Poverty

I arrived in the dusty Sudanese capital Khartoum three weeks ago – after more than 30 hours of travel, two nights of airports and planes and way too many screaming babies.

Khartoum is not what I expected – much more alive and developed. The sun is as hot as everyone warned, but it is more than manageable with enough water and occasional escape to fanned or air-conditioned areas. There are many paved roads, but still enough sand to get in your eyes on a windy day.

Heba Aly reports on the mixed reaction in the Sudanese capital Khartoum to news that Sudan President Hassan Ahmad Al Bashir now faces genocide charges.

Listen to the full report at PRI's The World online

ON A FRAYED MAT ON ONE of the dusty streets of Kibera — Africa's largest slums — in Nairobi, Sophia Mohamed sells her wares: two mangoes, five oranges, a half-dozen calcium-based chewing stones and a pan brimming with bhajia (a potato snack).

In a small shack made of iron sheets and pieces of clothing in the slums of Addis Ababa live the Alemu family - Abiy, Marasit Bishaw, and the couple's three-year-old son and 25-day-old baby daughter Yanit.

And just a few metres from their one-room home is a mass of sewage and garbage, mixed with the carcasses of dead chickens and cow and goat skulls.

The Alemus live near the gully where the Kabena river used to meander gracefully through the Ethiopian capital.

But the river is now full of the city's waste, and a stench of sewage is the first thing that hits.

As day breaks over the rusty tin roofs and makeshift homes of the sprawling Kibera slum in Nairobi, the water sellers are already at their water tanks, waiting for their first customers.

Selling water in one of the world's largest slums is a good business. On most days the vendors charge 5 cents for five gallons, 100 times the cost of piped water provided by the city. But the city does not send water to the residents of Kibera--at any price.

Abousfian Abdelrazik takes the picture frame into his hands. His eyes open wide. "Kouteyba," he says, gently, longingly, as he looks at the picture of the son he hasn't seen in five years. "He's a big boy now." He puts the frame aside; then he picks it up again. "He's a big boy now," he repeats, shaking his head ...

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Vast ethnic diversity, geography and under-development have bred dozens of separatist movements in India's far-eastern Assam state. But these same factors that gave rise to spasms of violence throughout the region over the last 20 years have also had a containing effect: Militant groups have run up against each other, in addition to the Indian military.

Caught between India, Pakistan and a homegrown desire for independence, Kashmir has been hostage to conflict for more than fifty years. Today violence is in decline, a trend that is attributed to fatigue, a bilateral peace process with traction, and Pakistan's preoccupation with radical Islamic militants in the tribal areas along its Western border.

Frontline World is featuring the Pulitzer Center-sponsored reporting from the Common Language Project as part of a feature highlighting the human consequences of climate change.

A series of multimedia reports show how water stress across the horn of Africa is fueling conflict and threatening ancient ways of life.

As the morning sky lightens, the sound of machetes hacking through thick grass echoes along the lake's coastline. Fishermen, stripped to their underwear in the already stifling heat, are looking for silvery baby fish along the shoreline in defiance of laws against taking them in breeding grounds.

Still, nearly 700,000 Indian troops are deployed around the state. And there are mounting concerns that if the government does not reduce its presence, frustrations may spark a new cycle of violence.

Credits:

"Kashmir's Uneasy Peace"