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Kushti Wrestling: India's Ancient Alternative to WWE
Traditional Indian wrestling is more than a sport. Sure, there are spectators (who often place bets on the matches and reward their favorite wrestlers with tips); there are rules (if your back touches the ground, you lose); and intense training for the athletes. But kushti is also a way of life.
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Categories: India, Watch, Poverty and Development
A Nice Day for a Green Wedding South African city struggles to sell environmentalism to the rich
Think environmentalism is a luxury? In South Africa, green companies struggle to convince the upper classes that an eco-friendly lifestyle isn't just for the poor.
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Categories: South Africa, Read, The Environment
College Dreams Seattle's immigrant youth forge new pathways to higher education
For many immigrant and refugee families, college is a sign that the American Dream is within reach. While many first generation immigrants have not attended college themselves, they hope their children will have the opportunity, and see higher education as a gateway to economic and social success. But many of these families lack the resources needed to apply and pay for college. First or second generation immigrants are twice as likely to drop out of high school as other youth. This video follows two young people in Seattle as they work to gain a college education.
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Categories: Pacific Northwest, Watch, Read, Education, Poverty and Development
Reforms Slow to Arrive in Northern Burma Embedded photographer documents the Kachin independence movement
Amid news of positive change and strengthening democracy in Burma, the Kachin Independence Organization reports growing human rights abuses at the hands of the Burmese Army. Photojournalist Ryan Libre has spent several months in the Kachin Autonomous Region in northern Burma documenting the struggle.
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Categories: Burma, Watch, Commentary, Human Rights, Politics and Conflict
Iraqi Refugees in Syria Face a Difficult Choice
Syria was once a safe haven for the close to 300,000 registered Iraqi refugees in the country. But now the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad is pushing Syrians to flee to neighboring countries, and some Iraqis are faced with the troubling choice between staying in an increasingly unstable Syria, or returning to Iraq.
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Categories: Iraq, Syria, Read, Politics and Conflict
In Afghanistan, Land Mine Victims Find Work Building Mine-Clearing Equipment
Close to half a million land mines remain in Afghanistan, left over from the decadelong Soviet occupation that began in 1979. Hundreds of people are killed or maimed by land mines in the country every year — and most of the victims are children. Arthur Nazaryan's report tells the story of a young father who lost his arm in a mine accident a decade ago, who now earns his living building mine-clearing equipment.
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Categories: Afghanistan, Read, Global Health, Politics and Conflict
Heading Home
Joanne Silberner is finishing up a reporting trip to Uganda, India and Haiti, supported by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. She’ll be producing radio and web stories about cancer in low-resource areas, and she’s been blogging on her reporting experience. In this post she remembers that every part of the process...is the hardest part of the process.
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Categories: Haiti, Blogs, Poverty and Development, Global Health
In Nairobi Neighborhood, Somali Refugees Dream of a New Life in Seattle
When I mention my hometown in Nairobi, I get a blank stare; maybe a vague reference to "Grey’s Anatomy." But in Eastleigh, Nairobi's Somali neighborhood, faces light up at the mention of Seattle. I often hear, "My brother/cousin/best friend/mother lives in Seattle!" “Seattle is in the north of America. It is very, very hot and life is very good!” says a young Somali refugee named Abdigani, sitting in an Eastleigh cafe. Well, two out of three ain't bad.
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Categories: Kenya, Read, Labor and Immigration
Reporter's Notebook: To Pay or Not to Pay
I talked to a lot of people in Uganda for whom a very small amount of money could save a life. Many cancer treatments require repeat visits to the Uganda Cancer Institute in Kampala to receive chemotherapy every few weeks. But doctors there say that patients – more than half – don’t come back after the first treatment or two. The reason? Coming to Kampala costs money. Maybe 10,000 shillings, maybe 25,000 shillings – more if you live farther away. Sound like a lot? 25,000 shillings works out to a little over $10. Not much ‘til you consider that the average income in Uganda is less than $1 a day.
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Categories: Uganda, Blogs, Poverty and Development, Global Health
Reporter's Notebook: Covering Cancer in the Developing World
As a reporter I’ve been covering global health issues for about 15 years. For most of that time, the talk has been all about HIV, TB, and malaria. Lately, neglected tropical diseases, cardiovascular diseases and diabetes have joined the mix. But cancer? Are people in poor countries even living long enough to get it? Isn’t cancer a disease of the affluent?
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Categories: Pacific Northwest, Uganda, Blogs, Poverty and Development, Global Health
The Rollerbladers of Suleimaniya
Sarah Glidden created this comic chronicling a day of reporting from northern Iraq in November 2010, as part of a 24 hour comics competition.
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Categories: Iraq, Comics, Poverty and Development, Politics and Conflict
Refugees in Puget Sound Navigating a new home in the Northwest
Washington is the 13th most populated state, but is the 8th highest receiver of refugees in the country. Refugees come to Washington from all over the world, but the largest groups come from Burma, Iraq, Bhutan and Somalia. In this four–part radio series, Jessica Partnow explores the refugee experience in Puget Sound.
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Categories: Pacific Northwest, Listen, Labor and Immigration, Politics and Conflict
Hunger for Change Stories from Tahrir Square
In January 2011, Egyptians hungry for change took to the streets and squares of Cairo. They eventually succeeded in overthrowing dictator Hosni Mubarak, but a year later, the fate of democracy in Egypt is still unsure. In this short documentary, three young Cairenes share their personal stories from the Arab Spring, and discuss their hopes and fears for the future of their country.
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Categories: Egypt, Watch, Student Reporting, Politics and Conflict
Outsourcing Reaches Rural India Budding IT sector brings change to small Himalayan town
In a small mountain town in Northern India, everything but the motorized vehicles and the brand-name potato chips looks just about the same as it has for hundreds of years. But in the center of town, in a stout yellow building surrounded by fields of cabbage rosettes, boys and girls are bent over keyboards, their eyes fixed on computer screens. They are plotting data, skimming spreadsheets and tagging Supreme Court judgments for B2R, an Indian IT outsourcing company.
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Categories: India, Read, Student Reporting, Labor and Immigration
Go Fly a Kite Gujarat celebrates with two days of flying - and fighting - kites
The harvest holiday Makar Sankranti is celebrated in different ways all over India. In the state of Gujarat, its marked by what's got to be the world's biggest kite festival. For two full days, the skies are filled with colorful kites made from tissue paper and bamboo jockeying for position. Photographer Adeel Halim sent us this peek into the lives of the Gujratis who make, fly, and fight these amazing kites.
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Categories: India, Watch, Poverty and Development
Youth Activists Speak on Climate Change at COP17
The UN Climate Conference in South Africa didn't accomplish much on the political level. But it brought together young environmental activists from around the continent and the globe, whose shared energy may be the real driving force in environmental preservation.
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Categories: South Africa, Watch, Read, The Environment
The Spirits of Java Rise of Conservative Islam Threatens Indonesian Traditions
For centuries Muslims, Hindus, Christians, Buddhists and Animists have lived side by side on the islands of Indonesia. But a recent wave of fundamentalist Islam is threatening minority groups and eroding ancient traditions.
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Categories: Indonesia, Read, Politics and Conflict
Night at the Museum In Tunisia, the boss is gone, but no one is signing the paychecks
A year after the Arab Spring drove Tunisia’s dictator from power, employees in the desert town of Tozeur are finding that political freedom may have come at the cost of a steady paycheck.
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Categories: Tunisia, Read, Labor and Immigration, Poverty and Development, Politics and Conflict
In Ethiopia, Food Insecurity is About More Than Just Famine
When I first came to Ethiopia, I expected to see famine. I had long associated the country with footage of starving children from the 1980s. But I found out that food insecurity here is less about famine and more about families struggling every day to secure enough food in spite of receiving aid.
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Categories: Ethiopia, Read, Poverty and Development, Global Health
The Big Operation Why are rural Indian women being pressured into unnecessary hysterectomies?
Rural Indian women are having hysterectomies at extremely high rates. But instead of putting women's health first, clinics are cutting corners and reinforcing a culture of shame about menstruation.
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Categories: India, Read, Global Health
Haitians Deported From US Face Prison and Squalor
The United States has deported more than 250 Haitians since January, knowing that one in two will be jailed without charges in facilities so filthy they pose life-threatening health risks. An investigation by the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting found that the Obama administration has not followed its own policy of seeking alternatives to deportation when there are serious medical and humanitarian concerns.
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Categories: Haiti, Labor and Immigration, Politics and Conflict
Egypt Sees the Writing on the Wall
When protesters took to the streets and squares of Cairo last January demanding a change in government, a long-suppressed form of expression came out of hiding as well. Street art, mostly stenciled on concrete city walls, called for revolution in bold defiance of authority. The revolution succeeded in ousting President Mubarak, but the street art movement is still going strong.
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Categories: Egypt, Watch, Student Reporting, The Media, Politics and Conflict
Reading for Freedom Can book clubs bring an Arab Spring to Azerbaijan?
I paid my first visit to Emin Milli a couple of days after he'd been let out of prison. There were boxes all over his new home, and the only food he had to offer was cabbage, cherry jam and tea. But amidst the mess, he'd managed to unpack just one thing: his collection of books.
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Categories: Azerbaijan, Read, The Media, Politics and Conflict
Sign Language Class helps deaf Bhutanese refugees restart their lives
Nancy Allen, an American Sign Language (ASL) teacher at Highline Community College, goes through a stack of name cards, holding up each one and looking quizzically at the students.
"Whose is this?" she signs.
A short man in his 50s smiles hesitantly and raises his hand slowly as he sees the card with his name.
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Categories: Pacific Northwest, Read, Student Reporting, Education, Labor and Immigration
A Clean Start Low-cost birthing huts save lives in Dhaka slum
Inside the Korail slum, Nipa pats her pregnant stomach in an atrium of corrugated sheet metal. When she first found out she was pregnant a few months ago, she assumed she’d give birth at home, like nearly 80 percent of Bangladeshi slumdwellers do.
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Categories: Bangladesh, Watch, Read, Poverty and Development, Global Health
"Every Day is Full of Joy" 30 years as a midwife in Bangladesh
British midwife Sister Gillian Rose provides free medical and prenatal care in Bollobhpur, a village just minutes from the Indian border. Sister Gillian won't reveal her age, but people close to her say she's in her seventies. She's been working here for over thirty years.
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Categories: Bangladesh, Watch, Poverty and Development, Global Health
Citizen of Heaven Evangelical church offers comfort to Maine's growing Latino population
Israel Ortiz, co-pastor of the first Latino Evangelical church in Portland, Maine, is praying. Two illegal border crossings, countless close calls with the Mexican police, marriage to an American citizen, and a string of random jobs have led him here. Tonight, he’ll baptize four “soldiers of God,” helping them cleanse their bodies of sin and dedicate their lives to Christ.
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Categories: USA, Watch, Read, Labor and Immigration, Poverty and Development
Postcards From Beirut
For years, Beirut was a synonym for chaos and destruction. But it has also been called the Paris of the Middle East. Today, the city retains vestiges of both those legacies, making it an enchanting — if disturbing — place to visit. For those unable to make the trip, we've compiled these postcards of the sights and sounds of Beirut. Press play to see the drawings come to life!
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Categories: Lebanon, Watch, Politics and Conflict
State of Palestine
Sarah Glidden's latest comic profiles Khaled Jarrer, who blends art and activism by marking passports with a stamp of his own creation reading 'State Of Palestine'.
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Categories: Israel, Palestinian Territories, Read, Comics, Politics and Conflict
Waiting for Water Women in Indian slum battle to find clean water
Amrutha Vurodalla is no longer on speaking terms with her mother-in-law because of water. “I slapped her,” she explains, “because she pushed me out of the queue at the borehole a few days ago.”
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Categories: India, Read, Poverty and Development, Global Health
Life at India's Largest Laundry
If you send your clothes out to be washed in Mumbai, India, chances are good that they’ll end up here at Dhobi Ghat. But you won’t find any machines here. Close to 200 dhobis (traditional Indian laundrymen) wash clothes by hand in row upon row of concrete wash pens called ghats.
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Categories: India, Watch, Poverty and Development
Never Going Home Young Iraqi refugees dream of Seattle, wait in limbo in Syria
In 2003, Momo and Odesa were sweethearts at an art school in Baghdad. They loved rock music and hanging out with their friends and looked like they had promising careers ahead of them. But then came the U.S. invasion and ensuing sectarian violence. They were forced to flee to Syria, where they remain five years later, terrified to return home but slowly watching their dreams slip away.
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Categories: Pacific Northwest, Iraq, Syria, Watch, Read, Labor and Immigration, Politics and Conflict
The War Back Home Seattleite uses cooking, art and conversation to help fellow immigrant women cope with trauma
At first, Ibtesam Elmadani couldn't stop watching the news. She frequently checked her email, and when she couldn't get to a computer, the TV. After her 19-year-old nephew was shot dead during a protest in Tripoli earlier this year, Elmadani, her three children and her husband found their grief compounded by their distance.
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Categories: Pacific Northwest, Read, Student Reporting, Politics and Conflict
At Odds With the Law A reporter in Cuba, part 3
In the final leg of a complicated reporting stint in Cuba, where journalists are unwelcome and locals are scared to talk, contributor Grant Fuller manages to avoid arrest. But Roberto, his friend and guide, isn't so lucky.
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Categories: Cuba, Watch, Read, Blogs, Commentary, Human Rights, The Media, Politics and Conflict
C-Sections on the Rise Despite Concerns from Health Experts
It's one of the most common operations in the U.S., and many say it's performed far too often. The Caesarean section. Almost a third of American babies are now delivered surgically. But it's not just the U.S.that's seen this trend. C-section rates are skyrocketing in some of the world's poorest countries... for reasons that may have little to do with the health of the mother or child. Reporter Chantal Anderson has the story from one such country -- Bangladesh.
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Categories: Bangladesh, Read, Listen, Poverty and Development, Global Health
Damming Patagonia An outsider's perspective on Chile's environmental woes
It was my last night in Santiago and a crowd of thousands had assembled at Plaza Italia to protest the recent approval of the HidroAysen dam project in Chilean Patagonia. Most were prepared for the tear gas that would come later in the evening, wearing bandannas and scarves over their faces.
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Categories: Chile, Read, Blogs, Commentary, The Environment, Politics and Conflict
My Luxury Stay in Haiti's Celebrity Hospital
I came to Haiti to find out why women and babies here are 50 times more likely to die during childbirth than Americans, and to find out how nurse-midwives are working to save their lives. I spent much of my time at the public hospital in Hinche, a small city in Haiti's rural Central Plateau.
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Categories: Haiti, Watch, Read, Blogs, Poverty and Development, Global Health
Birth in a Jeep A Day in the Life of a Midwife in Haiti
It was my first full day in Hinche, a small city in Haiti's rural Central Plateau, and I was packed into a bright pink jeep with four midwives — three Haitian and one American — from the organization Midwives for Haiti, bumping over a bunch of rocks and dust called the main road. More than 50 women with big bellies were waiting for us when we pulled off the road in Dar le Grand.
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Categories: Haiti, Read, Poverty and Development, Global Health
Born in Bangladesh
From a newborn baby born in an isolated village to a grandmother on her terrace rooftop in the sprawling capital, Bangladesh is a compelling country. Despite extreme poverty, the country has made great improvements in women's and children’s health — lowering the maternal mortality rate by a third since the mid-1980s, improving access to medical services, and cutting the under-5 mortality rate in half in the last decade. This photo essay is an intimate look at the mothers and children of one of the world’s most complex countries.
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Categories: Bangladesh, Watch, Read, Human Rights, Poverty and Development, Global Health
From Green to Gray Medical marijuana inhabits a legal no-man's-land in Seattle
On a busy street in Ballard, a modest house with big front windows gives passersby little information about the happenings within. The only clue is a laptop visible from the sidewalk with a logo: Fweedom Collective.
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Categories: Pacific Northwest, Watch, Read, Blogs, Student Reporting, Politics and Conflict
Syrian Rappers Get Serious
As demonstrations against the Syrian government intensified last month, a Syrian rap group called the Sham MCs released a song about the protests. It's called "From Syria." But the song isn’t pushing the demonstrators to rise up. It’s urging them to stop.
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Categories: Syria, Watch, Listen, Politics and Conflict
The New Face of Nonprofit Journalism Isn't Pretty
As a nonprofit journalism organization, The Common Language Project is now in illustrious company. The New York Times reported Friday that the IRS has granted nonprofit tax-exempt status to James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas.
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Categories: Commentary, The Media
The Return One Marine's story of a mission accomplished, but not really over
The hotel room is dark and stuffy. Three twin beds with mismatched bedspreads fill the room, and in the farthest one, only Dan O'Brien's broad, pale back is exposed. His torso is scrawled with tattoos. A bulldog with cannons crossed behind it and a scroll of names that wrap around his rib cage — four Marines who died in a roadside-bomb attack outside Ramadi in 2007.
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Categories: Pacific Northwest, Iraq, Syria, Watch, Read, Politics and Conflict
American Universities Should Help More Iraqi Scholars
In May 2005, one week after Abdul Sattar Jawad was appointed dean of the College of Arts at Mustansiriya University in Baghdad, he had to run for his life.
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Categories: Iraq, Commentary, Education, Human Rights, Labor and Immigration, Politics and Conflict
Codes to Dive By How some Seattle residents always eat for free
Brady Ryan and his friends “eat like kings” but never pay a cent for their meals. What’s their secret? They are members of Seattle’s growing freegan community, people who reduce their consumption of resources by farming, foraging, and salvaging discarded and unspoiled food from local dumpsters in an act known as dumpster diving. The term is a play on the words “free” and “vegan” and while not all freegans are vegan, they all eat for free. Brady, a middle-class Seattle resident, considers it a “badge of honor” to sift through garbage to find “perfectly good food.”
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Categories: Pacific Northwest, Watch, Read, Student Reporting, The Environment
Capturing Tragedy The Story Behind the Photograph
I left Bollobhpur village in a covered wagon. I waved as the wheels of the cart moaned over dusty potholes and little children shouted “Hel-low, how-are-you-miss,” their roadside cricket matches momentarily interrupted. I felt drained. I didn’t want to leave but I was eager to get away.
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Categories: Bangladesh, Blogs, Commentary, The Media, Poverty and Development, Global Health
Social Media Helped Foster Uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt Can Twitter also #FreeDorothy?
Two weeks have passed since former Seattle P-I journalist Dorothy Parvaz arrived by plane in Syria on assignment for current employer Al Jazeera and hasn't been heard from since.
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Categories: Pacific Northwest, Syria, Commentary, The Media, Politics and Conflict
War Reporting's Dirty Secret
When I finally left Libya at the end of April, I’d been covering the war for six consecutive weeks. The conflict was still ongoing and there was absolutely nothing I wanted to do more than stay and report it. Nothing. I was jealous of my colleagues who were staying in Benghazi and even more jealous of one particular friend who was staying in Misrata, the most terrifyingly dangerous place I’d ever been in my life. That’s where I wanted to be more than anywhere.
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Categories: Libya, Read, Commentary, The Media, Politics and Conflict
D. Parvaz still detained, but in Iran Syria deported her to country where she was born
Friends and family of former Seattle P-I journalist D. Parvaz are reeling from stunning news: Parvaz is being detained — but in Iran. She was deported by Syria to her home country of Iran. Loved ones still haven't heard from her since she arrived in Syria on assignment for Al Jazeera nearly two weeks ago.
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Europe's Forgotten Crisis Despite international condemnation, Europe still treats asylum-seekers like illegal immigrants
The first asylum seeker I ever interviewed — back in July 2009 — described the situation of asylum seekers in Greece better than anyone I have talked to since. Young, brash and rail thin, he went by the name Muhammad Ali. “Me and my friends are thinking of going back to Somalia,” he said. “If we do, it’s death. One hundred percent. So just imagine how bad it is here.”
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Categories: Greece, Commentary, Human Rights, Labor and Immigration
Nickelsville A city on the move
Five months have passed since the Nickelsville residents made the move from the University Congregational United Church of Christ on the corner of Northeast 45th Street and 16th Avenue Northeast in the University District, to the former Fire Station 39 on Lake City Way. In just under a month, on May 15, the group will be at it again. This move will be their sixteenth move in a little over two years, and the location is still unknown. The residents have suggested to Mayor Mike McGinn that their next site be the old Sunny Jim Peanut Factory in the industrial district, but the site still needs work and may not be ready for them by mid-May.
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Categories: Pacific Northwest, Student Reporting, Poverty and Development
Nickelsville Rules and Regulations
Early in the morning on September 22nd, 2008 150 homeless people and supporters set up pink dome tents on West Marginal Way SW. They were there protesting Mayor Greg Nickels’ April 4th, 2008 declaration that the City of Seattle would have a zero tolerance policy for homeless people camping on city property. But they were also there to live. Their encampment formed Seattle’s first Nickelsville.
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Categories: Pacific Northwest, Student Reporting, Poverty and Development
Seattle journalist is missing in Syria. Public urged to call embassy to demand: "Free Dorothy"
D. Parvaz, a former Seattle Post-Intelligencer journalist, is missing in Syria. She disappeared Friday after arriving at the Damascus airport, reports her current employer, Al Jazeera. A Facebook campaign now urges: Free Dorothy.
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Categories: Syria, Read, Human Rights
Please Talk to Me A reporter in Cuba, part 2
Fresh off my blessing from The Champ’s Santeria priestess, I settled into the backseat of our shiny white sedan and steeled myself for the road ahead. With Roberto behind the wheel, I had about as much control over the situation as a 5-year-old on a family road trip. “Guys, are we there yet?” went the refrain in my head.
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Categories: Cuba, Blogs, The Media, Poverty and Development
How to Deliver a Baby Without a Doctor
On a wooden fishing boat somewhere in the middle of Lake Victoria, Bekah Dinneen and two other volunteer midwives labored with an expectant mother. The mother-to-be was en route to a hospital. After being in labor for 30 hours, the midwives decided it was time to transfer the case to a doctor.
[more]
Categories: Bangladesh, Blogs, Poverty and Development, Global Health
Final Bell for Self-Contained Bilingual Classes
Wendy Chapman crouches down to speak to her students. As classrooms empty out for the afternoon, kids cluster around her to talk about their day. Fragments of different languages punctuate the happy chatter as students migrate from their lockers to the playground. Chapman, a solid woman with short blonde hair and wire-rimmed glasses, asks the small crowd what they’re studying and inquires about their upcoming math test. Increasingly, her interactions with students have been reduced to these fleeting moments in the hallway and hurried conversations as she heads out the door. In the fall, she traded a full-time classroom of English Language Learner (ELL, formerly ESL) students, or non-native English speakers, for a cluttered office where she now spends three days a week.
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Categories: Watch, Read, Student Reporting, Education, Labor and Immigration
For Somali women, health program eases the pain of war, exile
Somali women who fled their war-ravaged homeland are finding compassionate, "culturally competent" health care at Daryel, an exercise, massage-therapy and social support group in Seattle.
[more]
Categories: Pacific Northwest, Read, Student Reporting, Labor and Immigration, Poverty and Development, Global Health
Private Enterprise in Cuba
The Cuban government recently announced a major shift in policy: for the first time, private citizens are allowed to open their own small businesses. Thousands of Cubans have embraced the idea and traded their government jobs for self-employment. But as Grant Fuller reports, the introduction of free enterprise into this staunchly socialist country has been rocky, and many are struggling to adapt.
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Categories: Cuba, Listen, Labor and Immigration, Poverty and Development, Politics and Conflict
Reporting Perils in Cuba Reporter's Notebook
Reporter Grant Fuller traveled to Cuba to report on the country's first foray into capitalism. Working as a foreign journalist, he befriended some willing Cubans who helped him with his interviews. Grant quickly learned what it means to live in a country where, for many, simple freedoms are still a distant hope.
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Categories: Cuba, Listen, The Media, Politics and Conflict
Street Dinner Living on a dollar a day in Addis Ababa
Kenyan journalist Ernest Waititu traveled to Ethiopia as part of the CLP's 2008 Water Wars project. One night he investigated what it's like to live on $1 a day, joining a construction worker, along with another 10 young people, for dinner on the streets of the capital. The meal consisted of leftovers scraped from plates in various restaurants around town. Waititu describes his experience in this Reporter's Notebook.
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Categories: Kenya, Ethiopia, Listen, Poverty and Development, Global Health
Greg Mortenson and Leadership Narrative Lies
Allegations that Central Asia Institute guru Greg Mortenson fabricated parts of his bestselling book “Three Cups of Tea,” and may have exploited the charity’s funds for personal use bring up serious questions about the level of truth we expect from our leaders, especially in the world of development.
[more]
Categories: Read, Blogs, Commentary, The Media
Leave the Mace at Home A young woman in Dhaka
Before leaving for this solo-reporting project in Bangladesh, I asked my coworker, Jessica, if I should bring pepper spray on the trip — despite never owning a can in my life. She said no. My family bought me a Swiss army knife (I didn’t have one of those either) and I packed several pounds of medicine, for just about every disease I could possibly catch.
[more]
Categories: Bangladesh, Blogs, Poverty and Development
Bengali New Year
This week marks the beginning of the New Year according to a traditional solar calendar used in Bangladesh and several of India’s eastern states. “Every year this New Year comes and we enjoy this festival. This is a huge gathering, the greatest festival in Bangladesh, all the people from every religion, every society, come here and enjoy the New Year”. Chantal Anderson produced this audio postcard for The World from Dhaka, Bangladesh.
[more]
Categories: Bangladesh, Listen, Poverty and Development
Mixed Results for Cuban Free-Market Experiment
Last year Cuban President Raul Castro created a private sector made up of 178 different jobs. But that move has created an awkward marriage of socialism and capitalism. Grant Fuller reports from Cuba.
[more]
Categories: Cuba, Listen, Poverty and Development, Politics and Conflict
Socialist Cuba Experiments With Capitalism
As Cuba prepares to hold its first Communist Party Congress in 14 years, the socialist country works through the kinks of a budding free-enterprise system. From Havana, reporter Grant Fuller filed this report.
[more]
Travels With the Champ A reporter in Cuba, part 1
For a journalist like me, Cuba’s a magnetic place. It’s been calling my name for years. But ever since the Revolution — that’s to say, nearly twice as long as I’ve been alive — it’s been a tricky place for my kind. Cuba is like your dream girl that seems to be a perfect match. She’s fascinating, intelligent, fun, beautiful, enticing. She’s got everything you want. But she loves to play hard-to-get.
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Categories: Cuba, Blogs, The Media, Politics and Conflict
The Waiting Room
Syria is home to the world's largest urban refugee population; hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have poured in since the 2003 invasion. Barred from joining the Syrian workforce, they attempt to navigate bureaucratic hurdles and find a new place to call home. Sarah Glidden's 21-page comic — part of the Road to Damascus project — offers a window into their lives.
[more]
Categories: Iraq, Syria, Read, Comics, Labor and Immigration, Poverty and Development, Politics and Conflict
The Miracle of Birth (and the embarrassment of passing out cold in the dirt)
Today I walked into a delivery room for the first time, took some photos and fainted. It was a reminder that sometimes the reality of working in the field is impossible to prepare for.
[more]
Categories: Bangladesh, Blogs, Poverty and Development, Global Health
North African Migrants Find a Chilly Welcome in Italy
I thought I had arrived in paradise when my train pulled in to Sicily. I was awestruck by the purple mountains and the sea of this volcanic island at sunrise. I came to Sicily to address a typical American identity crisis. This is the land that some of my ancestors called home, but the extent of my Italian identity is takeout pizza and sometimes moving my hands around a lot when I talk. I’ve never even seen the Godfather.
[more]
Categories: Italy, Blogs, Labor and Immigration, Politics and Conflict
Zapatista Youths Reconsider Capitalism
In recent years, grinding poverty has led many young Zapatistas to leave in search of construction work in luxury resort cities like Cancún and Playa del Carmen. This migration from the epicenter of anti-capitalist Zapatismo to the Mayan Riviera begins in places like the small Zapatista village of Juan Diego. Grant Fuller reports for The World.
[more]
Categories: Mexico, Watch, Read, Listen, Labor and Immigration, Poverty and Development, Politics and Conflict
In the Dark in Dhaka
I’m searching for salwar kameez for my first interview tomorrow. Standing in a crowded windowless bazaar, my two chaperones — or newly adopted Bangladeshi brothers — Alison and Tareq stand at my side, pointing out patterns they’re fond of. “Nice, nice — this is good,” Alison says, pointing to a shiny black top with long sleeves. “Too hot,” I reply, fanning my face. “Not good price,” Tareq adds. The salesman behind the counter unwraps plastic-covered outfits, unfolding them on the glass for my approval. I reach out to feel the starchy fabric when the electricity cuts out with a short hum. We’re left in total darkness.
[more]
Categories: Bangladesh, Blogs, Poverty and Development
Rebel Love is Fickle Why the US shouldn't arm the Libyan rebels
Waiting for a sandwich this afternoon I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around, expecting to see my friend/translator/driver, Mohammad. Instead there was a guy dressed all in denim shoving a leaflet toward me. My Arabic is terrible at best, so I gave him a weak smile and said afwan — "sorry."
[more]
Categories: Libya, Read, Commentary, Politics and Conflict
Who Are the Rebels? Seattle students interview journalist in Libya
Common Language Project journalists have been visiting Seattle-area schools, talking about journalism and the shifting media landscape, for the past four months, as part of the Seattle Digital Literacy Initiative. Many of our visits have touched on the current political turmoil in the Arab world. Last week we collected questions from high school students at Mercer Island High School and Chief Sealth High School and passed them on to CLP contributor Sebastian Meyer, who is currently covering the rebel army in Libya.
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Categories: Libya, Read, Commentary, Education, Politics and Conflict
Sustaining Innovation A new era of jounalism funding
Sebastian Meyer, an old friend and renowned photojournalist is on the ground with the rebel force in Libya. Over at the Seattle Times, Assistant Managing Editor Jim Simon is waiting for us to post front-line, first person blogs from Meyer, to see if he can get them into the paper. The only problem is this time our bank account is empty.
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Categories: Read, Commentary, The Media
American Journalist Finds a Passionate but Inept Libyan Rebel Force
“Yousif! Yousif! Over here!” Yousif turned to look up at me sliding down the sand dune and jogging over toward him. “Hey man. How are you?” I beamed, grabbing his delicate hand in mine. Yousif smiled a very tired smile and shook my hand, exhausted. We were standing in the road about 3 miles outside of Ajdabiya, a town in eastern Libya that rebels and pro-Gaddafi soldiers had been fighting over for days. Rockets and artillery shells had been flying back and forth. The town was devastated: no water, electricity, food or medicine. Residents fleeing the city told us dead bodies were just lying in the street, unburied.
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Categories: Libya, Read, Blogs, Politics and Conflict
No Voting Day for Canaan 2 in Haiti
Sunday, March 20 was voting day in Haiti. United Nations Police stood watch with automatic rifles while Haitians in Port-au-Prince turned out to cast their ballots.
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Categories: Haiti, Watch, Poverty and Development, Politics and Conflict
I Will Not Get Kidnapped in Haiti
I got kidnapped last week. A British gentleman picked us up at the Ramada Inn in Strasburg, Virginia. He held himself straight like a soldier, but the size of his belly indicated he hadn't seen combat in quite some time.
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Categories: Haiti, Blogs, The Media, Poverty and Development, Global Health, Politics and Conflict
Loving the Mother The woman who started the Seattle doula movement
Before Penny Simkin decided to dedicate her life to birth education and birthing companionship as a "doula" (someone who assists women during and after childbirth), she wanted to know what impact the birth experience had on women. In the 1980s, while working as a childbirth educator in Seattle, Simkin conducted a comparison study of women’s memories of labor 20 years after childbirth. What she discovered was that women do remember giving birth and that the way women feel about childbirth is based on how they were cared for during labor. “It had nothing to do with easy or hard births, natural or not,” Simkin says. “Women who felt respected and nurtured were the ones who felt good about the birth.”
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Categories: Pacific Northwest, Watch, Poverty and Development, Global Health
Syria Shows Facebook Doesn’t Automatically Equal Freedom
Syrians rushed to YouTube after the country's government loosened its Internet restrictions. But when it comes to a country's freedom and ability to mobilize, are we giving social media too much credit?
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Categories: Egypt, Syria, Watch, Read, Commentary, The Media, Politics and Conflict
Yossarian Jumped A Marine's return to the Middle East
Daniel O'Brien, a Seattle native and former Corporal in the US Marine Corps, travelled with the CLP in November and December 2010 in order to blog, document, and remember what the climactic years of the war in Iraq were like.
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Categories: Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Watch, Commentary, Politics and Conflict
Yossarian Jumped, Part 5 Forever enemies?
In his final video blog, Corporal Dan O'Brien reflects on his attitude toward Iraqis during his deployment, and the way that his return trip to the Middle East changed his perspective.
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Categories: Iraq, Syria, Watch, Listen, Blogs, Politics and Conflict
Cairo Divided Suspicion reigns as violence increases
Just before midnight on Tuesday, one week into the demonstrations that have shaken Egyptian society to its core, I joined fat Ahmed (known to his friends as “Belo”) and his crew beneath the blackened awning of the Khamarat Street coffeehouse one last time. The coffeehouse was closed and the waiters Ahmed and Abdel-Gowab were gone. But Belo and his friends were operating an informal coffeehouse, with coals for the shisha burning inside a broken cardboard box and tea boiling on a makeshift stove.
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Categories: Egypt, Watch, Read, Human Rights, Poverty and Development, Politics and Conflict
WSDOT Constructs No-Suicide Zone on Aurora Bridge
In 2005, design engineer Ryan Thurston moved with his high-tech employer Impinj to their new site in Fremont along the Lake Union shore. Over the last half-decade other high-tech companies, like satellites of Google and Adobe, have funneled into the two-city-block area of tidy brick office buildings, dropping onto the scenic stretch as if out of the sky. It took about a month for Thurston to see his first suicide.
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Categories: Pacific Northwest, Watch, Read, Student Reporting
Chaos Comes to Cairo Neighbors unite to keep the peace
Over the weekend, chaos came to Cairo. President Mubarak called in the army to keep peace in the city. Police forces abruptly disappeared from their posts, allowing widespread looting, prison breaks and lawlessness.
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Categories: Egypt, Read, Listen, Politics and Conflict
Friday in Cairo: "Change is Coming"
On Friday in Cairo, demonstrations transformed into an intifada — an uprising. For every person who took to the streets in recent days, there were countless others who stayed inside. But today, the revolution came to them. Just blocks from the major demonstrations that broke out Tuesday, Lazoghly was swept into the fury.
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Categories: Egypt, Watch, Read, Listen, Blogs, Human Rights, Labor and Immigration, Politics and Conflict
A People's Protest? The view from a Cairo coffeehouse
The people of Khamarat Street in downtown Cairo spent most of the day inside on Tuesday. By 8 a.m. their street, which connects to Lazoghly Square, where the Ministries of Justice and the Interior are located, had been closed. Ahmad and Abdel-Gowab, who run the coffeehouse on the corner, were busy dragging chairs and tables inside after a police officer waving a walkie-talkie told them to clear the sidewalk. Samer, a local bowaab, or doorman, who usually enjoys his morning cigarette at the coffeehouse, rose and leaned against the wall.
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Categories: Egypt, Read, Blogs, Politics and Conflict
Social Media Fuels Egypt’s Largest Protest in Years
Protests turned violent after sunset Tuesday night as police used tear gas and powerful jets of water to contain the crowd, and the crowd threw rocks at police. Police chased an estimated 15,000 people off Cairo's streets around 1 a.m. Tuesday night. Dozens of alternative news sites have popped up in response to the Egyptian government’s blocking of Facebook and Twitter. According to some news outlets, Twitter was unblocked today around 8 p.m. Egyptian time, and unblocked Tweets are becoming available to the world.
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Categories: Egypt, Read, Blogs, Human Rights, The Media
Yossarian Jumped, Part 4 Was it worth it?
Dan reflects on his reasons for joining the military in the first place, and on his travels in northern Iraq, and tries to reassess the U.S. decision to invade Iraq in 2003.
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Categories: Iraq, Syria, Watch, Listen, Blogs, Commentary, Politics and Conflict
Yossarian Jumped, Part 3 One story from a journey of many
Dan talks about the responsibilities and pressures of having the platform to publicly discuss the experience he shared with dozens of other Marines.
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Categories: Iraq, Syria, Watch, Listen, Blogs, Commentary, Politics and Conflict
Blog Carnival Having our cake and eating it, too
In September 2009, the Common Language Project had the great fortune of being "adopted" by the University of Washington's Department of Communication. That first day on campus blew me away. I went to Hunter College, a campus of three buildings in the middle of New York City, so the UW's beautiful architecture, the grass, the trees, the fountains, the late fall sunlight all combined to make me feel like I was walking through the touching final scenes of a coming-of-age movie. I had finally arrived. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
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Categories: USA, Blogs, Commentary, Education, The Media
Haiti One Year Later A day full of song
Memorials began in Haiti yesterday, marking two days of commemoration of the earthquake that destroyed the country last January. Haitians nationwide gathered in churches to mourn and honor those who lost their lives last year, and to give thanks for their own. Streets were virtually empty and neighborhoods quiet, save for the rich sounds of singing crowds emanating from churches and cathedrals in various states of reconstruction. Both hope and sadness continue to hang in the air.
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Categories: Haiti, Watch, Blogs, Poverty and Development
Zapatista Dolls
Sixteen years ago, masked rebels from the Zapatista Army of National Liberation launched surprise attacks against the Mexican government in the southern state of Chiapas. The uprising lasted almost two weeks before the military pushed them back into the jungle. The Zapatistas claimed to be representing the poor, indigenous communities in the region. So for the past 16 years, Mayan women in San Cristobal de las Casas have been capitalizing on the movement's popularity by selling handmade Zapatista souvenirs to curious tourists.
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Categories: Mexico, Watch, Read, Listen, Human Rights, Labor and Immigration, Poverty and Development
Haiti After Hurricane Tomas
In November 2010, Hurricane Tomas threatened to reverse months of post-earthquake relief efforts in Haiti. News organizations flew journalists to the island from all over the globe to cover the predicted catastrophe as aid organizations and Haiti’s government braced for the storm. Terri Bennett took photographs from an aid worker’s perspective the day after Hurricane Tomas hit the island.
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Categories: Haiti, Watch, Poverty and Development, Global Health
The Quiet American Why my generation should listen to Iraqi refugees
“Welcome. I hate you. I never like you. I hate your country. I hate your government. I hate your soldiers. Welcome.” I'm standing in the Douma Center, a crowded UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) aid distribution warehouse a few miles outside of Damascus, Syria. This short middle-aged woman with a tan headscarf and dark, supernaturally arched eyebrows, currently jabbing a finger toward my sternum probably arrived at dawn.
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Categories: Iraq, Syria, Blogs, Commentary, Labor and Immigration, Poverty and Development, Politics and Conflict
Darkness on the Edge of Town
Iraq is booming. Well at least Northern Iraq (or more specifically KRG. Formal name: The Kurdish Regional Government. Informal name: The Other Iraq). It’s a stunningly hopeful place; its cities humming with construction sites, sleek new cars with import tags still hanging from the rearview and suburban housing developments named “American Village.”
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Categories: Iraq, Blogs, Poverty and Development, Politics and Conflict
Hope Comes in Many Forms for Suburbs
French President Nicolas Sarkozy pledged nearly 1 billion euros in 2007 to aid the suburbs after the riots. However, youth in Banlieue 93 have not seen any of that money, nor have they seen much change at all.
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Categories: France, Watch, Read, Listen, Student Reporting, Labor and Immigration
Media and News Literacy in Seattle
In March 2009 I visited a social studies class at Chief Sealth High School here in Seattle. The 12th grade class was just starting a unit on global water issues, so their teacher asked me to come in and talk about some of the reporting I’d done in East Africa the year before. I introduced myself as a radio journalist and right away a hand shot up in the front row.
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Categories: USA, Read, Blogs, Commentary
Among the Faithful
It was the early morning of Eid al-Adha in Van, a Kurdish city in Turkey’s southeastern badlands. Eid al-Adha, which is observed throughout the Muslim world, translates from Arabic to the “Festival of Sacrifice” and marks Abraham’s decision to sacrifice his son Isaac (or in Islam, Ishmael) at God’s request. It’s a pretty big deal around these parts and is often celebrated with the slaughtering of a sheep, the meat of which is eaten and doled out to the poor.
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Categories: Turkey, Read, Blogs, Labor and Immigration, Poverty and Development, Politics and Conflict
For Immigrants, Struggle Continues
As one of the top commercial centers in Europe, Paris has long been home to an amalgamation of immigrants in search of a brighter future. Some were invited to help in rebuilding efforts after the world wars; others came because of unrest or poverty in their homelands. Most settled in the northeast suburbs of the city, where industry was centralized.
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Categories: France, Watch, Read, Student Reporting, Labor and Immigration
Prostitution Sweep Recovers 23 Children Hundreds more still stuck in 'the life'
Leslie Briner works with children who have been forced to sell sex and finds that there’s two stories that she hears again and again. One is that is that it started with a moment when they believed they could trust someone.
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Categories: Pacific Northwest, USA, Read
Special Report: Gang Members Turn From Selling Drugs to Selling Girls for Sex
Drug dealing can be lucrative, but some gang members who sell drugs get tired of standing out on the street all night, at risk of arrest simply by possessing the drugs they’re selling. So, they become pimps and make their girlfriends work all night instead -- selling sex.
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Categories: Pacific Northwest, Read
Teen Prostitution: Crime for the Ordinary Man
Prostitution of children is a problem driven by demand from customers, explained Kaffie McCullough. “You will never bring down this business on the victim’s side. The driver is the clients’ side,” explained McCullough, executive director of “A Future. Not A Past,” a Georgia campaign to help prostituted children. She came to Seattle in August to tell human services and law enforcement staff about the results of a study on demand for child prostitution in the Atlanta area.
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Categories: Pacific Northwest, USA, Read
Teen Prostitution: Prevention Tips and Warning Signs
Commercial sexual exploitation of children thrives on secrecy as the illegal trade operates underground. Teenagers naturally try to keep things secret from adults, which can make warning signs of prostitution hard to spot for parents, teachers and other adults in a child’s life.
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Categories: Pacific Northwest, USA, Read
What It Means To Be French
What does it mean to be French? According to responses to the question posed by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, it’s more than speaking French, respecting the flag and eating baguettes. But few can agree on what it does entail.
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Categories: USA, France, Watch, Read, Student Reporting, Labor and Immigration
Yossarian Jumped, Part 2 Survivor's guilt
Dan talks about the darkest day of his deployment to Ramadi, Iraq, and some of the feelings that come from members of his unit losing their lives.
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Categories: Iraq, Watch, Blogs, Commentary, Politics and Conflict
A Day With the Zapatistas
This weekend marks 100 years since the start of the Mexican revolution led by Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata. It's also the anniversary of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, which borrowed Zapata's name and began a rebellion in the state of Chiapas in 1994. These indigenous peasants claimed they were fighting for equality and against capitalist exploitation. The Zapatistas were driven back into the jungle, but they still exist, in autonomous settlements that boycott the Mexican government. Grant Fuller and Myles Estey spent a day at a Zapatista settlement.
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Categories: Mexico, Listen, Poverty and Development, Politics and Conflict
Beneath the Headlines Quiet crises linger in the shadow of a hurricane and cholera outbreak in Haiti
Before Terri Bennett landed in Haiti, she'd seen the destruction in the news. The National Palace looking like a puzzle that should be put back together. The tent camps. The trash. Now, she says what's most difficult to grapple with is the long road leading back to "normal, everyday life" for Haitians.
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Categories: Haiti, Read, Commentary, Poverty and Development, Global Health
Iraq's Amusement Park
Iraq doesn't have much of a reputation for fun. But an evening visit to the amusement park in Sulaimaniya shows how removed the Kurdish controlled areas of the north are from the violence in southern Iraq. A dollar and a cursory pat-down at the gate gets you in to enjoy rides and snacks alongside Iraqi families spending an evening out.
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Special Report: Controlled and Abused, Teens Exploited in Prostitution Trade Can't Get Out
At the age of 15, “Maria” was a Seattle teenager estranged from her family. She had gotten pregnant and had a child, and was kicked out of the house. She went to live with the baby’s father for a while, but that didn’t work out, either, and she became effectively homeless.
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Categories: Pacific Northwest, Watch, Read
Capitalizing on the Anti-Capitalist Zapatistas Local proprietors make the most of their revolutionary neighbors, but are they taking advantage?
Balaclava-clad faces adorn the walls of cafes and bars in San Cristobal, Mexico, where vendors hawk dolls of Subcomandante Marcos, the mysterious frontman of the Zapatista movement. Two decades ago, San Cristobal de las Casas was a sleepy provincial town, an asterisk on the backpackers' route. Today it welcomes a steady stream of visitors. But emotions are mixed about whether the scramble for tourist dollars is legitimate, or whether it takes advantage of a movement fighting against, among other things, commercialism.
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Categories: Mexico, Read, Poverty and Development, Politics and Conflict
Yossarian Jumped, Part 1 A Marine's return to the Middle East
Daniel O'Brien, a Seattle native and former corporal in the U.S. Marines, is traveling with the CLP in order to blog, document, and remember what the climactic years of the war in Iraq were like. In his first video blog, filed from eastern Turkey, Dan talks about some of the good times he had while he was deployed, and explains why he's decided to return to the Middle East.
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Categories: Turkey, Iraq, Watch, Blogs, Commentary
Comic: All Aboard the Trans-Asia Express
Sarah Glidden is a cartoonist whose first full-length book, a graphic-memoir titled "How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less," was published by DC/Vertigo Comics in November, 2010. She's currently traveling with CLP journalists who will be the subject of her second graphic novel.
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Dawn in Istanbul
Before dawn, the call to prayer rings out, waking the fifth-largest and probably most beautiful city in the world. We woke up early and shot this footage around the Blue Mosque as the first worshipers arrived.
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Tea and Politics
I first visited the Middle East in 2003. My husband and I were living in New York, frustrated by our low-paying service jobs, our dirty overpopulated apartment, and the politics of fear and violence that defined that city in the first years after 9/11.
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Redefining Seattle Graffiti Laws Is a Sticky Issue
The City Auditor’s Office recently released its first ever audit on Seattle’s graffiti prevention and removal efforts. The report revealed that last year the city of Seattle spent around $1.8 million removing graffiti from public property.
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Categories: Pacific Northwest, Watch, Read, Student Reporting
Istanbul Walking Tour
After an early morning arrival in Istanbul, we burned off the jet lag with an epic 8 mile urban hike across the city. We met fishermen, pint-sized barbers and construction workers and stumbled across a demonstration of teachers demanding higher salaries. Here are some photos.
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Hitting the Road
This is a tough moment in America. Pinned down by two wars, floundering in the midst of an economic crisis and strained by political strife it’s easy to turn inward. And with U.S. combat operations officially over in Iraq it’s tempting to turn our backs on the violence, anger and instability of the Middle East. But as the consequences of the US invasion of Iraq continue to reverberate around the world, its clear that our futures are intertwined.
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Breaking the Rubble Rules
Rubble covers much of Haiti's streets, making driving – even walking – chaotic. Rubble has become an every day reality – and so have the rules for dealing with it.
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Categories: Haiti, Blogs, Commentary, Poverty and Development
Dismantling a Dangerous Past Vets from two countries join forces to clear landmines in Cambodia
Cambodia's countryside is littered with landmines and unexploded munitions leftover from civil war in the seventies and eighties and the war in neighboring Vietnam. Hundreds of Cambodians are injured or killed by these mines each year. But now veterans of these wars are uniting to make the Cambodian countryside safe again.
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Categories: Cambodia, Watch, Read, Listen, Poverty and Development, Politics and Conflict
Mexico's Aging Rebels The first generation of Zapatistas looks back
In 1994, the Zapatista rebels put their balaclava-clad faces on the world map. Indigenous peasants from Chiapas disenchanted with the injustice of life in Mexico's poorest state, they fought for equality, peace and dignity.
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Categories: Mexico, Watch, Read, Poverty and Development, Politics and Conflict
Extremist Attacks Threaten Pakistan's Cultural Diversity
The Oct. 7 bombing of a major Sufi shrine in Karachi represents a growing trend of extremist attacks on cultural diversity in Pakistan. Last year, CLP reporter Jessica Partnow profiled a man (and his parrot) who earned his living telling fortunes alongside the shrine. We're featuring his story as a reminder of the millions of Pakistani citizens threatened by these kinds of attacks.
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Anaconda Portrait of a Montana mining town
Anaconda, Montana was once a mining boom town built around the world's largest copper smelting operation. The smelter closed in 1980, and after a multi-million dollar environmental cleanup effort, the picturesque town is struggling to attract new jobs and keep younger residents.
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Categories: USA, Watch, Labor and Immigration
Mexico's Zapatistas
Mexico celebrates 200 years of independence today, and this year also marks 100 years since the Mexican Revolution. While a deadly drug war clouds the celebration, a forgotten revolution marches on in Chiapas. The Zapatistas, an army of indigenous campesinos, took Mexico by surprise in 1994. Today, the Zapatistas remain determined as their movement continues its slow course. Grant Fuller has the story.
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Categories: Mexico, Watch, Listen, Human Rights, Poverty and Development, Politics and Conflict
Buckaroo Tavern to Pour Its Last Drink After 72 Years
Since 1938, Fremont's Buckaroo Tavern has seen only three owners. When Keith and Donna Morey took over the tavern on the corner of 42nd Street and Fremont Avenue, they promised to keep it the Buckaroo Tavern and have done so for the 26 years they’ve owned it.
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Categories: Pacific Northwest, Watch, Read, Student Reporting
Helping Immigrants Learn to Talk Openly About AIDS
For African immigrants, who come from countries with high HIV/AIDS rates and where the disease is often considered a death sentence, talking about AIDS in the U.S. is often difficult. That's particularly true for immigrant women, who are often the most difficult to reach with services, say local health providers.
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Categories: Pacific Northwest, Watch, Read, Labor and Immigration, Poverty and Development, Global Health
Suffocated by Sacredness India's holy Yamuna River stifled by pollution
The Yamuna River, which flows through the heart of India's capital city, is one of the holiest rivers in Hindu mythology. It's also one of the most polluted rivers in the world, absorbing more than 200 million gallons of sewage from the city each day. This story takes us to the banks of the Yamuna, where some still eke out a living from a river that others are fighting to bring back to life.
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Categories: India, Watch, Read, The Environment, Poverty and Development, Global Health
Crime Prevention Coordinators Face the Budget Ax
Unless the budget changes, three of the seven crime prevention coordinators in Seattle will lose their jobs. As for the remaining four coordinators, including the one serving Ballard, no one is sure if they’ll be forced to cut back on their hours or cover larger areas to fill the holes. Students in our Summer 2010 Multimedia Freelancing class take a closer look at what the loss of these coordinators could mean to Seattle neighborhoods.
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Categories: Pacific Northwest, USA, Watch, Read, Student Reporting
Pakistan Floods: Why Should We Care? Guest blog from author Ethan Casey
Yesterday a non-Pakistani friend here emailed me: "I wanted to ask you which you think would be the best organization to make a donation to for the current crisis in Pakistan. We usually give to MSF, but their website doesn’t seem to offer the opportunity to give specifically for Pakistan. Can you offer advice?"
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Categories: Pacific Northwest, Pakistan, Blogs, Human Rights, Poverty and Development
Recession Sparks Entrepreneurialism in Ballard
Despite the recession, a recent survey of small businesses in Ballard revealed that more than 20 entrepreneurs have opened their doors within the past two years. After overcoming the initial hurdle of securing both capital and affordable leases, new business owners now face the larger challenge of surviving in a tough economy. Reporters Aislyn Greene and Krista Staudinger enter the business world to discover how these entrepreneurs hope to win the hearts – and wallets – of Ballard locals.
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Categories: Pacific Northwest, USA, Student Reporting, Poverty and Development
Detention in the City of Destiny
In 2004 a new detention center opened on the tideflats below downtown Tacoma. Owned and operated by a private corporation, it houses up to a thousand immigrants at a time while arrangements are made to deport them. Alex Stonehill takes us inside, and finds out about the controversy surrounding immigration detention.
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Categories: Pacific Northwest, USA, Read, Labor and Immigration
Ghana Gold
Gold mining is a key part of the development strategy of the West African country Ghana. But as Anna Boiko-Weyrach reports, there’s growing concern about its impact on local communities and the environment.
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Categories: Ghana, Listen, The Environment, Poverty and Development, Politics and Conflict
Living in Limbo
In our final segment, producer Jessica Partnow follows the story of one family living in immigration limbo in Auburn, Washington.
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Categories: Pacific Northwest, USA, Listen, Labor and Immigration
Seattle's Ellis Island
An imposing brick building on Airport Way at the edge of the International District housed detained immigrants from 1931 to 2004. It was once known as Seattle's Ellis Island. Producer Sarah Stuteville takes us to this now-empty building and uncovers dark memories of life within its walls.
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Categories: Pacific Northwest, Listen, Labor and Immigration
Washington on the Front Lines
This story takes us to Washington's border with Canada, where the Border Patrol arrests hundreds of people each year. Producer Jessica Partnow heads out on a ride along with Border Patrol and spends the night watching for smugglers.
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Categories: Pacific Northwest, USA, Listen, Labor and Immigration
Creative Toys in Haiti
Children in developing countries don't often get to enjoy the privilege of playing with store-bought toys. But for most of them, it doesn't matter. They'll just put together their own makeshift toys to keep themselves occupied. From Port-au-Prince, Grant Fuller brings us a portrait of Haitian kids in an earthquake displacement camp, making do with what they've got.
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Categories: Haiti, Listen, Poverty and Development
Radios in Action Photo Slideshow from WSJ.com
From Tuning In, the Donate column of WSJ magazine's May issue, sights and sounds recorded on the streets of post-earthquake Port-au-Prince by CLP contributor Grant Fuller.
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Categories: Haiti, Watch, Listen, Poverty and Development
Haiti Contributor Grant Fuller's Slideshow on NYTimes.com
Check out this audio slideshow on NYTimes.com. CLP contributor Grant Fuller recorded all the audio and conducted the interviews. Photographs are by Lynsey Addario. The slideshow accompanies this print article by Simon Romero.
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Categories: Haiti, Watch, Listen, Poverty and Development
Joy: A Homeless Family's Search for Shelter
Joy, a single mother without a job or home, describes a country in economic turmoil: "Believe it or not, we are all a paycheck away from being homeless." This mini-documentary, shot and produced in seven days by a Seattle-based team including a comic artist, a journalist, a radio producer and a filmmaker, takes a look at the surprising face of homelessness in our time.
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Categories: Pacific Northwest, USA, Watch, Poverty and Development
Shaved Ice in Port-au-Prince
What would it take to make the Haitian people laugh in the midst of the disaster? Grant Fuller brings us a story from Port-au-Prince about a street vendor who brings joy to people, one cup of shaved ice at a time.
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Categories: Haiti, Watch, Listen, Poverty and Development
Lights Out, Computers On
The first time Kristin Holland explored the Woodland Park Zoo’s Night Exhibit, she couldn’t see a thing. All the kids in her daycare squirmed outside the doors, antsy to file inside the warm, eerie building. First, there was nothing. Then, something hooted. Something hissed. Something scurried across a tree branch.
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Categories: Pacific Northwest, Watch, Read, Listen, Student Reporting, The Environment
Cell Phones in Haiti
In Haiti, it's common to see vendors walking down the street with phones in their hands. That's how they advertise what they're selling: not the phones themselves, but phone calls. Since the January earthquake, though, business hasn't been easy. Reporter Grant Fuller visited a displacement camp in Port-au-Prince, and met one of these phone-call sellers.
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Categories: Haiti, Listen, Poverty and Development
Ciné Institute
Haiti's only film school, the Ciné Institute, is based in Jacmel, a city hit hard by the earthquake. In the past two months, the young students at the Ciné Institute have given up making fiction and began making documentaries covering the earthquake's aftermath. They've even received international recognition for their work. Grant Fuller visited the school and brings us this story.
[more]
Categories: Haiti, Listen, Poverty and Development
In Soccer, a Glimmer of Hope Haiti's national U-17 women's soccer team makes emotional appearance at regional championship
For the girls of Haiti's Under-17 national squad, it's more than just a game. Every member of the 20-girl team was left homeless after the 7.0-magnitude earthquake ravaged their country on Jan. 12. In March, the team competed in the U-17 women's CONCACAF championship in Costa Rica, giving their fellow Haitians back home a small sign of hope and recovery in the wake of death and destruction.
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Categories: Haiti, Costa Rica, Watch, Poverty and Development
Rubble in Haiti
The government of Haiti has begun a massive cleanup effort, removing the thousands of piles of rubble left by from the January earthquake. A large dump site has been set up on the outskirts of town, and trucks full of debris arrive throughout the day. Reporter Grant Fuller tells the story of a man in Haiti who salvages metal from this rubble.
[more]
Categories: Haiti, Listen, Poverty and Development
Canadian Company Mines for Uranium at Grand Canyon
The online magazine “Intercontinental Cry” forwarded a recent article that says Denison Mines, a Canadian company, has started mining uranium on the north rim of the Grand Canyon, “In defiance of legal challenges and a U.S. Government moratorium.”
[more]
Categories: USA, Blogs, The Environment
Day Twenty: The Body
It was a sight I expected to see. Bodies, corpses, cadavers, whatever you wanna call them. From the horrific shots of dump trucks carting them off to the gruesome stories told by friends who came before me, I knew I’d see something unpleasant. But it took me almost three weeks in Haiti, until my next-to-last day here, to see one single dead person.
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Categories: Haiti, Blogs, Poverty and Development
Day Nineteen: A Shadow of Its Former Self
I’m living in a dining room. Hotel Karibe was one of the finest hotels in Port-au-Prince. Now, its cracked-up main building is clearly unsafe for guests. But the rest of the hotel facilities (dining hall, conference center, restaurant) are in good shape. And so, for lack of a better option, they’ve emptied out the dining tables and set up 18 double beds around the perimeter of this spacious room. Welcome to the new Hotel Karibe, where privacy suddenly takes a backseat to safety.
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Categories: Haiti, Blogs, Poverty and Development
Days Sixteen to Eighteen: Runnin' on Empty
This 3-for-1 combo blog post is a good indication of how busy I’ve become. I only have two full days left in Haiti, so I’ve been trying to make the most of my time. At the risk of sounding like a whiny privileged foreigner, I’ll say that I’m tired. All the driving around, all the collapsed buildings, all the sad stories, all the nonstop work has started to take its toll. But then again, I obviously have nothing to complain about. So I’ll just shut up now, you’re welcome.
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Categories: Haiti, Watch, Poverty and Development
Day Fifteen: The Forever Drive
Hurry up and wait. That’s been the theme of my time in Haiti. Today was full of frustration as my best efforts were thwarted at nearly every turn. Even if you start at the crack-a-dawn, you can easily spend an entire day and get very little done.
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Categories: Haiti, Blogs, Poverty and Development
Day Fourteen: A Peek Outside the City
After two weeks in Port-au-Prince, I finally got a chance to see more of Haiti. I’d heard stories about places like Leogane and Jacmel. That they were completely flattened and had received an incredibly slow trickle of aid since the earthquake. I braced for the worst.
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Categories: Haiti, Blogs, Poverty and Development
Day Thirteen: Kids and Camps
You’ll have to excuse the excessive use of kid photos. Ever since the first couple days when I wrote that there were no children around, I’ve been surrounded by them.
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Categories: Haiti, Blogs, Poverty and Development
Day Twelve: The Delicate Balance
Before I came to Haiti, I had no idea what to expect. The image you get from the outside is of a completely destroyed wasteland where the most basic needs are nowhere to be found. No food and water, no electricity, no medical supplies, no nothing. Then, of course, you get here and realize the image in your head was a bit exaggerated. Yes, it’s a disaster zone and yes, people are struggling. But that suitcase full of bottled water, beans, and camping gear that I (perhaps naively) lugged over here hasn’t been the necessity I thought it might be.
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Categories: Haiti, Blogs, Poverty and Development
Day Eleven: Feeling Bad Feeling Good
I hesitate to even mention this because it’s a story we’ve all heard a thousand times in the past month: the tragic tale of another disaster victim. And yet that doesn’t make their stories any less heartbreaking, any less powerful. So here goes.
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Categories: Haiti, Watch, Blogs, Poverty and Development
Hard Times for Journalists in Nepal
A Nepali journalist emailed this morning, saying that these are hard times for news media in Nepal.
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Day Ten: Moving On
The period of mourning is over. And in my opinion, the country is better off than it was last week. I told a Haitian friend I thought it was the happiest three days of mourning I’d ever seen. She informed me that the word “mourning” wasn’t exactly the best translation. It was more like a time to hope, a time to remember.
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Categories: Haiti, Blogs, Poverty and Development
Day Nine: The Silent City
My first radio dispatch from Haiti hit the airwaves today on World Vision Report. Senegal offers to resettle Haitians in the land of their African ancestors. An intriguing thought, but many in Port-au-Prince aren’t ready to abandon ship just yet. Listen above. There’s also a slideshow, and an audio postcard of a church forced into the street.
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Categories: Haiti, Listen, Blogs, Labor and Immigration, Poverty and Development
Between Worlds/Behind Bars Immigration, detention and deportation in the Northwest
From the dark days of the Chinese Exclusion Act to post–911 crackdowns on undocumented immigrants, immigration detention has a controversial history in both our nation and in the Puget Sound region. Between World/Behind Bars is a four-part radio series exploring immigration detention from its roots in the 1930s at “Seattle's Ellis Island" in the International District to today's privately-run Northwest Detention Center on the Tacoma Tideflats. Listen to the series on kuow.org.
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Categories: USA, Watch, Listen, Labor and Immigration
Day Eight: A Time to Mourn
Today began three days of mourning in Haiti. Exactly one month ago, just before 5 p.m., “the event” struck this land. Finally, Haitians are taking time to honor their dead and reflect on their new reality.
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Categories: Haiti, Watch, Blogs, Poverty and Development
Day Seven: In Pictures
Traffic was a nightmare. Since most of my day was spent in the car, I'll give you a taste of what I saw.
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Categories: Haiti, Watch, Poverty and Development
Day Six: Time for a Change
This was a day for decisions. After spending all day on the UN base because of a story deadline, I decided I’m ready to get out. It’s been nearly a week, and I’m sick of this lifestyle. I go from the tent to the cafeteria to the Internet spot to the bathroom to the bank, and back again. Everything is so sterile, white-washed, without character. Sure, there are plenty of perks: free wireless, free lodging, plenty of food and water.
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Categories: Haiti, Watch, Poverty and Development
Day Five: Takin' Care of Business
It was a pretty uneventful day. It started off in the bank line on base. Since I’m trying to keep a low profile around here, I had no idea there was a bank.
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Categories: Haiti, Blogs, Poverty and Development
Day Four: An Ugly Tour
Surprise, surprise. I saw more destruction today. A woman I interviewed gave me a driving tour of her neighborhood. The school she grew up in, gone. The church her mother forced her to attend, gone. Her friend’s home, gone.
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Categories: Haiti, Blogs, Poverty and Development
Day Three: Life in the Camps
I called my interpreter this morning, wondering why she was running late. "I’m just waiting for the driver," she said. "I should still make it on time." That’s when I realized I’d been operating an hour ahead of Haiti for the past two days. Sigh. Definition of a boneheaded mistake. But seriously, who’d have thunk that two countries sharing the same island would be in different time zones?
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Categories: Haiti, Blogs, Poverty and Development
Day Two: A Dose of Downtown Reality
I take back what I said yesterday about the destruction not being so bad. Or rather, I’ll take this opportunity to revise it. Downtown Port-au-Prince is a disaster, no ifs, ands or buts about it.
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Categories: Haiti, Blogs, Poverty and Development
Torture Feared in Arrest of Iraqi Blogger
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Categories: Iraq, Blogs, The Media, Politics and Conflict
Day One: Santo Domingo to Port-au-Prince
I got a late start this morning, thanks to a slight wardrobe malfunction (forgot to bring underwear).
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Categories: Haiti, Blogs, Poverty and Development
Galamsey: Will Work for Gold
Driving outside Prestea, in western Ghana, you might wonder about the makeshift tents lining the roadside, or what the black grime on the ground is, or why there are so many women selling food in such a random-looking place. But if you went to the area’s chief and got permission to enter the camp, you would see that it’s not a shanty-town but a profitable small business, run by local entrepreneurs.
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Categories: Ghana, Blogs, The Environment, Poverty and Development
It's In the P-I
In spring 2009, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer joined the ranks of collapsing American newspapers, shutting down print operations after 142 years. It's in the P-I tries to capture the confusion and disappointment of the people who worked the last few days of this Seattle institution. This short film was produced as part of the International Documentary Challenge. It was conceived and completed over the span of five days at the beginning of March 2009. It represents a collaboration between The Last Quest and the Common Language Project.
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Categories: Pacific Northwest, Watch, The Media
Canadian Miner Meets Adversity in Ghana Community activists say locals sent petitions to the capital and blocked the mining by the Canadian firm Golden Star Resources
With gold prices at record highs, many companies are trying to get in on the action and mine in Africa's second-largest gold producer, Ghana. But one Canadian company already operating in Ghana is running into problems with the local community and the government.
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Categories: Ghana, Blogs, The Environment, Politics and Conflict
Ghana's Gold Project Blog Post 2: Reporting on Newmont’s controversial Akyem Project
Near the center of the small town of Yayaaso in Ghana's Eastern Region, Samuel Obeng stops mixing concrete to sit on a bench under a tree and tell me what he thinks of the arrival of Colorado-based gold mining company, Newmont. He wears a faded pink tank-top and gestures with his hands. "Me and my brothers will all get work," he says. "For the women, if they're vendors, they'll get more business." Samuel is pretty optimistic, but he's keeping an eye out. "If that doesn't happen when they come … and they just leave us, then there will be plenty of problems."
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Categories: Ghana, Blogs, The Environment
Ghanaian Locals Caught in a Gold Rush
Ghana is one of the world's top producers of gold. And with gold's price at record highs, more companies are heading to the African country for a piece of the action. Anna Boiko-Weyrauch reports.
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Categories: Ghana, Listen, The Environment, Poverty and Development
Lessons From God Poverty and faith fill Pakistan's madrassas
For years, Pakistan's religious schools have been identified as breeding grounds for terrorists. But they're also the only opportunity millions of poor Pakistani children have to get an education. In this video, reporter Alex Stonehill goes inside madrassas to find out whats really being taught.
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Categories: Pakistan, Watch, Read, Education, Poverty and Development, Politics and Conflict
In Search of an Oasis East Africa reporting retrospective
Innovations in digital technology and the global economic crisis have fueled a need for independent reporting through the use of multimedia. This video by CLP Water Wars intern Julia Marino tells the behind the scenes story of reporting on water issues from Ethiopia and Kenya on a shoestring budget.
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Categories: Kenya, Ethiopia, Watch, The Environment, The Media, Poverty and Development
Up All Night Telemarketing in Lahore, Pakistan
Like India, Pakistan has its share of call centers, offering everything from customer service and tech support to health insurance and home security systems. Jessica Partnow takes us through a night in the life of Ali Jaffri, a professional telemarketer in Lahore.
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Categories: Pakistan, Listen, Labor and Immigration, Poverty and Development
First Rain
Dark clouds swarm on the horizon and the wind carries approaching rain. It is not a smell or a feeling that drifts across the land, though the nostrils are suddenly thrust free of dust and the air is lighter and cooler against the skin. It is a taste, a saturated sweetness on the tip of the tongue, a quenching of the thirst by particles unseen that blow, for the first time in over a year, across the bare earth, scarred trees and broken imaginations of northern Kenya.
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Categories: Kenya, Blogs, The Environment, Poverty and Development
New Digs Pollution and poor planning forces Peruvian mining city of 70,000 to relocate
Life in Cerro de Pasco – a gritty mining town high in the Andes – has always been hard. But after a century of corporate mining that has left the soil saturated by toxic waste, safe drinking water scarce, and rancid fumes floating in the thin air, it has become unlivable.
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Categories: Peru, Watch, Listen, Blogs, The Environment, Human Rights, Poverty and Development
Alex Stonehill on PBS's Foreign Exchange with Daljit Dhaliwal CLP Journalist discusses the World Water Forum and Pollution in New Delhi's Yamuna River
Journalist Alex Stonehill discusses the pollution of the Yamuna River in India and the World Water Forum.
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Categories: India, Watch, The Environment, Poverty and Development, Global Health
Dry Land, Dry Sentiment Remembering traditional patterns in times of drought
East Africa is in transition; a drought that has lasted more than a year in many parts of the region has just broken with the onset of rains. Many say that this period without rain has the been the worst that anyone can remember, the majority of livestock dying, crops failing and refusing to sprout, perennial rivers drying up for the first time, and power and water rationing taking place in urban areas. In the rangelands of northern Kenya, and similar landscapes throughout the region, land degradation and resource scarcity has provoked conflict, political maneuvering along ethnic lines, and left at least 20 million people lacking food security. Now, with the onset of El Niño rains, the region is poised on the edge of extremes, fearful of the damage that too much water will cause in a degraded and fragile land.
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Categories: Kenya, Blogs, The Environment, Poverty and Development, Global Health, Politics and Conflict
Ghana's Gold Project Blog Post 1: Digging In
I recently got a grant from The Nation Institute's Investigative Fund to cover gold mining in Ghana - in particular I'll be looking at the relationship between large mining companies and the communities in which they operate.
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Pakistani Immigrants in Seattle Confront a Huge Challenge at Home As highly skilled people pour out of the troubled country, the local Pakistani community is working to stop the brain drain and help educate those back home.
As the first notes of the Quran, sung by a diminutive imam in an embroidered prayer cap, fill the Westin Bellevue's ornate Grand Ballroom, a sea of hands moves to cover heads.
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Categories: Pakistan, USA, Read, Education, Labor and Immigration, Poverty and Development
Educating Humiera Pakistanis in Seattle give a Pakistan community the gift of girls' school
BUGNA, Pakistan — Thirteen-year-old Humiera Kausar's oversized sneakers hurry over piles of granite boulders and through scrubby pines bristling with last night's rain. A headscarf and pink shawl are wound tightly around her small frame to protect against the thick mist that has settled over her high mountain village.
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Categories: Pakistan, Read, Listen, Education, Gender, Poverty and Development
CLP Journalists Alex Stonehill and Sarah Stuteville on Frontline/WORLD Pakistan: Education's Fault Lines
Journalists Sarah Stuteville and Alex Stonehill spent six weeks crisscrossing Pakistan to report on the country's growing education crisis. Both are funded by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, and spoke recently with iWitness from Karachi about their experience. Watch the interview and find out why they believe Pakistan's religious schools get an unfair rap from the West, and how so-called "ghost schools" are at the heart of the state's failings. The two also talk with a Swat resident in Karachi who has just fled the fighting, and why his presence in the city is causing new tensions.
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Categories: Pakistan, Watch, Blogs, Education, Human Rights, Poverty and Development, Politics and Conflict
The Ghost Schools of Pakistan Frightening realities from inside an education system on the brink
September 20, 2009: Story updated with radio feature and photo slideshow. Despite ankle deep garbage, charcoal-scribbled graffiti of machine guns and the scorched remains of squatters' fires, the dusty green chalkboard still reads "December 2, 2006," the last day that classes were held in the primary school wing of Mirza Adam Khan, a government-run compound of schools in the poor and violence plagued Karachi neighborhood of Lyari.
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Categories: Pakistan, Watch, Read, Listen, Education, Poverty and Development, Politics and Conflict
Big, Bright and, to Many, Beautiful The truck artists of Karachi apply a splash of color to an otherwise bleak canvas
KARACHI, Pakistan – At first glance, this is not a colorful city. An aerial view of Karachi reveals a sprawl of squat markets and utilitarian high-rises set among sparse vegetation and dull industrial public art, a landscape of stucco corroded by salty sea air and looming cement structures coated in urban grime.
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Categories: Pakistan, Watch, Read, Listen, Labor and Immigration, Poverty and Development
Hope for Pakistan's Child Workers A Karachi-based group bent on eradicating child labor is offering school lessons outside working hours
KARACHI, Pakistan – Sher Shah is a hardworking neighborhood — a confusing knot of cramped lanes offering up a riot of rattling power looms, puttering motors and booming furnaces. This rough suburb, with its garment factories, machine shops and scrap-metal smelters far from the imposing cement skyscrapers of the city center, forms the industrial gut of Karachi.
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Categories: Pakistan, Read, Listen, Education, Human Rights, Poverty and Development
Delhi's Dark Waters
The Yamuna River, which flows through the heart of India's capital city, is one of the holiest rivers in Hindu mythology. It's also one of the most polluted rivers in the world, absorbing more than 200 million gallons of sewage from the city each day. This story takes us to the banks of the Yamuna, where some still eke out a living from a river that others are fighting to bring back to life.
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Categories: India, Watch, Read, The Environment, Poverty and Development, Global Health
'Green' Gold Joins List of Fair Trade Products
Brides and grooms looking for ethical ways to celebrate their marriage can find lots of fair trade items for their weddings and receptions, from flowers and rice to wine and coffee. But when it comes to their rings - it's harder to be a responsible consumer.
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Categories: Ghana, Listen, The Environment, Poverty and Development, Politics and Conflict
Karachi Nights
No matter how frenzied the exhaust-coated sun-saturated day is in Karachi—this city really lives at night.
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Bad Times Return to Karachi Renewed violence in this Pakistani port city is threatening its status as a safe haven from troubles farther north
Despite Karachi’s decades-old reputation as Pakistan’s most violent city, over the last year this urban economic hub has remained a haven from the bombings and violence reverberating through the rest of the country. But a flaring of ethnic clashes in recent weeks, exacerbated by the arrival of thousands of refugees from the violence in northern Pakistan, has many worried that instability has returned to the streets of this massive port city on the shores of the Arabian Sea.
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Categories: Pakistan, Read, Listen, Poverty and Development, Politics and Conflict
Behind-the-Scenes Update from Karachi, Pakistan Video blog from the CLP's multimedia team
The CLP team takes a break to reflect on the first half of the Pakistan: Hearts and Minds reporting project.
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Categories: Pakistan, Watch, Blogs, The Media, Politics and Conflict
Caught in Pakistan's Crossfire Taliban militants, Pakistani military units, and US drone attacks spark an uneasy exodus
The day is closing in Jellozai and children run along the narrow dusty rows of UNICEF-stamped tents, trying to squeeze a little more play time out of the dying evening. Some 43,000 people live in this refugee camp just outside of Peshawar, after fleeing violence in the tribal regions not far from here.
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Categories: Pakistan, Read, Human Rights, Labor and Immigration, Poverty and Development, Politics and Conflict
Letting the Terrorists Win
Pale columns of smoke are rising from a sea of blue tents stretching into the distance of the flat khaki plain that is Jellozai, a refugee camp eight miles outside of Peshawar, home to an estimated 43,000 people fleeing violence in the tribal regions not far from here.
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Categories: Pakistan, Blogs, The Media, Poverty and Development, Politics and Conflict
Pakistan's Viral Video
The release of a grainy video showing a girl being flogged for adultery by the Taliban in the Swat valley has created an uproar in Pakistan. In this video-blog, journalist Alex Stonehill discusses why, amidst all the violence in Pakistan, this particular video has evoked such a reaction.
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Categories: Pakistan, Watch, Blogs, Human Rights, Gender, The Media
Hanging With the Ladies
In the gray light of my first morning in Pakistan, the thick salty smell of sulfur introducing me to the seaside city of Karachi, the streets were full of men. With few exceptions it was men congregating in front of the still dark airport, men piled onto buses carnival-decorated with Technicolor and chrome, and men weaving through the thickening traffic on motorbikes and rickshaws.
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Categories: Pakistan, Read, Blogs, Education, Human Rights, Gender, Politics and Conflict
Fear Factor: Pakistan
I’ve become terrified of my e-mail. I’ve always been a little skittish of the inbox, never knowing what that first login might bring to my day – an outraged critique of a recent article, a Facebook request from a long-lost ex-boyfriend – but in the weeks leading up to our departure, my crowded inbox has set my stomach lurching in newly anxious ways as I sift through daily accounts of the chaos that has touched down in Pakistan.
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Categories: Pacific Northwest, Pakistan, USA, Read, Blogs, Education, The Media, Politics and Conflict
Getting Our Minds Into the Gutter Media coverage for global sanitation issues
An estimated 35,000 people died last week as the 5th World Water Forum convened in Istanbul, Turkey. If you didn’t hear the news, don’t be surprised – the 35,000 deaths the week before, and the week before that, didn’t grab any headlines either.
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Categories: Turkey, Blogs, The Environment, The Media, Poverty and Development
The Journalism Hustle
The CLP's latest investigative feature hit the newsstands – er, Internets – last night. The punch-drunk Seattle P-I posted on the Tacoma Immigration Detention Center as a web-only feature about 25 headlines below the lead story about who has a heavily anticipated art opening in Greenwood tonight.
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Categories: Pacific Northwest, USA, Blogs, Labor and Immigration, The Media
Young Immigrant Among Thousands of Federal Detainees in Tacoma
Arms poking stiffly from an oversize blue jumpsuit, Vitaliy Budimir recounted his crimes in a hesitant voice that barely revealed his Russian origins.
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Categories: Pacific Northwest, USA, Watch, Read, Listen, Human Rights, Labor and Immigration
Fourth Estate Foreclosure Why we need a National Endowment for Journalism
2009 promises to be another tough year for the journalism industry, and it looks like it’s our turn to take a beating here in Seattle. The imminent closure of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer – the city’s oldest and second-largest newspaper – was announced last week, just a few months after the second round of major staff cutbacks in 2008 went down at our other major newspaper, the Seattle Times.
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Categories: Pacific Northwest, USA, Blogs, The Media, Politics and Conflict
How Has the World Water Crisis Affected You?
It is dawn and the camels move past the truck like shadows. They seem too tired to talk, their heads bent down as they plod on along the dirt track. The only sound they make is the light thud of their feet hitting the white sand. Perhaps they are embracing the morning in silence; watching the last few rebellious stars disappear as the pink sky turns the acacia trees to silhouettes. Or, and this is much more likely, they are quiet because they are walking through a graveyard and do not want to wake the dead.
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Categories: Kenya, Read, Blogs, The Environment, Poverty and Development, Global Health
Kenyan Elephants Fenced Out Wildlife managers resort to an electric fence to stop elephants from raiding crops. At least it stops them from being shot.
An 83-kilometer-long electrified fence has been completed to keep elephants separate from humans in central Kenya. The controversial solution to the age-old problem of human-elephant conflict was initiated and managed by the Laikipia Wildlife Forum and the Kenya Wildlife Service after other methods of deterring the species from crop-raiding, such as chili fences and noise guns, had failed to resolve the issue satisfactorily.
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Categories: Kenya, Read, Listen, The Environment, Global Health, Politics and Conflict
Recycling in Mali
Most people know the familiar refrain: reduce, reuse, recycle. Many of us are even compelled to sort our paper and metal into bins, or to reuse all our scratch paper. But in developing countries recycling is often less of a luxury. In one of the world's poorest countries, Mali, producer Kira Neel came upon an ingenious form of recycling.
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Categories: Mali, Listen, The Environment, Poverty and Development
Tasting a Slice of Street Life in Addis
We arrive at the police station — half a dozen or so iron sheet structures. We are led into one of the structures, where the officer on duty is seated on a bed in front of a table, leaning backward.
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Categories: Ethiopia, Blogs, Poverty and Development, Global Health
Troubled Waters The coming calamity on Lake Victoria
The sky is just beginning to lighten over Lake Victoria and the hacking of machetes echoes along the Kenyan coastline. Fishermen, stripped to their underwear in the already rising heat, are chasing silvery baby fish through the thick grass that chokes the lake shores, in defiance of laws against fishing in these delicate breeding grounds.
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Categories: Kenya, Uganda, Watch, Read, Listen, The Environment, Poverty and Development, Global Health, Politics and Conflict
Drought Spurs Resource Wars
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. Earlier in the day thousands of young goats, sheep and calves took turns to have their fill of water. And the show will not end with the cattle; camels are still waiting in line. For being the best able to resist drought, now they will be last.
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Categories: Ethiopia, Watch, Read, The Environment, Poverty and Development, Global Health, Politics and Conflict
The Most Dangerous Men in Kenya
They spoke of poverty and of being expected to feed and take care of themselves by their early teens. Many described turning to theft almost immediately, well aware that even the lowest-paying factories of Kisumu wouldn't hire them. They came from the wrong neighborhood, none of them had finished school — and anyway, around here any available job, no matter how menial, was filled before the help-wanted sign could even go up.
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Categories: Kenya, Read, Blogs, Education, Poverty and Development
Off the Record: World Water Crisis
Africans’ struggles for water inevitably read to American audiences as happening “over there” in a chaotic and distant world. Connecting them to a looming global trend requires a prescience that doesn’t hold up to the exacting principles of print journalism. This is especially true because developments on the ground often outpace the scientific community — in many neglected areas, for example, the only way to find out if rainfall has been declining is to ask a subsistence farmer, because the formal scientific data simply doesn’t exist.
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Categories: Kenya, Ethiopia, Read, Blogs, The Environment, Poverty and Development, Global Health
Running on Hope
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.
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Categories: Ethiopia, Watch, Poverty and Development, Global Health
Kenyans Tap Sun to Make Dirty Water Sparkle
NAIROBI, Kenya — 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. In Kibera, a massive slum of rusty tin roofs and makeshift homes spreading out from the southwest of the city, the rain is turning the twisting dirt roads and alleyways into thick red mud.
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Categories: Kenya, Watch, Read, Poverty and Development, Global Health
Power Politics Trump Democracy in US-backed Ethiopia
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 sunburned foreign tourists, expensive cameras poised to capture lively scenes from one of Africa’s largest open-air markets.
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Categories: Ethiopia, Read, The Media, Poverty and Development, Politics and Conflict
Being Typical
Recently a short piece I wrote about the personal conflict I felt when comparing my water-wasteful lifestyle in the United States with the stories I'd reported of water shortages in rural Ethiopia — specifically the story of one father who had lost four children to waterborne diseases — was classified by one reader as just another "guilt trip."
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Categories: Kenya, Read, Blogs, The Environment, Poverty and Development, Global Health
Haramaya Voices from a vanished lake
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — Chala Ahmed, 26, hit the jackpot eight years ago when he won the U.S. 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.
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Categories: Ethiopia, Watch, Read, Listen, The Environment, Poverty and Development, Global Health
A Treacherous Trek to the Crater's Edge
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 50 pounds of brackish water sloshed rhythmically against the sides of the muddy yellow jerry can strapped to my back.
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Categories: Ethiopia, Watch, Read, Listen, The Environment, Poverty and Development, Global Health
Quenching the Thirst Seattle brings the most precious liquid abroad
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — It's early morning and a dozen westerners, mostly Seattleites, are 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. As they set out — a caravan of five land rovers moving through the dense traffic — many of them are still quietly coming to terms with the parting words of Adane Kassa, executive director of Water Action, the Ethiopian NGO that coordinates the projects they'll be visiting.
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Categories: Ethiopia, Watch, Read, The Environment, Poverty and Development, Global Health
Heading South Part 1: A Night on the Road
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 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 impracticalities 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.
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Categories: Ethiopia, Blogs, The Environment, Politics and Conflict
Heading South Part 2: A Night in the Bush
When our four-wheel-drive pickup truck vroomed into 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 sightseeing. I was here to work, following stories on water scarcity and how it had impacted the people of Southern Ethiopia.
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Categories: Ethiopia, Blogs, The Environment, Global Health
Heading South Part 3: A Night at the Yabello Motel
After being stranded in the middle of the elusive bush, and experiencing the morning nap in the dusty room in Arero, we were all fantasizing about a clean bed and, more importantly, a shower. Hot, warm, frozen — it wouldn't matter. At the advice of our handy Lonely Planet guide, we pulled into the Yabello Motel, a place the book described as "clean and comfortable." Although the toilet and the shower were outside, it was nice to finally find a place to unpack and unwind.
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Categories: Ethiopia, Blogs, The Environment
Heading South Part 4: A Night Under the Stars
The word travel traces back to the Middle-English word travailen, meaning to journey, labor, strive and most importantly, to torment. Much of traveling does feel a little like torment and as the strange bug-bites, desperate trips to the bathroom and embarrassing cultural misunderstandings mount (who knew that blowing raspberries was one of the rudest things you can do in traditional Ethiopian culture?), I often wonder how I’ve found myself so far away from home.
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Categories: Ethiopia, Blogs, The Environment
Heading South Part 5: A Dawn With Dion
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.
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Categories: Ethiopia, Listen, Blogs, The Environment
An American's Water Shortage
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.
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Categories: Ethiopia, Blogs, The Environment, Poverty and Development, Global Health
Ethiopian Epiphany: Timkat in Addis Ababa
According to Ethiopia's unique calendar, the year 2000 started last September; Christmas was two weeks ago, on Jan. 7; and this weekend, at the end of the 12 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 capital, Addis Ababa.
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My Romantic Reunion With Africa
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — Close to 40 hours after leaving Athens, Ohio, I arrived at 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.
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Categories: Ethiopia, Blogs, Poverty and Development
Passionate Politics A behind-the-scenes look at a Kenyan presidential election rally
MERU, Kenya — Raila Odinga is brave to be holding a campaign rally here. This is 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.
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Categories: Kenya, Read, Blogs, Politics and Conflict
Back to Africa on a Water Mission
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 the only source of water for my village. Never mind that the river was four miles away and was shared among scores of villages along its course.
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Categories: Kenya, Ethiopia, Blogs, The Environment, Poverty and Development
Panorama: Diversity in the Muslim World
In the winter of 2006, I set off across Asia with the Common Language Project in hopes of challenging some of the stereotypes about other countries that dominate the mainstream American press. As expected, Islam was an ever-present force in the places we visited, which not only prompted worried emails from family members back home, but also provided us with a chance to learn a lot about the religion first hand. Though we encountered mosques, headscarves and skepticism for American foreign policy in all of the Muslim countries we visited, the similarities stopped there. Stereotypical images of Islam tend to portray a monolithic, homogeneous religion of fundamentalist believers conforming to strict, unified codes of conduct. But I found myself struck by the diversity of believers in Islam, the nuances of their interpretations of the faith and the varying intensity of religion's role in their lives.
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Categories: Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan, Jordan, Palestinian Territories, Turkey, Watch
In Our Backyard Tacoma demonstrates against Northwest Detention Center
It’s visiting day at the Northwest Detention Center. The facility, opened three years ago to hold undocumented people awaiting deportation, is set amid a tangle of industrial roads near downtown Tacoma. A distant midday sun reflects new spirals of razor wire circling the low gray building as a middle-aged Sikh man and a frightened-looking Hispanic family approach the line of police armed with plastic handcuffs and padded gear, here to guard the entrance against today’s planned protests.
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Categories: Pacific Northwest, USA, Watch, Read, Listen, Labor and Immigration
What's Democracy Got To Do With It? From pop music to politics, youth stand to inherit a new Bhutan
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."
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Categories: Bhutan, Read, Blogs, The Media, Politics and Conflict
Life in Lagos
Lola Akinmade's photo essay offers a vivid view of everyday life in Lagos, Nigeria.
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Categories: Nigeria, Watch, Poverty and Development
Life on the Duwamish: Rediscovering Seattle's Dirty South
In the past 150 years, the Duwamish estuary has been home to a tranquil Native American community; Seattle's first white settlers; gold miners enjoying 24-hour saloons; one of the country's busiest ports; and cutting-edge companies like Starbucks, Boeing and Amazon.com. "Life on the Duwamish" explores the history, culture and neighborhoods around the Duwamish waterway, a historical center of industry in Seattle, Superfund Cleanup site, and a focal point of communities in South Park and Georgetown.
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Categories: Pacific Northwest, USA, Watch, Listen, The Environment
Bitter Harvest Guest worker program isn't the labor and immigration panacea it's cracked up to be
UPDATE: September 3, 2010. The labor abuses exposed in this 2007 CLP article are now part of the largest federal indictment for human trafficking ever brought by federal authorities. Global Horizons President Mordechai Orian is facing prosecution. Thai guest worker Wisit Kampilo was granted a special visa for victims of human trafficking, and has settled permanently in Eastern Washington with his family. <more>
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Categories: Pacific Northwest, USA, Watch, Read, Human Rights, Labor and Immigration, Politics and Conflict
Down Under the Veil Australia's Muslim women face a rising tide of xenophobia
SYDNEY, Australia — A young woman leaves squeaky footprints in the sand as she carries her fiberglass short-board toward 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.
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Categories: Australia, Read, Human Rights, Labor and Immigration, Politics and Conflict
Mr. Seng's Homecoming One Khmer Rouge refugee's journey from Rhode Island to rural Cambodia
KOH KONG, Cambodia — It's 1974. For Americans, the long Indo-Chinese 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.
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Testing Tolerance Fallout from North Korea's nuclear program hits minorities in 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.
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Categories: Japan, Read, Education, Politics and Conflict
To Be (or Not to Be) an Independent Journalist
There’s some pretty powerful propaganda out there romanticizing my profession.
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Categories: Blogs, Commentary, The Media
Tall Americano, Hold the Paycheck Tacoma teen's coffee shop servitude shows human trafficking isn't just about sex slaves
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.
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Categories: Pacific Northwest, USA, Morocco, Read, Human Rights, Labor and Immigration
Seattle Anti-War Protest
War resisters, Vietnam vets, and teenage punks all joined together to protest 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 United States' presence in Iraq.
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Categories: USA, Watch, Politics and Conflict
Digging for Potash, Mining Companies Encounter an Iron Will
"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.
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Categories: Thailand, Read, The Environment, Human Rights, Poverty and Development, Politics and Conflict
Fishermen Swim Against the Tide of Disaster Capitalism
NAI LAI, Thailand — Halima Singkala, 49, and her neighbors were repairing fishing nets when 30 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.
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Categories: Thailand, Read, The Environment, Poverty and Development
Reflections From Pakistan
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 10 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.
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Categories: Pakistan, Blogs, Commentary
Unsafe Crossings
Kira’s piece explores her experience working with women seeking abortions at a Rhode Island clinic after surviving rape while crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally.
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Categories: Mexico, Listen, Gender, Labor and Immigration, Poverty and Development, Global Health, Politics and Conflict
Third Country Nationals Cell phone videos reveal untold stories from Ramadi
Mohammad reached across the bar and handed me his mobile. He told me to press start and play the video on hold.
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Categories: Jordan, Iraq, Read, Blogs, The Media, Politics and Conflict
The Hotel Between Heaven and Hell
Su Fang's audio slideshow explores the hidden lives of Beijing's Min Gong.
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Categories: China, Watch, Listen, Human Rights, Labor and Immigration, Global Health
A Danger to Democracy Ohio voters speak out
Two years after Ohio's disputed presidential elections, Ohio University journalism students Liz Gray, Meghan Louttit and Julia Marino asked Ohio voters if the state was ready for the 2006 midterm races.
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Categories: USA, Watch, Listen, Politics and Conflict
Voting Global
On Sept. 11, I flew back to Seattle after almost a year reporting in Asia and the Middle East for independent media.
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Categories: USA, Blogs, Politics and Conflict
Thailand Update CLP bloggers offer a look at Thailand's bloodless coup
I found out last night at 11 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, until yesterday the prime minister, with the support of the Thai military. They took over all of the television stations, preventing Thaksin from communicating with the people, and issued their own referendum.
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Categories: Thailand
Playing the Aid Game U.S. Funding Cuts Stifle Development in Palestine
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.
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Categories: Israel, Palestinian Territories, Watch, Read, Listen, Education, Poverty and Development, Politics and Conflict
The Lords of Democracy Editorial
I didn't always know there were different definitions of democracy. Studying for my master's 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 ownership of the concept of democracy which others must recognize and abide by.
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Categories: Israel, Palestinian Territories, Blogs, Commentary, Politics and Conflict
What Does Democracy Look Like? Editorial
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 cliche 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.
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Categories: Israel, Palestinian Territories, Blogs, Commentary, Politics and Conflict
Atheists in the Holy Land Three journalists negotiate neutrality in the Middle East
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.
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Categories: Israel, Palestinian Territories, Blogs, Commentary, Poverty and Development, Politics and Conflict
After Andijan A testimonial by Jamshid Mukhtarov
Because of the repressive and dangerous situation in Uzbekistan, CLP journalists realized they would be unable to successfully report from within the country. However, we did have the opportunity to interview one of the few political refugees from Uzbekistan that have escaped to southern Kyrgyzstan since the massacre. Here, in his own words, devoted human rights activist Jamshid Mukhtarov, director of the Ezgulik Human Rights Society in the southern Uzbek city of Djizzak, discusses his decision to flee his country, his evolution as an activist and the horrors of life under one of the most repressive regimes in the world.
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Categories: Kyrgyzstan, Read, Human Rights
Requiem for a Dual Hegemony
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 10-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.
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Categories: Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Watch, Listen, Blogs, Commentary, Human Rights, Politics and Conflict
Trouble in the Suburbs The Dark Side of Post-Soviet Development in Kazakhstan
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 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.
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Categories: Kazakhstan, Read, Poverty and Development, Politics and Conflict
Twenty-First Century Slavery Pakistan's brutal bonded labor system lingers on
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 12 hours of hard labor in the neighboring brick kilns. Around 11 p.m. 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.
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Categories: Pakistan, Read, Labor and Immigration
Perplexed in Pakistan
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.
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Categories: Pakistan, Blogs, Commentary
Backpacks Not Bombs International aid brings more than relief to earthquake victims; humanitarian challenge remains
AYUBIA, Pakistan — Ten-year-old Fazia Reza was in English class when she felt the ground start 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 145 families, lost his leg, and two others died in the Oct. 8 earthquake. Almost all of the town’s buildings were destroyed.
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Categories: Pakistan, Read, Commentary, Poverty and Development, Politics and Conflict
Faces of Pakistan
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.
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Squatters Stand Up Cambodian Slum Women Fight for their Rights in Phnom Penh
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.
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Categories: Cambodia, Read, Poverty and Development, Global Health
The Best Friends Aid Can Buy
Surprisingly, the strongest indicators of international aid presence are the words of this man, Dantali Shah, the village head here in Kakray. “We are so happy for the help of America-- please don’t be afraid of us. We welcome any more aid the Americans can offer.”
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Categories: Pakistan, Blogs, Commentary, Politics and Conflict
The Power of Propaganda Dissolving Prejudice in Pakistan
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.
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Categories: Pakistan, Blogs, Commentary
Sex and the City of Joy White House Morality Threatens Kolkata's Sex Workers
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.
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Categories: India, Watch, Read, Listen, Human Rights, Gender, Global Health
The Halfway Mark ... And Pakistan Looming
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 seems that the halfway mark is a 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.
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Categories: Pakistan, Blogs, Commentary
Ghosts of Bhopal
More than 20 years after the disastrous accident at Union Carbide in Bhopal, India that instantly killed more than 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 more than 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.
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Categories: India, Watch, The Environment
Our Fight for the Forest A testimonial by Bindia Bai and Subadra
In January the Forest Development Corporation officials came and hired some men from our village to work in the forest nearby. They said they wanted to cut some diseased trees and clear naturally felled wood, but after a couple of days we knew that the officials had bigger plans. The FDC men had started cutting healthy Sal trees as well, clearing a huge area of the forest. The village men refused to go on working. They remembered what had happened to the bamboo in the forest when we were children.
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Categories: India, Read, The Environment, Poverty and Development, Politics and Conflict
Saving the Sal Trees Direct Action in the Tribal Hills of Chhattisgarh
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 co-option is building among these ancient people.
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Categories: India, Read, The Environment, Poverty and Development
I Come from All of India And I'm Just Like You
Ahmedabad, INDIA – In a small, dimly lit room decorated with drawings celebrating Christmas, Diwali and Eid, 40 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.
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Categories: India, Read, Education, Politics and Conflict
A visit to the Akira Land Mine Museum and a demining expedition in northern Cambodia
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.
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Categories: Cambodia, Watch, Global Health
A Landmine Survivor's Story
When Aki Ra met Chet, he was living on the streets of Phnom Penh, shining shoes to earn money and sniffing glue because a friend had told him it would make him feel full. He’d lost his left leg in a land mine accident three years earlier and hadn’t yet gotten the prosthesis he now happily shows off.
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Categories: Cambodia, Read, Listen, Poverty and Development, Politics and Conflict
Nothing Goes According to Plan in Cambodia
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.
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Categories: Cambodia, Blogs, Commentary
Tuol Sleng Prison and Genocide Musem, Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Landmines and unexploded ordnance are not the only remnants of war in Cambodia. During the reign of the Khmer Rouge, Tuol Svay Prey High School in Phnom Penh became "Security Office 21," the central prison and interrogation center of the Khmer Rouge. From 1976 to 1979 thousands of Cambodians, at first mostly intellectuals, but later workers, farmers, officials and even Khmer Rouge soldiers themselves, all accused of opposing the Regime, were sent to S-21. They were imprisoned, had their photos and biographies recorded, and were then tortured to death or executed, often along with their children and other innocent family members. Of the 13,000 plus people who entered S-21 as prisoners, only seven came out alive. Today the compound is the Tuol Sleng (Khmer for "Poisonous Hill") Genocide Museum, which is open for public visits and remains largely in the condition it was in when it was liberated by the invading Vietnamese army in 1979.
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Categories: Cambodia, Watch, Human Rights, Politics and Conflict
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