The most popular articles published on the New Internationalist website in 2012…

1) ‘I was the fall guy’: Julian Assange in his own words

Before he holed himself up in London’s Ecuadorian Embassy, the Wikileaks founder spoke to New Internationalist’s Jamie Kelsey-Fry about state surveillance, media scrutiny and the Cablegate affair.

2) The NHS is dead – and we should all be ashamed

Back in March, Alan Hughes warned that Britain was sleepwalking into a nightmare as the country’s public health service was dismantled.

Richard Stallman spreading the message in NYC mecredis

3) Richard Stallman: ‘Apple has tightest digital handcuffs in history’

For December New Internationalist’s Internet Showdown issue co-editor Hazel Healy spoke to free software’s moral compass about Anonymous, licensing and digital freedoms.

4) Norway snatches Indian children from their parents

Regular New Internationalist blogger Mari Marcel Thekaekara provoked a barrage of comments when she wrote about the two young children taken into care because their mother fed them with her fingers. 

5) The flip side to Bill Gates' charity billions

Microsoft’s former CEO has made record-breaking donations to global health programmes – but an investigation by Andrew Bowman for April’s magazine revealed some unpleasant side-effects. 

6) Legalize drugs - all of them!

With the war on drugs costing millions of lives and billions of dollars, New Internationalist co- editor Vanessa Baird explained why this is the only option that makes sense as part of a drugs special.

Questionning violence against women madaboutasia

7) A bride burnt every hour: the horror of dowry deaths

Mari Marcel Thekaekara’s passionate post on violence against women questioned why more people in India were not up in arms. 

8) India’s whitening obsession goes vaginal

Mari Marcel Thekaekara’s third appearance in 2012’s most read as she wrote about the horror of women being encouraged to bleach ‘down below’ as part of a global skin-lightening fetish. 

9) Why American Jews are falling out of love with Israel

Peace may be possible in the Israel-Palestine conflict, and American Jews may bring it about. Hazel Healy interviewed outspoken scholar Norman Finkelstein who argued Israel’s excesses are irreconcilable with liberal Jewish values. 

10) ‘The victims need to be the subject of a campaign, not Kony’

Kony 2012 went über-viral, but how do those inside the country feel about it? Georgiana Keate spoke to Victor Ochen, who screened the film in northern Uganda.

^{Slideshow photo: anthonycramp, under a CC License.}