Top 10 facts of year 2010

1. Haiti Earthquake

The Jan. 12 earthquake that rocked the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince may not have been the highest-magnitude tremor in recent memory, but it certainly seemed the most cataclysmic. Within hours, more than a million people became homeless. Buildings across much of the city and its suburbs were reduced to rubble. Some 230,000 people died, and hundreds of thousands of others were injured. The international response was swift, with dozens of countries sending aid, rescue teams and military personnel to stabilize the situation. But the damage has been devastating and profound in what is one of the poorest countries in the western hemisphere. Tens of thousands remain in ramshackle tent cities that from the beginning have been short on or totally bereft of adequate provisions. Reports of rape are legion, and an epidemic of cholera has set in, killing more than 300 and leading to further calls for international relief. The hobbled Haitian government is unable to cope on its own — at times, outgoing President René Préval has seemed a bemused bystander, and it's unlikely that the results of upcoming elections can do much to change the bleak facts on the ground.  

2. WikiLeaks

WikiLeaks, an organization that seeks out and publishes sensitive or secret government data, dropped two considerable bombshells with the July release of 77,000 U.S. military files chronicling the war effort in Afghanistan and a larger tranche of 400,000 war logs from Iraq in October — both documenting previously unreported civilian casualties and incidents of abuse. Then WikiLeaks went veritably nuclear, leaking more than 200,000 U.S. diplomatic cables to a handful of media outlets in November. Though few of the revelations found within the cables were much of a surprise — really, there's corruption in Russia? — the leak has shaken technocrats in the world's major capitals and raised profound questions about the nature of secrecy in the digital 21st century. In the limelight is Julian Assange, WikiLeaks' silver-haired, reedy-voiced chief. The Australian former journalist was arrested in London Dec. 7 for alleged sexual assaults in Sweden — charges his lawyers say are trumped up to ruin his reputation. Assange may yet have the last laugh: on an almost daily basis, dozens of new leaked cables are being published, forcing some of the world's greatest power brokers into awkward apologies and crisis meetings over and over again.

3. Chilean Miners 

On Aug. 5, 33 miners in the San José copper mine in the Atacama desert found themselves trapped in a collapsed shaft 2,300 ft. (700 m) under the earth. The 69-day subterranean vigil that followed was the year's global suspense drama, feel-good story and soap opera all rolled into one. Overnight the miners became national heroes, grainy images of them huddled underground appearing on front pages worldwide. Soon a rapt international audience learned of boreholes, rescue capsules and the miners' private lives (mistresses included). The miners' cinematic release, broadcast live, provided mesmerizing, better-than-fiction viewing as each of the brave men emerged from the bowels of the earth to the embraces of teary-eyed family members and smiling Chilean President Sebastián Piñera. Somewhat lost in the miracle of their survival were the stories of the hundreds of miners each year who aren't so lucky — just months after the rescue, a similar collapse killed 29 miners in New Zealand.

4. Pakistan Floods  

Beset by widespread extremist militancy, saddled with a weak civilian government and in the midst of a considerable fiscal crisis, Pakistan already had more than its fair share of trouble. Then monsoon rains in July triggered almost unprecedented flooding that inundated the Indus River basin — at one point, almost a fifth of the country was underwater. About 20 million Pakistanis were displaced by the rising waters; some 2,000 people died, as did an estimated 10 million heads of livestock. The damage to the economy — up to $43 billion, by some accounts — has been a withering blow to the Pakistani state, which struggled to aid many of the stranded and homeless. Reports suggest that charities linked to fundamentalists often filled the void. The international community was also slow in responding to the unfolding calamity: while more than $742 million in aid was committed to Haiti within days of its earthquake, a paltry $45 million had been set aside for Pakistan a month after its rains began.

5. North Korea's Year of Bad Behavior

It began in March when the Cheonan, a South Korean corvette, sank in waters disputed by the two Koreas, killing 46 sailors. An investigation conducted by the South Korean military ultimately concluded that the vessel had been brought down by a North Korean torpedo. That led to a summer of ratcheted-up tensions, with the U.S. and South Korea conducting naval exercises in the shadow of the Hermit Kingdom, in turn irking China, the North's sole benefactor. While Washington and Beijing hurled diplomatic barbs at each other, Pyongyang threw itself a party on Sept. 28 to mark the 65th anniversary of its ruling Communist Party, opening its doors for a split second to the foreign press while anointing the corpulent Kim Jong Un as successor to his ailing father Kim Jong Il. Then the rogue state went about doing what it does best and shelled a South Korean island on Nov. 23. Four South Koreans died, and the peninsula was swallowed up by geopolitical animosities all over again.

6. South Africa's World Cup

For months in advance of this summer's soccer World Cup in South Africa, the international news media questioned the African nation's ability to viably host the world's most popular sporting tournament. This was the first World Cup staged on the African continent, and there were myriad concerns: Would new stadiums be completed in time? Would the country's infrastructure be adequate for the tens of thousands of fans descending on South Africa? Would security measures be sufficient in a nation with a notorious reputation for violent crime? The tournament's start was far from propitious — Nelson Mandela, the pioneering antiapartheid leader, former President and ardent soccer fan, withdrew from the opening ceremony after his great-granddaughter died in a car crash. But despite a few initial setbacks, the negativity that preceded the event dissipated after it got under way. For four weeks in the summer, South Africa was the scene of one of the most successful World Cups in recent memory, animated by jubilant crowds, some sparkling performances — particularly from an enterprising Ghanaian side and the eventual champions, Spain — and a rancorous global debate over the noisy vuvuzela. By the time of the final, Mandela was beaming from the sidelines and the cynics had shut up shop — after all, who would listen to them when a psychic octopus was calling all the shots?

7. Yemen: New Front in the War on Terrorism

On Christmas Day 2009, a suspected terrorist aboard a plane landing in Detroit failed to detonate a bomb wired to his underwear. And so the world was reminded of Yemen, one of the Middle East's poorest and most fractious countries and an increasingly popular breeding ground for fundamentalist militancy — the would-be bomber, a young Nigerian man, apparently had undergone training on Yemeni soil. Since then, the world has become aware of the growing strength of a Yemeni wing of al-Qaeda that now may be more influential and tactically capable than its counterparts operating along the Afghan-Pakistani border. A recent series of intercepted parcel bombs intended for addresses in the U.S. were sent from Yemen. The country's reigning strongman, Ali Abdullah Salih, has governed for more than two decades but, beyond consolidating his grip on power, has done precious little to redress Yemen's many economic woes. Rule of law in certain stretches of Yemen is akin to that in the failed state of Somalia; its many insurgent factions and restive tribes wouldn't be out of place in Afghanistan or Iraq. Salih has pledged to root out the terrorists in his midst. Perhaps doubting his commitment and ability, though, the CIA has embarked on its own covert war of drone attacks and targeted strikes against suspected al-Qaeda operatives in the country.

8. European Austerity Measures  For Europe, it was a summer of discontent. Reeling from the effects of the Great Recession, a host of European Union economies adopted austerity as the watchword of the day. As Greece teetered toward bankruptcy in May, tens of thousands marched in Athens and other cities to protest government plans to cut back on public-sector spending. Many felt they were being punished for the misdeeds of politicians, while Europeans further west grumbled about having to bail out Greece to the tune of almost $150 billion. Throughout Europe, there's a sense that a long-standing social contract forged in the wake of World War II is under threat. In France, cities and towns were paralyzed for weeks by strikes as young and old raged against a plan to increase the retirement age by two years. The new Conservative-led government in London announced in October a startling $128 billion budget cut — whittling away at everything from military spending to affordable-housing projects — that was met with great consternation by a gloomy public.

9. Mexico's Drug War

Mexico's struggle with its powerful drug cartels took a grisly turn in 2010. Troubled border cities were subsumed in violence as the country's drug kingpins warred over turf. All the while, security forces were either outgunned or cowed — or sometimes even in cahoots with the cartels. In September, blood-spattered Ciudad Juárez dismissed some 400 corrupt police officers. There have been a few small triumphs in President Felipe Calderón's war on the cartels — the apprehending of a feared drug lord called "El Barbie," as well as the capture of an unprecedented 340 tons of marijuana in the border town of Tijuana. But the good news has been far outweighed by a steady drumbeat of horrifying reports of kidnappings, mass graves and nocturnal executions. More than 3,000 people have been killed this year alone.

10. Thailand's Red Shirts

For much of April and May, thousands of antigovernment protesters occupied a central commercial district in Bangkok, the capital of Thailand. Dubbed the Red Shirts for the color of their political movement (their rivals are Yellow Shirts), the activists sought to bring down a government they saw as elitist and undemocratic. Their political figurehead, former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, has lived in exile ever since he was deposed in a 2006 coup (in 2008 Thaksin was convicted of corruption and sentenced in absentia). Commentators saw the protests as emblematic of larger fissures in Thai society — between the big city and the countryside, the rich and the poor, royalists and populists. But on the streets of Bangkok, Thailand's complex, dysfunctional politics took a backseat to sheer spectacle. Red Shirt protesters spilled hundreds of liters of their own blood in a stomach-turning act of agitprop. Later, after Bangkok's continued paralysis proved unacceptable to the government, the scene turned violent, with running street battles between government forces and protesters, some of whom were armed with pistols and even a few rudimentary homemade rocket launchers. The brutal crackdown and dispersal of the Red Shirts led to 91 deaths and more than 1,800 injured, all captured by the cameras of the international press, which beamed 24-hour coverage from Bangkok's battle lines. While things have quieted down since, emotions are still raw. In November, thousands of Red Shirt supporters marched in Bangkok in memory of those slain six months earlier; future actions and protests remain possible.