GlobalPost’s greatest hits from the year gone by

BOSTON — It was “the decade from hell,” as Time magazine dubbed it on its cover this week. Ten years of terror and war, of economic crisis and climate change. It’s not hard to say goodbye to this one.

The enormous burdens of this decade began in lower Manhattan on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001 — unleashing a global struggle against terrorism and two wars. The closing act of the decade was set on that same scarred patch of earth in lower Manhattan where terror struck. It was the autumn of 2008 when we saw a very different kind of destruction, a different kind of peril down on Wall Street: The implosion of the global economy.

And these towering, twin events — the attacks of 9/11 and the global economic downturn — not only define the decade, but also shape the challenges ahead. Both events confirmed that this was a decade that tested the limits of American power militarily, politically and economically.

But 2009, the capstone to this dark first decade of the 21st century, was also a year that began with promises of hope and change, a transition to a new era. The newly inaugurated President Barack Obama announced a new approach to the world which stood in stark contrast to his predecessor. This president would engage with the world and vowed to work together with leaders to confront the extraordinary challenges that lie ahead.

It was just before the Obama inauguration that GlobalPost launched on Jan. 12 and set out with a stellar team of some 70 correspondents in 50 countries to cover the complex issues America faces in the world. Just as so many traditional news organizations were experiencing a dizzying collapse of their economic model, GlobalPost has raised a new voice for global news. And our journey has begun at a time when we all desperately need to be more informed about the world around us, and the challenges it presents. It was a big first year for us at GlobalPost filled with accomplishments and gratitude to those of you who have joined a rapidly growing community of engaged visitors to our site.

We began our coverage of this new era of the Obama presidency with a series of pieces titled “For Which It Stands,” a set of 50 different stories and essays from around the world examining what America means to the world and what the world means to America. Looking back, “For Which It Stands” provides an interesting gauge by which we can measure just how much improved America’s image is in the world one year after saying goodbye to George W. Bush and what many historians agree was one of the most damaging and divisive presidencies in modern American history.

After he stumbled through his oath of office on the same bible used by Abraham Lincoln, the greatest challenge facing Obama was the global economic crisis. And GlobalPost believes the long, climb out of the crisis was the biggest story of 2009, and quite likely 2010 as well.

GlobalPost correspondents in 20 countries around the world covered the crisis throughout the year in a series of special reports titled “World of Trouble.” Our correspondents reported on the growing unrest among migrant laborers in China and “Silicon Sweatshops” and interesting angles on the economic downturn from the other so-called BRIC countries of India, Russia and Brazil. We covered other corners of the crisis from London’s well-heeled financial district and the more recent shattering of Dubai’s gilded, fragile economy.

Like an ocean, the global economic crisis can sometimes seem too deep to fathom and too wide to cover. But sometimes there are stories that are all about one person caught in the ocean; like the story of the sea captain, Richard Phillips. His heroic surrendering of himself to save his crew from Somali pirates and his daring rescue by U.S. Navy Seals on Easter weekend was a tale straight out of a pirate book.

As spring turned to summer, the most unexpected story of the year suddenly erupted on the streets of Tehran following the much-contested elections. Our correspondents covered every turn of the story and did so at great risk. The lowest, personal moment of the year for us at GlobalPost was when we learned that one of our correspondents had been arrested and detained in Iran’s notorious Evin prison. After three harrowing weeks of working with his family and colleagues to win his release, we finally had him out. We are thankful to have him staying on top of the story still from his sounding post in Istanbul.

There was also a very different kind of simmering violence on a very different set of streets. And that was the low boil and deadly toll of the Mexican drug wars, which have been covered with great commitment by our team. More people died in the drug-related violence south of the U.S. border than American soldiers were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But there was no foreign policy question more fateful and consequential in the first year of Obama’s presidency than the war in Afghanistan. In August of this year, GlobalPost published a special report titled “Life, Death and the Taliban,” which set out to provide the history and context of the struggle against the Taliban and Al Qaeda through writing, photography, video and an interactive timeline. The series also broke news that the Taliban was funding its insurgency in part through a protection racket that involved subcontractors on USAID projects and the article’s findings prompted a federal probe. As Obama announced earlier this month that he would go forward with an escalation of the war with 30,000 more troops, it is now more clear than ever that Afghanistan is Obama’s war. We hope “Life, Death and the Taliban” might stand as a resource as we all try to understand the events unfolding there.

In one of the most perplexing turn of events this year, President Obama was awarded the Nobel peace prize just one week after he announced the troop surge in Afghanistan. So here was a president being recognized for peace while managing two wars. The irony hung in the room and echoed around the world, but then again Alfred Nobel, for whom the prize is named, was a 19th century industrialist and weapons manufacturer famous for inventing dynamite. In accepting the award, Obama delivered one of the most powerfully philosophical speeches of his presidency on the idea of “just war” in the post 9/11 age.

There were so many stories that grabbed our attention from the climate change conference in Copenhagen, which ended not with a bang but a whimper, to the dramatic custody battle in Brazil over nine-year-old Sean Goldman.

But we didn’t only cover the big stories.  We have tried to make it our signature at GlobalPost to offer a wide array of coverage from the hidden corners of the countries where our correspondents live. We’ve told you about break dancing in Senegal and written about food and wine around the world.

We’ve taken you to the under-reported conflicts, such as the war in the Congo and other struggles you may not know about, such as the effort to promote male circumcision in the war against AIDS.

We covered the death of Michael Jackson and the tarnishing of a brand that was always a global gold standard: Tiger Woods.

We’ve covered arts and culture in every corner of the world, but at GlobalPost we believe the biggest cultural story of the year for an American audience was born of the union between Bollywood and Hollywood: Slumdog Millionaire.

We covered the story not from the red carpet in Hollywood, where the the film won no less than eight Oscars, but from the slums of India, like those in which the film was set.

The movie introduced a side of India that so many Americans had not seen. It was a chance to see the riot of color and chaos and, of course, capitalism and crude poverty that is India.

The theme song “Jai Ho” says it all about India, a song about destiny whose title translates as “victory” or perhaps overcoming odds. “Jai Ho” seems a fitting anthem for us all as we say goodbye to 2009 and greet a set of challenges that will require the kind of resiliency shown by the characters in Slumdog. The year 2009 ends a decade of destiny where America confronted many limits, but it also introduces a new era of hope and the idea that there is always a chance for overcoming the odds. Jai Ho!