Our first two iBooks—produced in-house on Apple’s iBooks Author program—have both won awards!
Voices of Haiti was awarded Special Recognition from the jury in Pictures of the Year International’s annual contest. Voices of Haiti is an immersive dive into post-earthquake Haiti, featuring poetry by Kwame Dawes, reporting by Lisa Armstrong, photography by Andre Lambertson, and music by Kevin Simmonds.
In Search of Home, an interactive look into statelessness in Kenya, the Dominican Republic and Burma, was awarded Honorable Mention in the Tablet category from National Press Photographers Association. The iBook was written by Stephanie Hanes and features the photography of Greg Constantine, who’s been working on statelessness for 7 years.
Our iBooks are enhanced stories that strive to provide deeper looks into the global issues that need coverage. We also hope that they provide new revenue streams for journalists—much needed and appreciated in today’s journalism landscape.
Buy one or both today for only $3.99 each in iTunes. Unfortunately, they are only available on iPad for now, but we are working on bringing them to other e-Readers.
Mali's Drug Trade
Worldwide, billions of dollars worth of cocaine and other narcotics flow through territories controlled by militant Islamists. The groups either turn a blind eye or actively participate in the industry. In Mali, Yochi Dreazen explored the now-deserted “Cocaine Town”; read his story here.
From Pulitzer Center grantee beenishahmed:
Photos from a walk through Lahore’s Old City a few months ago.
Check out Beenish’s reporting on Pakistan’s education emergency here.
“Think of it like this. We have an unemployment rate in this community that has been estimated up to 80 percent. There is no work. You live in poverty, and suddenly there is the hope of getting a monthly income via the disability grant. I’ve heard it described to me as winning the lottery,” Jabu Van Niekerk said as she told the story of a Raphael Center client forced to make the decision between life and death in order to feed her family.
The disability grant is available to residents who are deemed too sick to work—especially those with worsening stages of HIV and AIDS. One of the ways an HIV positive person would qualify for the grant is to have a CD4 count that is lower than 350 or 200 depending on the measure.
Read the full story here, by Pulitzer Center student fellow Samantha Thornton.
Photo: Clients at the Raphael Centre are encouraged to participate in workshops in this brightly painted building. Image by Samantha Thornton. South Africa, 2012.
Video: Though HIV is still stigmatized in the Garifuna community, some brave men and women spoke on camera about it to Pulitzer Center grantees Jens Erik Gould and David Rochkind.
Gould and Rochkind traveled to Honduras to report on the Garifuna, who have one of the highest rates of HIV infection in the western hemisphere. They found that some Garifuna are using their unique music and culture to drive public awareness and fight stigma.
Listen to the music, see the photography and read the reporting here.
Charanya Krishnaswami, a Yale Law School student and member of the Transnational Development Clinic, and Muneer I. Ahmad, Yale Law School professor and director of the Transnational Development Clinic, discussed the UN’s failure to acknowledge its responsibility for introducing cholera into Haiti following the 2010 earthquake in “UN Hypocrisy In Haiti,” a column in the Washington Post (22 March 2013).
Haitians became infected after cholera-infected waste was introduced into a tributary of the Artibonite river by UN peacekeepers from Nepal. Krishnaswami and Ahmad report that cholera continues to infect 1500 people every week. The UN is refusing to hold itself accountable and has not yet established a commission to hear the Haitians’ claims even though it has agreed to do so.
Two former Pulitzer Center student fellows, Meghan Dhaliwal and Jason Hayes, traveled to Haiti in July 2012 to report on the situation and interview Haitians who have filed legal complaints – as well as the lawyers who represent them. See their stories and photos here.
Photo: A man holds a picture of himself taken when he was incapacitated by cholera. Image by Meghan Dhaliwal. Haiti, 2012.
Cuba’s isolation and economic stagnation has had one benefit: its coral reefs are in much better shape than other reefs in the Caribbean. Their relative health is allowing researchers to establish baselines that help shed light on declines in ocean health elsewhere.
But while Cuba has mostly escaped the tourism, pollution and overfishing that has wrecked other reefs, it cannot escape the global phenomenons of climate change and invasive species.
There are some things to celebrate, however. In 2010, researchers from the US and Cuba started collaborating to help marine conservation, after more than 50 years of academic separation.
— Caroline
See grantee Lygia Navarro’s reporting on Cuba’s environment and reefs here. Image by Lygia Navarro. Cuba, 2010.
Help us expand our ocean reporting by supporting our Indiegogo project Ocean Matters today!
Photojournalist Sean Gallagher discusses his recent work photographing on the Tibetan Plateau. He shares his thoughts in how he conceptualised his project, its evolution and how he executed it whilst in the field, discussing some of the challenges he faced. His final project, titled ‘Meltdown: Climate Change and Environmental Degradation on the Tibetan Plateau’, looks at issues such as melting glaciers, grassland degradation, desertification, mining and the disappearance of Tibetan culture.
We’re featuring our water-related reporting all week for World Water Day.
Deforestation and climate change have worsened flooding along the Brahmaputra river in India, breeding competition and conflict for higher land. Flooding’s economic devastation has also led to an uptick in the trafficking of girls for sex and brides. Read the story from Pulitzer Center grantee Carl Gierstorfer. Image by Carl Gierstorfer. India, 2013.
We’re featuring our water-related projects for World Water Day.