Untold Stories

HEALTH

STORY YOU HEARD ABOUT:

CONGRESS DEBATES WHETHER TOMATO PASTE IS A VEGETABLE

STORY YOU MAY NOT HAVE HEARD ABOUT: GOOD NEWS ON HIV AND AIDS

Timothy Brown, a 45-year-old translator from San Francisco, contracted HIV in 1995. In 2011 he celebrated his third anniversary of having no sign of the virus in his blood. His is the first case documenting a possible cure for HIV. In 2007 and 2008, Brown received stem-cell transplants to treat his leukemia. The cancer disappeared–and, surprisingly, so did the HIV. Brown remains healthy. More good news: the number of AIDS deaths fell from 2.2 million in the mid-2000s to 1.8 million in 2010.

ASIA

STORY YOU HEARD ABOUT:

THE CONTINUING GROWTH OF CHINA’S ECONOMY

STORY YOU MAY NOT HAVE HEARD ABOUT: THE SELF-IMMOLATION OF TIBETAN MONKS

Tibet is rarely in the news these days, possibly because the Chinese occupation of the country has entered its seventh decade. But at least six Tibetan monks, nuns and former clerics–two of them teenagers–burned themselves to death this year to protest Chinese rule. Self-immolation’s emergence among Buddhist monks in Tibet illustrates what Time’s Hannah Beech called a “new, nihilistic desperation that has descended on the Tibetan plateau.” Chinese authorities quickly disposed of the bodies, but the images of their suicides couldn’t be erased.

ARAB SPRING

STORY YOU HEARD ABOUT:

THE BLOODY END OF GADDAFI’S REGIME

STORY YOU MAY NOT HAVE HEARD ABOUT: BAHRAIN’S CRACKDOWN

When the Arab Spring reached the Persian Gulf, the region’s oil-rich monarchs responded with a ferocity that was largely ignored in the U.S. Nowhere was the backlash more savage than in tiny Bahrain, whose Shi’ite majority has long felt mistreated by the island’s Sunni royalty. With help from Saudi Arabian troops, King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa swiftly repulsed protesters. Hundreds were imprisoned, many were tortured, and at least 35 died. It was a shocking display of violence in a country so wealthy and, usually, peaceful.

INEQUALITY

STORY YOU HEARD ABOUT:

THE $30 MILLION ROYAL WEDDING

STORY YOU MAY NOT HAVE HEARD ABOUT: THE DROUGHT IN THE HORN OF AFRICA

Sub-Saharan Africa has suffered many tragedies, but this year it had to endure the worst drought in 60 years. Food became so expensive that tens of thousands have starved to death–including an estimated 30,000 children. At least 500,000 Africans have become refugees. The drought has shaken African governments and destabilized a region already susceptible to al-Qaeda influence. But the economic downturn in the U.S. and Europe has diverted attention from Africa’s calamity.