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Pulitzer Center Update August 16, 2018

This Week: When Pollution Kills

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Image by Larry C. Price. India, 2017.
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Airborne particles—sometimes much smaller than the width of a human hair—are not just contributing...

Surrounded by a thick layer of pollution that settled over Patna overnight, a dawn cricket match gets underway at Gandhi Maidan Park in central Patna. Image by Larry C. Price. India, 2018.
Surrounded by a thick layer of pollution that settled over Patna overnight, a dawn cricket match gets underway at Gandhi Maidan Park in central Patna. Image by Larry C. Price. India, 2018.

The Hidden Threat of PM2.5
Larry C. Price and Gayathri Vaidyanathan

Airborne pollution is not just a contributor to climate change. It is one of the world's leading killers, claiming more than 4 million lives annually. The deadliest type: what scientists call PM2.5. These are particles 30 times smaller than the width of a human hair, making them particularly suited to infiltrate the human body's defenses. Working with Undark, photographer and multimedia journalist Larry C. Price visits seven countries on five continents to gauge the threat posed by PM2.5 to human health. Segment one takes us to India, where Price teams up with writer Gayathri Vaidyanathan to report on the astronomical levels of pollution there—pollution that kills 1 million people annually.

Rohingya refugees arriving in Bangladesh. Image by Jason Motlagh. Bangladesh, 2017.
Rohingya refugees arriving in Bangladesh. Image by Jason Motlagh. Bangladesh, 2017.

Behind the Rohingya Genocide
Jason Motlagh

Writing for Rolling Stone, Jason Motlagh tells the harrowing stories of Rohingya survivors—and presents the eyewitness account of a former Myanmar army officer—who all testify to a deliberate campaign of eradication.

Russia's militarized push into the devastated but mineral-rich Central African Republic is one step toward shifting Africa's power dynamic from West to East. Image by Gluekit. United States, 2018.
Russia's militarized push into the devastated but mineral-rich Central African Republic is one step toward shifting Africa's power dynamic from West to East. Image by Gluekit. United States, 2018.

Putin's Push into Africa
Jake Losh and Owen Matthews

President Vladimir Putin is expanding Russian power in Africa by reestablishing Cold War–era alliances, report Jack Losh and Owen Matthews for Newsweek. “There will be a battle for Africa,” says Evgeny Korendyasov, head of Russian-African studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences, “and it will grow.”

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In 2017, Myanmar’s military targeted Rohingya Muslims in a pogrom of mass murder and rape. We...

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A coffee cart in Bangui, one of many wheeled around the bustling, dusty capital city. The front reads "La Paix" - "Peace". Image by Jack Losh. Central African Republic, 2018.
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Five years since war erupted, life in the Central African Republic is again spiralling out of...

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