Welcome

The purpose of this blog is to serve as a source of comment and analysis on international events and the reporting thereof, particularly with regard to articles which are unlikely to garner much widespread attention. To try to widen the focus of the progressive blogosphere's international attentions beyond Iraq and, to a much lesser extent, Afghanistan, Darfur, Burma and Europe.

I cannot claim to have any particular expertise in this field. My university studies are not terribly relevant to the subject (I'm a third-year undergraduate studying Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic at Cambridge University), I have never been outside Europe and I have no real contacts with most of the areas I intend to write about. It's quite possible that not only my analyses but even my basic preconceived ideas may frequently be mistaken. I'm resigned to this. When I do this, tell me. If you know more about a particular subject than me, tell me. If you'd like to guest-post and correct my misapprehensions, that can only be a good thing.

Whilst I may not be an expert, I haven't managed to find anything like this project elsewhere on the internet (if it's there, please do link me), so I'm not going to feel too embarrassed about my utterly unqualified assessments. As a news junkie who's been interested in the parts of the world you almost never hear about since the first time I heard the BBC's Correspondent (still to my mind the best radio program ever), I just want to indulge my twin passions of foreign affairs and listening to the sound of my own voice. If anybody wants to read what I write and begin a discussion on it, that's a bonus.

I'm lazy, capricious and ill-motivated and there are other responsibilities that will probably end up taking up a lot of my time. That said, the more feedback I get, the more I'll feel motivated to producing more. So as I've said, if anybody who's not a spambot is reading, speak up. Debate is more fun that declamation.

I think that probably covers everything for now. Welcome to Forgotten Countries.