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Poverty

An estimated 702.1 million people around the world lack access to food, clothing and other basic necessities. Pulitzer Center reporting tagged with “Poverty” feature reporting on health, malnutrition, education inequality and the many other endemic effects of poverty. Use the Pulitzer Center Lesson Builder to find and create lesson plans on poverty.

 

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.

Ethiopia: 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 by and large the only source of water for my village. Never mind the fact that the river was four miles away and was shared among scores of villages along its course.

Ethiopia: Dawn in Addis

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

He’s woken the dogs, and suddenly their frantic howling seems to come from the top of every hill in Addis, making the city seem surrounded by their feral packs.

The sharp barks are soon undercut by the rising moan of the muezzin. He sings the same words that have woken me around the world, but his melody here is unique, more of a monotonous chanting than the sung declaration I’ve heard before.

Burma's Largest Rebel Army Battles Increase in Opium Production

The frontline of Burma's largest rebel army is a lonely hilltop ringed by a land mine-littered jungle, mountains controlled by the Burmese military and a patchwork of poppy fields visible through a rusting pair of Soviet binoculars.

"It's opium," said Nan Daw, a captain in the Shan State Army South. "I know because I have patrolled there."

Ethiopia: My Romantic Reunion with Africa

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

Liberia: From One Battlefront to Another

Members of the hip hop group Wu-Tang Clan grew up in Park Hill; they call it "Killer Hill" or "Crack Hill" because of the violence and crack cocaine found on the streets. On a recent October weekend three shootings took place in front of 55 Bowden, the six-story brick building with the reputation for being the most violent. When Eric stands in front of the building, with his oversized jacket and his too-big pants slung down low, he keeps his back against the wall for security. He’s seen one too many young people shot or jumped from behind to know that anything can happen at anytime.

Police and Militia

To improve security in remote parts of the Bastar region, the goverment has sponsored civilian militia as part of Salwa Judum. Known as Special Police Officers, they are free to roam villages armed yet largely unchecked by the state.

The Villagers

The Bastar region is home to a number of indigenous tribes, many of which continue to live in nature as they have for centuries. Since the start of Salwa Judum thousands have been forcibly relocated to government-run camps.

Burmese Rebels Celebrate a Shan New Year

Lung Lawn walked for 17 nights to get here, through heavily mined forests, past Burmese military battalions and over the mountainous battlefields where rebel guerillas ambush them.

The new moon of December is approaching, and he's come to celebrate the New Year of his people; the Shan, Burma's largest ethnic minority. He's 46 years old — as old as the military government's iron-fisted rule over Burma, and as old as his people's armed resistance against it.

India: Guerillas in the Mountains

To smooth over a nerve-wracking encounter with their village militia, the Naxalite cadres went on a hospitality offensive. An additional four hours' trek into the dense mountain jungle ended at one of their many camps situated on a high plateau where we were welcomed as their "honored guests". Ploughed fields and a vegetable garden were tended by a tribal family living on site, who welcomed our group with a mashed corn drink served in hollow gourds. Their faces bore none of the resignation common to the displaced I had met in the roadside camps.