Pulitzer Center Update

This Week: Child Labor and Your Smartphone

August 29, 2018 | Newsletter
Daniel (11) carries a bag of cobalt on his back. He works in a mine ferrying sacks of cobalt to a depot. Image by Sebastian Meyer. Democratic Republic of Congo, 2018.

Daniel (11) carries a bag of cobalt on his back. He works in a mine ferrying sacks of cobalt to a depot. Image by Sebastian Meyer. Democratic Republic of Congo, 2018.

Did Congolese Children Help Make Your Batteries?
Vivienne Walt and Sebastian Meyer

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), children toil in mines to collect chunks of cobalt, a mineral that is crucial to modern life. Cobalt is a key component in the lithium-ion batteries that power smartphones, computers, and tablets, and is also vital to producing batteries for the booming electric car industry. Yet two-thirds of the world's cobalt is mined in just one province of the DRC, a country beset by conflict, corruption, and crushing poverty. As Vivienne Walt and Sebastian Meyer report for Fortune, that reality poses urgent ethical dilemmas, and could threaten the move toward clean energy.

Pristina, Kosovo. Image by Clay Gilliland. Kosovo, 2014. (CC BY-SA 2.0).

 Pristina, Kosovo. Image by Clay Gilliland. Kosovo, 2014. (CC BY-SA 2.0).

Kosovo Struggles to Stamp Out Homegrown Terrorism
A.J. Naddaff

Kosovo has produced more jihadists per capita than any other Western nation since ISIS declared a caliphate in 2014. Now fighters are returning home, and as Davidson College student fellow A.J. Naddaff reports for The Washington Post, government de-radicalization and rehabilitation programs may not be succeeding.

Pulitzer Center Executive Editor Indira Lakshmanan

Pulitzer Center Executive Editor Indira Lakshmanan

Pulitzer Center Welcomes New Executive Editor

Indira Lakshmanan, starting as the Pulitzer Center's Executive Editor this week, appears on NPR 1A's global news roundup, and discusses the Poynter Institute's new report about trust in the media on SiriusXM.