? Lasting peace solutions are still in short supply in many places. Certainly the "war on terror" has dominated most everything else, especially in the mainstream media. Iraq is now the center of attention, Afghanistan now being hardly mentioned in comparison. Indeed, the entire Middle East has continued to make usually negative headlines, as nobody can see in sense in claims to retaliation. The need for critical journalism to cover and comment on US driven military ventures is now direly needed, as the "big" news agencies are mostly all too eager to march along with the Stars and Stripes, rarely ever asking real questions. For 2003, the journalists who succeed to report on the underlying linkages between crime and decay inside fortress USA and the agendas and contradictions of what passes as a US foreign policy will be the spear-bearers fo the profession.
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