Affairs Report: Happy new world

As Monocle notches up two years, we take a look back at where we started and unveil some subtle tweaks to our brand for volume 03.

Affairs Report: Little Britain - Falklands

For the first in a new series on outposts of opportunity we visit Stanley, capital of the Falkland Islands, the British territory best known for sheep and its 1982 war with Argentina. Now oil and tourists are making this outcrop a place to watch.

Q&A: Premier league

As Copenhagen gears up to host the United Nations Climate Change conference COP15 later this year, Monocle meets Danish prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen and talks about Denmark's identity, global security and the impact of the 'cartoon crisis'.

Americas Briefing: View from Washington

Change may have come to the White House, but it's no tech revolution.

Europe Briefing: Around the block - Italy

Billionaire businessman and prime minister Silvio Berlusconi has been criticised for his luxurious travel arrangements but you can’t fault him on style; he has been spotted in a vintage Lancia Flaminia and uses the same airbase as the Pope.

Europe Briefing: Relative values

This year is the 200th anniversary of Finland and Sweden becoming separate countries.

Americas Briefing: Pimp my ride - USA

Joseph Prichard is trying to turn Los Angeles into a cycling city, one block at a time.

Americas Briefing: Cow cops

The Brazilian government is creating a special task force to target the growing issue of cattle rustling.

Americas Briefing: Mystery caller - Canada

Canada's telecom regulator is forcing the mobile phone industry to undergo a major update of its 911 emergency system.

Americas Briefing: Gold meddle - El Salvador

Fed up with delays, a Canadian company is threatening to sue El Salvador for denying a mining permit.

Americas Briefing: Chick magnates - USA

To save on food shopping, a growing number of US urbanites have taken up a new hobby: poultry farming. Started as a grass-roots movement to promote homegrown, free-range eggs, the fad has taken off in today’s worsening economy.

Americas Briefing: Wake-up call - Japan

Wake-ari - literally "as is" - is the new catchphrase for thrifty Japanese shoppers.

Asia Briefing: Man the riggings - North Korea

Asia's most popular leader is expected to be returned to power with another resounding majority on 8 March when the Democratic People's Republic of North Korea goes to the polls.

Asia Briefing: Boom river - Malaysia

Malaysia is planning to spend $14bn on a 10-year project to clean up the Klang river which flows through the capital, Kuala Lumpur, but is more of a domestic and chemical waste dump than a waterway.

Asia Briefing: Lights out - Japan

Love hotels, yakuza gangsters, hostess bars - the neon-lit district of Kabukicho has long revelled in its status as the colourful underbelly of Tokyo.

Africa/Middle East Briefing: Hair apparent - Chantal Biya, Cameroon

Chantal Biya looked a bit different before she became Cameroon's first lady.

Africa/Middle East Briefing: Gym'll fix it - Iraq

A fitness centre in Iraq? Entrepreneurial folly or viable business adventure?

Africa/Middle East Briefing: Mane line - Africa

Kenya and Uganda are to spend €2.7bn on a revamp of the railway line that links landlocked central African countries to the coast.

Oceania Briefing: Head over heels - Sydney

Falling into a lover's arms might literally be easier in Sydney with the establishment of a Single's Circus Night.

Oceania Briefing: Good job - Australia

If you're a construction worker, Australia might be the place to head.

Oceania Briefing: Touch Pacific - Fiji

Fiji is cruising towards political isolation in the Pacific region as its defiant military leader Frank Bainimarama - who took power over two years ago - refuses to call an election.

Oceania Briefing: Devil in disguise - Papua New Guinea

Sorcery is part of daily life Papua New Guinea.

Affairs Report: Lord of the Skies

In 2007, the Brazilian government launched a crack down on the drug gangs in Rio's slums and thousands were killed.

Affairs Report: Show the world

Our new series, national icons, is about people who rise above politics to become symbols of a country's strengths.

Affairs Report: Keeping the peace

The recent news that Iran had acquired enough low-enriched uranium to proceed to the next stage in the development of a nuclear weapon once again raised the spectre of a looming military confrontation.

Business Report: The Next Shanghai

Kunming is an unpolluted, diverse city that offers a high quality of life.

Business Report: Two-Wheel Deal

The car industry is in global disarray. So can the makers of affordable, greener scooters overtake the punch-drunk auto makers? At Honda’s HQ they are planning a two-wheeled revolution.

Business Briefing: Women on top

For almost 30 years, you couldn't get married in north India without a Bajaj Chetak scooter.

Business Briefing: Drink to that

While stocks and property markets have tumbled, the global appetite for fine wine has continued to grow, funded by the nouveau riche in China and Russia.

Business Briefing: Green Grocer

The quiet hum of an electric car is to become a regular sound on the streets of Japan: Lawson, the nation's second largest convenience store chain, is to replace 10 per cent of its 1,500 vehicles with electric cars.

Business Briefing: Treasure Island

Mauritius, island paradise and a tourist hotspot, has become one of the easiest places in the world to start a new business.

Q&A: Luc Argand

As the car world descends on the lakeside city for the annual motor festival on 5 March, Monocle talks to the man in charge of strategy and asks, can the show eclipse depressed Detroit’s event?

Business Briefing: The Knowledge

On our next trip to Beirut, we will be making room for a copy of A Complete Insiders Guide to Lebanon, whose authors include Monocle’s Beirut correspondent, Carole Corm, and Kamal Mouzawak, one of our 20 fresh heroes for 2009.

Q&A: Sheikha Al Maskari

Abu Dhabi’s new terminal is set to open at the end of March.

Business Briefing: Lounge Lizards

Finally, there’s a new Welcome Lounge for Lufthansa premium passengers at Frankfurt, with 28 state-of-the art showers. Lufthansa is investing €150m on its lounges globally.

Why it works: Market Force

This month we start a new series that decodes the DNA of success - of anything.

Business Briefing: Closing the gap

Russian Railways (RZD) plans to run "hotel trains" on its new 250km/h high-speed service from Moscow to Berlin.

Culture Report: Friends eclectic - Los Angeles

LA’s KCRW sounds like the future of radio.

Culture Briefing: Art market

This month, Sotheby's will host its inaugural auction of Turkish Contemporary Art in London. In the mid-1990s, Sotheby's tried a handful of Turkish art sales.

My Working Life: Standard raiser - Austria

Israeli-born artist Oscar Bronner set up the daily newspaper Der Standard to fill a gap for non-partisan journalism in Austria – and because he couldn’t find a paper to read.

On the shelf: Room for reading - Berlin

Unhappy with the slipshod display and lack of choice at local newsstands, art director Mark Kiessling decided to open his own in Berlin's Mitte neighbourhood.

Culture Briefing: Can culture beat the crisis?

When it finds itself in times of trouble, the Mother Mary that comes to Hollywood is the happy ending.

Culture Briefing: Music

Loney AKA Emil Svanängen is a prolific basement pop enthusiast whose previous records have been as intimate as the tiny Stockholm studio-apartment in which he records.

Culture Briefing: Film

This war-time thriller focuses on two of Denmark’s most notorious resistance fighters.

Culture Briefing: Art

A retrospective exhibition of the 53-year-old German photographer.

Culture Briefing: Books

This disarmingly beautiful collaboration from the American poet and Japanese illustrator (and Monocle regular, see the cover) spins short stanzas about a week in the life of a Japanese retirement home...

Design Report: Make it better - Norway

Akershus University Hospital was created by CF Møller on the principle that good design makes you feel better.

Design Briefing: One to washi

"I love making paper," says Yoichi Fujimori, speaking from his firm's booth at Maison et Objet in Paris.

Design Briefing: Home goal - Slovenia

With its clean, graphic look, this residential development by Slovenian architects Bevk Perović is set to become Ljubljana's new landmark.

Q&A: Yasuhiro Yamashita

Japanese architect Yasuhiro Yamashita’s studio Atelier Tekuto has just completed a new house in Yokohama, the second in an ongoing project to explore the use of aluminium in house building.

Design Briefing: Down to the woods - Switzerland

This small home in Ticino, Switzerland, has a facade crafted from wood offcuts.

Design Report: Show must go on - Florence

Taking place in the shadow of a retail slowdown, this year's Pitti Immagine Uomo nevertheless managed to have an air of solidarity and optimism - the bright and playful clothing on show bucking the usual greys and neutrals of 'recession chic'.

Design Report: Watch word - Geneva

Due to scheduling conflict, the watch season started a bit earlier in Geneva.

Men's Fashion: Haute Honda - Tokyo

While Monocle's all for pedal power for a better environment and poolside calves, we also have room in our parking bay for a peppy little Honda Zoomer in army olive or safety-sign orange.

Fashion Briefing: Back to black - UK

Mr Hare is a new men's shoe firm with distinctly old-fashioned values.

Fashion Briefing: New uniform - UK

"I never design anything from scratch," says British designer Nigel Cabourn, referring to the "thousands" of pieces of vintage fishing gear and utility workwear he keeps for reference in his Newcastle studio.

Fashion Briefing: Mex in the city - France

Known for its delicately embroidered dresses, Sacatinta has its collections handmade by ­cooperatives in Mexico and Peru.

Fashion Briefing: Jean dream - Netherlands

If you're looking for the perfect pair of jeans, denim store Tenue de Nîmes in Amsterdam is the ideal pit-stop.

Q&A: Massimo Gambaro

Why Paris for Slowear's second store?

Fashion Briefing: Get shirty - USA

The three Parton brothers from California create fashion with a conscience that uses sustainable fabrics from partnerships with ethical overseas cooperatives.

Fashion Briefing: English sole - UK

Albam has teamed up with one of the UK's oldest shoemakers, Grenson.

Fashion Briefing: Future's bright - Global

Described as "opulence with optic" - this season, Dries Van Noten showed a collection divided into monochrome geometrics on one side, and vivid dashes of colour on the other.

Fashion Briefing: Earth mother - Japan

People queue round the block at Motherhouse's four Tokyo stores for high-quality handbags made in Bangladesh.

Fashion Briefing: The next level - Global

Adidas recently launched a new Sport Style diffusion, a men's and women's clothing line called SLVR.

Design Report: Fair games - Köln

Monocle visits the IMM furniture fair in Köln, one of the most important events in the industry calendar, to find out who has been coming up with the freshest ideas, and how brands are weathering the gloomy economic climate.

Women's Fashion: Intelligent fashion - London

The transition from winter to spring wardrobe should be a reasonable and seamless exercise.

Design Report: On the march - Tokyo

Looking good and staying dry are not mutually exclusive.