Millions of people are living through catastrophes in places that are never mentioned on the evening news.

The NGO Medicins Sans Frontiers has compiled the top ten stories of 2004 that you should have heard of.

The 10 stories highlighted by MSF accounted for just one minute of the 14,561 minutes on the three major US television networks' nightly newscasts. In contrast, 130 minutes were devoted to Martha Stewart and 18 minutes to the indecency fine levied by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) against the National Football League because of Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction".

Go figure, as they say here.