Positive reporting across borders 2008-07-03T15:23:56-06:00 http://clpmag.org/:atomfeed:id0

Meru, KENYA-- Raila Odinga is brave to be holding a campaign rally here.  This PNU (Party for National Unity) territory, and Raila represents the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) – the opposition party in December’s elections.  Kenyan politics are both colorful and violent – and venturing into another party or politician’s territory can be dangerous.

2008-01-03T00:00:00-07:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2008/blogs/Buchanan_Raila.php

We stood in the pre-dawn glow of the streetlamps, greeted by intoxicated heckles from the previous night’s most diligent drinkers.   A battered, extended cab Toyota Hilux pickup pulled up, carrying a mound of mysterious goods under a green tarp and bearing faded Ethiopian Red Cross decals on its doors.  Seeing that there were already three passengers inside, I almost threw in the towel right there and sent my colleagues Ernest and Julia on without me, motivated as much by the practicalities of fitting so many people into such a tiny space as I was by the thought of my still warm bed waiting for me just down the block.

2008-02-02T00:00:00-07:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2008/blogs/alex/Stonehill_Day1.php

Ethiopia has been a dominant force in long distance running for decades. Despite a shortage of training infrastructure, athletes have excelled thanks to hard work, the high altitudes in their home country and the purity of the ancient sport, where whoever runs the farthest and the fastest, wins. Alex Stonehill's photo slideshow offers a taste of training in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

2008-03-17T00:00:00-06:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2008/blogs/alex/Stonehill_Sports.php

Close to 40 hours after leaving Athens, Ohio, I arrived to my destination in Addis. My Emirates flight was not exactly that long...I had two stopovers - four hours in Hamburg and 12 in Dubai. It is the kind of thing you have to contend with when you make a decision to fly cheap.

2008-01-12T00:00:00-07:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2008/blogs/ernest/Waititu_Reunion.php

When our four-wheel-drive pickup truck vroomed off the town of Negele I knew I was in for a giant adventure.  Well, I must quickly clarify that I was not here for adventure; Negele is of course not one of those places you go site-seeing. I was here to work, following stories on water scarcity and how it had impacted the people of Southern Ethiopia.

2008-02-02T00:00:00-07:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2008/blogs/ernest/Waititu_Day2.php

Some of my toughest times growing up in Kenya were those spent on my way to and from the village river. I call it the village river because it was by and large the only source of water for my village. Never mind the fact that the river was four miles away and was shared among scores of villages along its course.

2007-12-14T00:00:00-07:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2008/blogs/ernest/watermission.php

Part 5 of the CLP's multimedia blog series "Heading South": an audio blog by Jessica Partnow on the challenges of reporting on the impoverished southern Ethiopian community of Dillo. Especially while Celine Dion is blasting in the background.

2008-02-02T00:00:00-07:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2008/blogs/jessica/Partnow_Day6.php

As I sit here in my drafty college apartment in Athens, Ohio, I begin to recollect a few remarkable moments in my life.  Moments I like to call "a-ha! moments," that have not only stirred inspiration in me, but have shaped what I am about to experience in the approaching months - a multimedia reporting trip to eastern Africa with the independent, nonprofit news magazines  and .

2007-12-14T00:00:00-07:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2008/blogs/julia/sand.php

The white Toyota Hilux glowed as it pulled up in the middle of the unrecognizable night to what was the small, destined village of Arero. In my comatose daze, I was astounded by the reality of our arrival, our minds and bodies unscathed, curious, and ready for a warm bed and an Aspirin. At that moment, I realized that part of me believed we would navigate the nebulous, jarring road forever, the truck jerking to and fro rapturously, repeatedly, sending our bags up in the air before stopping urgently to change another bald tire. Such an experience erases all consciousness of time, all understanding of place. Yet, once the moment sinks in, its unfamiliarity can create a sense of peace even amid chaos.

2008-02-02T00:00:00-07:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2008/blogs/julia/Marino_Day3-4.php

Addis Ababa, ETHIOPIA -- 5:30am and still dark.  But the rooster knows the sun is coming and his crow trills up past the sulfurous street lamps into the still night sky. 

2008-01-12T00:00:00-07:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2008/blogs/sarah/Stuteville_Dawn.php

The word traces back to the Middle-English word meaning to journey, labor, strive and most importantly, to torment. 

2008-02-02T00:00:00-07:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2008/blogs/sarah/Stuteville_Day5.php

Addis Ababa, ETHIOPIA —The water in our new house in Addis has been turned off for days and my back is so sore I’ve been squirming around on our dirty couches all evening begging for a position that doesn’t hurt. 

2008-01-21T00:00:00-07:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2008/blogs/sarah/Stuteville_Shortage.php

Amman, JORDAN--Mohammad reached across the bar and handed me his mobile. He told me to press start and play the video on hold.

2007-01-03T00:00:00-07:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2008/blogs/Clithero_Ramadi.php

World Water Day on March 22 reminds us of the 1 billion people on Earth who lack easy access to the water most of us take for granted. Global climate change is making that struggle worse, as we see in this report from the rugged region of southern Ethiopia, where drought is drying up wells, threatening an ancient way of life and fueling conflict.

2008-03-22T00:00:00-06:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2008/video/Stonino_Pastoralists.php

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia – It's early morning and a dozen westerners, mostly Seattleites, were getting ready to leave the capital for a three-day visit to water development projects in Oromia, one of this country's largest, rural states.

2008-03-22T00:00:00-06:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2008/articles/Stuteville_Water1st.php

ADDIS ABABA—Chala Ahmed, 26, hit the jackpot eight years ago when he won the US visa lottery in the bustling eastern Ethiopian town of Haramaya His first thought was that he would build his mother a big beautiful house.  His next thought was that the new home, painted a rosy pink behind a high white gate, should be erected on the shore of Lake Haramaya, the huge stretch of placid water that gave his hometown its name.

2008-03-24T00:00:00-06:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2008/articles/Stuteville_Haramaya.php

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia – "Just breathe," I comforted myself as I shuffled slowly through the dusty gravel. "One breath with each step," I repeated raggedly as fifty pounds of brackish water sloshed rhythmically against the sides of the muddy yellow jerry can strapped to my back.

2008-03-22T00:00:00-06:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2008/articles/Stuteville_WaterWalkers.php

Yakima, WASHINGTON--Wisit Kampilo's sparse black hair ruffles in a gust of March wind. Standing in a patch of dry yellow grass off a remote road in the Yakima Valley, he pulls a secondhand Oakland Raiders bomber jacket around his thin frame and looks back at the dingy three-bedroom manufactured home where he and 32 other Thai guest workers were housed together in the fall of 2004.

2007-06-27T00:00:00-06:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2007/articles/Stuteville_Harvest.php

TOKYO, Japan--Nestled among the towering half constructed apartment frames that fill the skies of the Koto-ku section of Tokyo leans a squat building with crumbling walls, propped up on one side by a tangled assortment of metal pipes. This is the Edagawa Chosen School, one of a number of ethnic Korean schools run by Chongryon – The General Association of Korean Residents in Japan – a group that also serves as North Korea’s unofficial embassy in Tokyo.

2007-03-12T00:00:00-06:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2007/articles/Lee_Tolerance.php

Khon Kaen, THAILAND--"Let's go!" shouts Mannee Boonrod over the cries of barking dogs and the thundering of the monsoon rains on the corrugated tin roof of the temple. This kindly looking lady in her sixties has become something of an activist in recent years, known for her eloquent, forceful speeches and unwavering passion for this community's struggle. She's energetically retelling the story of the day three years ago when she and a pack of angry women charged toward 300 of then-Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's personal guards.

2007-01-22T00:00:00-07:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2007/articles/Bennett_Potash.php

Koh Kong, CAMBODIA--1974. For Americans, the long Indochinese nightmare is finally over, but war rages on across the rice fields of Cambodia. Corrupt officials receive tons of bombs and millions of dollars in military assistance from the United States, but battle hardened remnants of the Khmer Rouge tighten control over the countryside and threaten the capital of Phnom Penh. Amid the suffering, tens of thousands of families abandon their homes and take refuge across the border in Thailand.

2007-03-12T00:00:00-06:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2007/articles/Patterson_Homecoming.php

Sydney, AUSTRALIA--A young woman leaves squeaky footprints in the sand as she carries her fiberglass short-board towards the surf in a yellow string bikini. It is late afternoon and her elongated shadow drifts past the blue hijab of another woman lying on the beach with her children.

2007-03-12T00:00:00-06:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2007/articles/Leishman_Veil.php

When Abdenasser "Sammy" Ennassime returned home to visit his family in Morocco six years ago, he could brag of a bustling coffee shop, a baby son, and an American wife to show for his more than two decades in the United States. In this light, Ennassime's suggestion to bring his adolescent niece, Lamyaá, to his home in Tacoma to help with the new baby - in return for enrolling her in school and guiding her toward U.S. citizenship - was seen as the magnanimous gesture of a generous uncle.

2007-01-31T00:00:00-07:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2007/articles/Stuteville_Americano.php

Nai Lai, THAILAND--Halima Singkala, 49, and her neighbors were repairing fishing nets when thirty soldiers marched into their village on a bright March morning two years ago. Residents were still recovering from the massive tsunami that had struck just three months prior, but these officials brought guns, not relief, to the southern Thai fishing village of Nai Lai. Singkala and her neighbors were ordered to vacate the property immediately: according to the soldiers, their newly constructed homes were built on land they no longer owned.

2007-01-22T00:00:00-07:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2007/articles/Leavell_Fishermen.php

Kira’s piece explores her experience working with women seeking abortions at a Rhode Island clinic after surviving rape while crossing the US-Mexico border illegally.

2007-01-01T00:00:00-07:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2007/audio/Neel_Unsafe.php

Click icons below to hear the audio series, meet producer Jessica Partnow, and see the Duwamish in 1850 and today.

2007-09-24T00:00:00-06:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2007/audio/Partnow_Duwamish.php

Lola Akinmade's photo essay offers a vivid view of every day life in Lagos, Nigeria.

2007-10-01T00:00:00-06:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2007/photos/Akinmade_Lagos.php

Not too long ago, I found myself on the balcony of the youth radio station in Thimphu, Bhutan. I was having a discussion with a new radio host at the station, 13-year-old Tenzin “Sora” Tshewang. The skater shoe and hoodie-clad young man spoke impeccable English and had just begun volunteering as a DJ for the station’s popular call-in request show ‘Youth Unplugged’.

2007-10-10T00:00:00-06:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2007/blogs/Shiffler_Bhutan.php

I was in Pakistan for a little over a month last year reporting on the issue of bonded labor and debt slavery in the country. Though Pakistan was only one of the ten countries I visited in an eight-month tour, it looms the largest in my memory. I was fascinated by this country so at odds with itself: as feudal as it is modern, as isolated from as it is harassed by the international community, as hospitable as it is hostile. But the real reason Pakistan is still on my mind is because America won’t let me forget it.

2007-01-12T00:00:00-07:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2007/blogs/Stuteville_Reflections.php

There’s some pretty powerful propaganda out there romanticizing my profession.

2007-03-12T00:00:00-06:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2007/blogs/Stuteville_ToBe.php

War resisters, Vietnam vets, and teenage punks all joined together to proetest the Iraq War and shut down a military recruiting center in Seattle's Central District. This audio slideshow explores anti-war protest tactics and their impact on the US's presence in Iraq.

2007-01-27T00:00:00-07:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2007/audioslideshows/Partnow_Protest.php

Audio recorded during a demining mission in the jungle near Chrun Village in northern Cambodia.

2006-03-01T00:00:00-07:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2006/audio/demining.php

Follow one CLP journalist's personal and ethical journey through Kolkata's Red Light Districts.

2006-05-01T00:00:00-06:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2006/audio/Partnow_RedLight.php

If you are having trouble listening online, you can save the audio file to your computer's hard drive and listen from there. To do so:, right-click (Mac users command-click) on the picture, and choose “Save Link As” or “Save Target As”. Make a note of where you're saving the file, wait for it to finish downloading, and click play! If you need any further assistance, we are happy to help - please write to us at .

2006-04-01T00:00:00-07:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2006/audio/Partnow_Ed4Chg.php

This audio feature, produced during the height of the Israeli-Lebanese War of 2006, explores the surprising phenomenon of American expatriation to Israel and the Palestinian territories.

2006-08-01T00:00:00-06:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2006/audio/Partnow_MeltingPot.php

Aya Tyutok was this year's winner of the Akha Idol Singing Contest, sponsored by Mirror Art Group. He wrote this song about the traditional Akha way of life and sang it at the Mirror Art Group studio on February 20th. Lyrics in Akha language are transliterated below.

2006-02-24T00:00:00-07:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2006/audio/iawrkanq.php

Original song and drawings by landmine survivor Chet.

2008-03-24T20:06:00-06:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2006/audio/beggarslife.php

Lahore, PAKISTAN—On the night of October 1, 2005 in the tiny town of Jannat, one hour outside of Lahore, Shoukat Masih, 35, was fast asleep.  He and his extended family had pulled their rusted charpoys out into the courtyard of their one room home in order to enjoy the cool air and a night’s rest before returning at dawn to another twelve hours of hard labor in the neighboring brick kilns.  Around 11:00 pm a group of men armed with pistols and sticks entered the courtyard and yanked Masih to the ground, shouting, “Are you the one making statements on the television?!”  His wife was in a neighboring village visiting family, but his father, children, nieces, and nephews, all looked on in terror as he was beaten to death on the packed clay earth.

2006-06-09T00:00:00-06:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2006/articles/Stuteville_Bonded.php

Chhattisgarh, INDIA--“Zindabad!” shouts Bindia Bai, pressing her hands together in greeting as she sits down on the hard-packed mud floor to meet with fellow village women in the sunny courtyard of her home.  This revolutionary rallying cry meaning “victory” echoes throughout Batka Behra village and has been spreading across the remote tribal hills of Chhattisgarh state in recent months.  A new movement challenging government corruption and resource cooption is building among these ancient people.

2006-04-21T00:00:00-06:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2006/articles/Stuteville_Koriya.php

Kolkata, INDIA--The smells of jasmine perfume, fried food, bidi smoke, and liquored breath mingle in the thick humid air. Watery pink and white neon lights from Hotel Welcome, Dream House, and Love Lotus shine in the eyes of women lined up in turquoise saris or red mini skirts and the customers jostling to admire them. Backlit in shadowy doorways, young girls beckon into the night with childish voices that betray their pre-pubescence, despite alluring gestures and deep purple lipstick.

2006-05-08T00:00:00-06:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2006/articles/Stuteville_Kolkata.php

Peshawar, PAKISTAN--Rows of adolescent boys kneel in an open marble courtyard, dwarfed by the oversized, yellowing Arabic texts opened before them.  Murmuring under white knit prayer caps, their small bodies sway in rhythm with their hafiz (memorization of the verses of the Koran by rote).  The entryway is adorned by a faded poster of Mulana Sami al-Haq, the owner of the sprawling grounds of the Dar al-Haqqania Madrassa and Principle Administrator to its 3000 students.  Shrouded in green, he holds a Koran in one uplifted arm and a Kalashnikov in the other.

2006-06-09T00:00:00-06:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2006/articles/Stonehill_Madrassa.php

Ayubia, PAKISTAN—Ten year old Fazia Reza was in English class when she felt the ground starting to move.  She watched in terror as the walls of the school began to tremble and crack, obeying her teacher’s shouts to run outside and start praying just in time to see the roof collapse and the walls cave in.  Her father, one of 40 people injured in this tiny village of just 145 families, lost his leg, and two others died in the October 8, 2005 earthquake.  Almost all of the town’s buildings were destroyed.

2006-06-01T00:00:00-06:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2006/articles/Partnow_Backpacks.php

Ahmedabad, INDIA—In a small, dimly lit room decorated with drawings celebrating Christmas, Diwali, and Eid, forty children attending Arzoo Kids Center sit with eyes closed and hands folded as if in prayer, belting out the Indian national anthem. While this may seem like a commonplace scene in an Indian after school program, it could mean salvation for the troubled city of Ahmedabad.

2006-04-06T00:00:00-06:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2006/articles/Stuteville_Arzoo.php

Almaty, KAZAKHSTAN—The sounds of construction are ubiquitous in Almaty.  Pounding jackhammers, whining saws and lumbering bulldozers are at work on almost every block of this green, mountain-rimmed Central Asian city. This breakneck development takes place alongside the expensive bistros and Mercedes dealerships  that cater to a new generation reveling in the riches of recently discovered oil and gas reserves, giving this city—once considered a sleepy Soviet outpost—a powerfully wealthy and cosmopolitan veneer.

2006-06-28T00:00:00-06:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2006/articles/Stuteville_Suburbs.php

RAMALLAH, West Bank - The administrative headquarters of Ruwwad Youth Empowerment Project, housed in a newly constructed office tower on the outskirts of Ramallah, sparkle with disuse in the fluorescent overhead light. A skeleton crew of employees looking for ways to busy themselves are scattered around the offices, separated by a grid of vacant cubicles that serve as a reminder of what this project was meant to be.

2006-08-03T00:00:00-06:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2006/articles/Stonehill_AidGame.php

Siem Reap, CAMBODIA-The landscape is all dust and smoke and heat. In the parched countryside the fields smolder and burn under a brutal sun. March is the height of Cambodia’s dry season and all over the country peasants are clearing and preparing the land for planting rice when the rains come. But here in Chrun, a remote village near the Thai border and a holdout of the Khmer Rouge as late as 1998, the burning land serves another dangerous purpose. These farmers hope the flames will detonate the hundreds of thousands of landmines and unexploded ordnance (UXO) that litter their land--before one of them or their children does.

2006-03-14T00:00:00-07:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2006/articles/Stuteville_Akira.php

Uttar Pradesh, INDIA--The whirr of old fashioned sewing machines reverberates in the high-ceilinged room. Forty girls dressed in uniform green and yellow salwar kameez bend their heads towards their stitching as shafts of afternoon sunlight warm their identical hairstyles of black looped braids.

2006-04-03T00:00:00-06:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2006/articles/Stonehill_Pardada.php

Phnom Penh, CAMBODIA – At first glance, Tumlop 2 village looks like any third world city slum: crowded huts with corrugated tin roofs are scattered along dusty dirt paths, and barefoot children mingle with freely wandering chickens and dogs.  Look closer and you’ll find that this community also houses a tidy health center where local women diagnose and treat common ailments.  Look even closer and you’ll see that gender relations in this poor and traditional society may be more evolved than in the more wealthy households of the teeming and ever-expanding city that surrounds them.

2006-06-01T00:00:00-06:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2006/articles/Partnow_UPWD.php

I didn't always know that there are different definitions of democracy. Studying for my Masters at Birzeit University, I learned that there are many, and that each one serves a certain ideology, a certain vision and certain interests. It's as if each definition is working to legitimize its own ownership of the concept of democracy which others must recognize and abide by.

2006-08-03T00:00:00-06:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2006/editorials/Mehdawi_Democracy.php

I’m sitting on a windy mountaintop in the Lesser Himalayas surrounded by men with weathered faces, long graying beards and red kiffeyehs draped around their shoulders.  Fifty pairs of steely eyes stare expectantly as one man barks at me in Pashtun and those squatting around him murmur in agreement.

2006-06-01T00:00:00-06:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2006/editorials/Stonehill_Earthquake.php

On September 11th, I flew back to Seattle after almost a year reporting in Asia and the Middle East for independent media.

2006-11-07T00:00:00-07:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2006/editorials/Stonehill_Election.php

The collapse of the Soviet Union is my earliest memory of politics.  The sense of relief and of victory that I felt around me was overwhelming, and I became fascinated with the idea that events on the other side of the world could mean so much in my own home.  Televised images of East Germans taking sledgehammers to the Berlin Wall or Boris Yeltsin speaking from atop a tank in Red Square became the very definition of freedom in my ten year old mind, and even as I grew older and learned of the theories behind communism and the Cold War missteps of the CIA, this picture of humanity breaking free of oppression by sheer will stuck with me.

2006-07-05T00:00:00-06:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2006/editorials/Stonehill_Hegemony.php

In the heat of a street protest in The United States the most popular chant that will rise out of the crowd is the impassioned cry, "This is what democracy looks like!" I use this example not to reiterate the tired clich� that Americans are proud of their democratic ideals, but to underscore how the term democracy has become so omnipresent in American political rhetoric that its meaning is now beginning to elude us.

2006-08-03T00:00:00-06:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2006/editorials/Stuteville_Democracy.php

Last night over dinner I tried to watch a game of cricket. It had all the familiar trappings of baseball – bats, uniforms, a small white ball and a big green field. But as I watched I grew more and more frustrated. Why was the batter wearing a catcher’s mask? Why wasn’t anyone circling the bases? Why does he keep bunting, and then look all proud of himself? And why in God’s name does the scorecard say ‘Day 2, 91 runs to zero’?

2006-04-03T00:00:00-06:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2006/blogs/Partnow_Baseball.php

Tomorrow morning we will leave Pakistan, heading back over the border to India to catch our onward flight to Kazakhstan. When we first arrived here I was full of nerves and expectations, and now, a month later, I am leaving the country still confused and newly disheartened. Pakistan is probably the most interesting country I’ve ever visited, but I can’t wait to leave.

2006-06-02T00:00:00-06:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2006/blogs/Stonehill_Perplexed.php

Well, we’re almost three months in with about three more to go. As I write this I’m counting down the hours to our next train ride which will take us to our fourth country–Pakistan. It’s seems that the half-way mark is good place to stop, look around, and think about where we’ve been and where we’re going as a project, as journalists, and as individuals.

2006-05-06T00:00:00-06:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2006/blogs/Stuteville_Halfway.php

I found out last night at 11PM that there was a military coup here in Thailand yesterday. The military’s top general (Songthii) led tanks into Bangkok, declared a coup, and took power from Thaksin, the now former Prime Minister, with the support of the Thai military. They also took over all of the television stations, preventing Thaksin from communicating with the people, and issued their own referendum.

2006-09-21T00:00:00-06:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2006/blogs/Bennett_Coup.php

In fact, you may find yourself regretting having even tried to make a plan in the first place. Today marks our two week anniversary in Cambodia. We were supposed to have flown to New Delhi a week ago. But journalism, it seems, is mostly about waiting.

2006-03-14T00:00:00-07:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2006/blogs/Stonehill_Cambodia.php

As I woke to the muezzin’s wails straining through a riot of church bells in my cramped hostel room in Old Jerusalem, excerpts of the previous night’s angry conversations were already working their way through my mounting hangover. Shouts of, “how can you call them terrorists?” and “there aren’t two sides to this story!” and, of course, “What are you looking for anyway?!” pierced the headache I had earned over hours of politically charged debate and a steady stream of warm red wine. I rolled out of my narrow bed and groaned, cursing another day of reporting in this enraged and bitter country.

2006-08-02T00:00:00-06:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2006/blogs/Stuteville_Atheists.php

The late afternoon sun beats down on the high-rocky landscape. Sweat runs down my face and the back of my neck–tickles my scalp underneath a long grey burka swaddled tightly around my head and shoulders, and hanging to just below my knees. My feet slip on loose pebbles as I scramble up a steep slope in the rugged foothills of Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province.

2006-05-24T00:00:00-06:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2006/blogs/Stuteville_Propaganda.php

Summer 2006 was a tense time in Israel and Palestine, and the Common Language Project spent a month there reporting during the buildup to the war with Lebanon. But behind the headlines this land is also home to 10 million people; this photo slideshow aims to reveal the human side of this highly politicized region.

2006-08-01T00:00:00-06:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2006/photos/Stonehill_Headlines.php

A journey through Kalighat and Sonagachi, Kolkata's Red Light Districts

2006-05-01T00:00:00-06:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2006/photos/Stonehill_Kolkata.php

Visit the slums of Phnom Penh and see the work of Urban Poor Women Development in action.

2006-03-01T00:00:00-07:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2006/photos/Stonehill_UPWD.php

This photo slideshow takes us to an Akha Hilltribe village in northern Thailand.

2006-02-01T00:00:00-07:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2006/photos/Stonehill_Akha.php

More than 20 years after the disastrous accident at Union Carbide in Bhopal, India that instantly killed over 7,000 people, residents continue to suffer from health problems caused by exposure to the hazardous chemicals once produced at the plant. Today, the death toll has risen to over 20,000. This slideshow explores the ruins of the chemical plant, as well as some of the work being done here to ease residents' medical trauma.

2008-03-24T20:06:00-06:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2006/photos/Stonehill_Bhopal.php

Aki Ra took CLP reporters on a demining expedition in northern Cambodia, showing off his own technique for disarming land mines - hundreds of which he laid himself as a child soldier.

2008-03-24T20:06:00-06:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2006/photos/Stonehill_Akira.php

A journey through rural Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, India.

2006-04-01T00:00:00-07:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2006/photos/Stonehill_RuralIndia.php

Our reporting took us to three of Pakistan's four provinces, from northern mountain regions to lawless tribal areas and the agricultural fields of Sindh, as well as Pakistan's four major cities - Lahore, Karachi, Peshawar and Islamabad. Despite mainstream news coverage that depicts a one-dimensional Pakistan seen through the lens of The Global War on Terror, our travels revealed a country of incredible diversity and remarkable complexity.

2006-06-01T00:00:00-06:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2006/photos/Stonehill_FacesOfPakistan.php

According to Ethiopia's unique calendar, the year 2000 started last September. Christmas was two weeks ago, on January 7th, and this weekend, at the end of the twelve days of Christmas, the country's 33 million Ethiopian Orthodox Christians celebrated Timkat, or Epiphany, a commemoration of the baptism of Christ. CLP Audio Producer Jessica Partnow brings us this report from the nation's capitol, Addis Ababa.

2008-01-21T00:00:00-07:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2008/blogs/jessica/Partnow_Timkat.php

Nairobi, KENYA—One of the first pieces of advice I received before leaving on this reporting project was from an Ethiopian diplomat in the States who requested that I "not be a typical journalist" in my coverage of Africa. What he meant, and what he went on to say more specifically, was that he didn't want to see any more stories about African poverty in the news.

2008-03-25T00:00:00-06:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2008/blogs/sarah/Stuteville_Typical.php

NAIROBI—The first thing I thought of when I saw the scorched whitewash, shattered windows and collapsing skeletons of businesses in Kisumu's downtown was my father's furniture store in Seattle, Washington.

2008-04-22T00:00:00-06:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2008/blogs/sarah/Stuteville_Manyatta.php

In many parts of the world, women and girls walk long distances or spend hours waiting in queues for water. Often, the water these "water walkers" draw isn't even clean. According to a 2006 United Nations report, diarrhea caused by contaminated water is the second largest cause of child mortality. More than 5,000 children die every day from easily treatable diarrhea. That's 5 times as many as HIV/AIDS. Jessica Partnow brings us this audio story about a day in the life of a water walker.

2008-02-17T00:00:00-07:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2008/audio/Partnow_WaterWalker.php

Welcome to Freeing the Press, a Podcast series by The Common Language Project.

2007-03-12T00:00:00-06:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2007/audio/rsf.php

I’ve spent the last four months reporting stories on water from Ethiopia and Kenya, two countries at the forefront of the world’s coming water crisis . And while western politicians and consumers fret over the declining economy and increasing oil prices, the news from East Africa is that with a growing majority of the world living on less than a dollar a day, the liquid that fuels bodies is becoming even more contentious than the liquid that fuels cars.

2008-04-17T00:00:00-06:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2008/blogs/alex/Stonehill_OffTheRecord.php

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia—Dawn in the Merkato breaks over a tangle of streets jammed with shouting hawkers and towering pyramids of ripe produce from Ethiopia’s fertile countryside. Today it is a popular destination for sunburnt foreign tourists, expensive cameras poised to capture lively scenes from one of Africa’s largest open-air markets.

2008-04-11T00:00:00-06:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2008/articles/Stoneville_EthioJnlsm.php

DUBLUCK, Ethiopia — On a warm January afternoon in southern Ethiopia, thousands of ill-tempered livestock stand in groups with the pastoralists who have guided them for dozens of miles to drink. The animals dot an expansive field of Acacia trees, severed bits and pieces of dead grass and dust.

2008-04-25T00:00:00-06:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2008/articles/Waititu_Drought.php

Episode 2 in our Freeing the Press Podcast series features an interview with jailed journalist , who spoke to us from inside the Federal Prison in Dublin California.

2007-03-23T00:00:00-06:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2007/audio/joshwolf.php

"The world is watching what we do here." The words flooded my ears like the first day of rain after the dry season. Barack Obama's speech in Texas crackled from an old television set into the green patio of a dusty hotel in Yabello, Ethiopia. It was early March, and Obama had just lost my home state of Ohio to Hillary Clinton. I was on the other side of the globe, probably at the only satellite TV in a hundred miles, but I had never felt closer to the man who spoke of change.

2008-05-11T00:00:00-06:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2008/blogs/julia/Marino_Obama.php

A clandestine form of torture in a hostage interrogation is the practice of ripping off the fingernails of the victim until the information is forcefully and mercilessly muttered.

2008-05-11T00:00:00-06:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2008/blogs/julia/Marino_Healthcare.php

NAIROBI, Kenya (WOMENSENEWS)--The long rainy season in Kenya has begun and sudden storms regularly burst over Nairobi. Many welcome the downpours, which signal the end of another dry summer and wash the steamy crowded capital clean each morning.

2008-04-13T00:00:00-06:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2008/articles/Stuteville_Kibera.php

Over 30 million people rely on East Africa's Lake Victoria for their livelihoods. But lake levels have dropped dramatically in recent years. Climate change, hydroelectric dam projects and increasing pressure on its threatened resources have some environmentalists suggesting the lake may be destroyed within twenty years.

2008-05-30T00:00:00-06:00 http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2008/video/Stoneville_TroubledWaters.php