2010

Sudan president Omar al-Bashir may be accused of international war crimes and genocide in Darfur, but isn’t as evil as progressives like to claim, declares Simon Tisdall, as he explains al-Bashir’s role in the Sudanese elections.

It might have been the year of the iPad, but Wired looks back on the worst tech products of 2010. From the $500 JooJoo, an iPad wannabe with no apps and no internet, to the wearable videocamera that didn’t stay on the head, there were some tech shockers.

The one saving grace for the embattled music industry in recent years has been concert and festival tickets. But 2010 has seen global ticket sales fall by 12%.

And the honour of the first Western film ever shown in censorship-loving North Korea goes to…envelope please… Bend it like Beckham! Sure, it was edited from 112 minutes down to just 60, but no other film can claim that title.

Red is far from dead in China. Instead, entrepreneurs in Yan’an are cashing in on the novelty and historical value of communism for tourists, from battle recreations to museums on Mao.

Photographer Steven Rhall lives up in the tiny NT town of Balgo. He writes of the first big fire of the season up his way, where fires can sometimes run for weeks — if not months — and burn-out huge tracts of land.

It’s rare for a film to employ a non-linear multi timeline narrative as effectively as director Derek Cianfrance’s equal parts heart warming and heart wrenching story about a couple meeting and falling in love in one time period and enduring a bitter falling out in another, writes Luke Buckmaster.

Twice president of Venezuela, the victim of political coups, misuser of millions of dollars in public funds and mortal enemy of current president Hugo Chavez, Carlos Andrés Pérez died aged 88 on Christmas Day.

Read this intriguing indepth profile on recently released Aung San Suu Kyi, Crikey’s person of the decade. Interviewer Hannah Beech dodges government spies trailing her taxi in order to interview the famous Burmese political leader.

It might have been five years since a Danish newspaper published cartoons of Mohamed the Prophet, but five suspects have been arrested in a suspected foiled terror plot against its offices.

Queensland’s Gold Coast is a magical place where beautiful men and women do nothing but tan their perfectly sculpted bodies, and children run amok the beaches in theme parks. Well, that’s how Caroline Zielinski remembered it, but the latest trip showed something different.

Ben Sandilands got his hands on a leaked photo of the new Qantas A330-200 domestic business class, with middle seats and crummy legroom. Why, it must be a present for new Virgin Blue boss John Borghetti, the former Qantas executive general manager.

Joao Silva was a NY Times photographer in Iraq and Afghanistan until a recent incident where he stepped on a landmine and lost both his legs. As Silva recovers in hospital, his replacement, Michael Kamber, tells of the undeniable pull felt by the war photographer.

There’s a rising number of domestic abuse cases in Afghanistan and the US military wonders if it is a new Taliban technique to help gain access to US military bases and gather intelligence, since military hospitals care for the wounded.

Seinfeld’s Festivus for the rest of us, a Christmas celebration involving a pole with no decorations, an airing of grievances and feats of physical strength, is no longer just a mock holiday found only on TV screens.