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Pulitzer Center Update August 30, 2018

This Week: Child Labor and Your Smartphone

Media: Authors:
Inside the Kasulo mine, which is owned by the DRC government and run by China’s Congo Dongfang International Mining, or CDM. Image by Sebastian Meyer. Democratic Republic of Congo, 2018.
English

Vivienne Walt and Sebastian Meyer traveled to the Democratic Republic of Congo, home to most of the...

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Multiple Authors
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.

SECTIONS
Overlooking the historic city of Prizren, known as the cultural capital of Kosovo. Image by A.J. Naddaff. Kosovo, 2018.
English

Kosovo has been one of the largest per-capita contributors of European jihadists to the wars in...

Pulitzer Center Executive Editor Indira Lakshman speaks President Trump's use of the term "Fake News." Screenshot from a Washington Post video stream. United States, 2018.
English

"Indira Lakshmanan Reports" highlights Lakshmanan's reporting, commentary, and public event...

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