Untold Stories

Kenya and Ethiopia: The Most Dangerous Men in Kenya

By Sarah Stuteville
April 22, 2008

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

Poking through the remains of doctor's offices, electronics shops and grocery stores—plastic vials and discarded packaging cracking and rustling beneath my sneakers—I imagined the nights of heartbreak the owners of these business lived through in the anarchic weeks following Kenya's most recent elections.

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News Points: Children and war

Bethany Whitfield, the Pulitzer Center

“It’s hard to talk about, but at least when I talk about it, I get some relief,” said Eric Gibson, a Liberian who survived the country’s civil war during his youth by living behind rebel lines.

Gibson earned his keep during the conflict as an entertainer, performing rap songs for the rebel forces. Gibson, alongside journalist Ruthie Ackerman and Rachel Stohl, a senior analyst at the Center for Defense Information, led a recent discussion at Georgetown University on the widespread use of child soldiers in armed combats throughout the world.

Gibson testified to the atrocities he witnessed as a young Liberian growing up in a war-torn country, experiences that include watching the brutal murder of a pregnant mother, getting shot in the leg and having to bury his best friend’s body with his bare hands.

“You can’t cry,” at such times, Gibson said, lest the rebels perceive one as sympathizing with the other side. “You have to cry on the inside.”

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Ethiopia and Kenya: Water Crisis

By Alex Stonehill. April 17, 2008

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

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Ethiopia: Running on Hope

By Alex Stonehill. April 16, 2008

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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In Solidarity: Global Day for Darfur

Bethany Whitfield, the Pulitzer Center

Citizens and human rights activists across the nation and the world are rallying today, April 13, for Global Day for Darfur, a 24-hour campaign designed to draw attention to the violence that continues to plague the region five years after rebels took up arms. Some of the larger events of the day include an Amnesty International human rights exhibition at D.C.’s National Mall, a demonstration in the U.K at the Sudanese embassy and a rally in Vancouver sponsored by Canadian Students for Darfur.

While this conflict has attracted global attention, critics argue key players in the international community continue to perpetuate violence by failing to undertake stronger peacekeeping operations as well as a harsher stance against the Sudanese government. A strong focus of today’s Global Day for Darfur is the call for a fuller implementation of the joint U.N.-African Union Mission in Darfur, a program initiated last July.

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News Points: Bridging media divides

Jon Sawyer, Pulitzer Center

At the height of China’s crackdown on Tibet a network newscast features one journalist interviewing another, neither on the scene, about a government-sponsored propaganda trip the latter had once taken to Tibet. “Why is this news?” asks Solana Larson of Global Voices. “Why don’t they talk to some local people?”

Larson was among the provocateurs at last week’s Media Re:Public, a forum on the evolving role of participatory media that took place at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School of Communication and is part of a continuing initiative of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School.

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