Pulitzer Center

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Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting

Before Muammar Qaddafi’s departure, artistic expression in Libya had one face: Muammar Qaddafi. Painting meant depicting the ruler’s revolutions on canvas. Singing meant praising Qaddafi through poetic rhythms. Literature meant studying the dictator’s political philosophy in his famous Green Book.

But after a life of forced silence under Qaddafi, Libyans and Libyan artists have a lot to say.

On the ground in Tripoli, Pulitzer grantee Ellen Knickmeyer witnessed a splash of limitless creativity in every corner of Libya’s capital. Weekly Friday art exhibitions, neighborhood break-dancing mobs, and elaborate graffiti drawings splatter through the streets, filling the urban art scene.

Above: Libyan families tour the now graffiti-covered walls of Qaddafi’s looted family mansion. Image by Ellen Knickmeyer. Libya, 2010.

Around the world, more than 51 million girls under 18 are currently married. Photographer Stephanie Sinclair embarked on an eight year, multi-country investigation of the phenomenon. Here, she reflects on the experience:

In almost every situation, I wanted to take the girl, throw her over my shoulder and get her out of there. But I learned it is much more complicated than that. As foreigners, we are not in the position to make that kind of immediate decision for her. 

-Photographer Stephanie Sinclair, “Child Marriage: Documenting Sorrow”

At the Pulitzer Center, we think people should be connected with journalists and photographers in real life.

This year, we’ve hosted more than sixty events to bring students and the public face to face with reporters and the international issues they cover. 

Tonight, we’re heading over to National Geographic in DC to discuss the illegal, yet thriving practice of child marriage with images and stories from Stephanie Sinclair and Cynthia Gorney.

We hope to see you there. If not, we’ll be tweeting the event @PulitzerCenter.

During the 66th UN General Assembly last week, Thailand’s Foreign Minister called human rights a “truly universal value” at the core of the country’s foreign and domestic policy. 

Meanwhile, Pulitzer Center grantee Jesse Hardman reports that Thailand’s fishing industry is sustained through the exploitation of Burmese labors, many of whom are victims of human trafficking. Some commute across the border to Thailand everyday to work in various factories, which often pay them around $2 a day—below Thailand’s legal minimum wage. It is usual for these Burmese workers to work as many as 12 hours a day, seven days a week, with only one day off per month.

publicradiointernational:

Russia’s underground artists are pioneering new forms of risky, highly public dissent, aimed at mocking Putin, Medvedev and the political class.

Voina (“War”), a collective from St. Petersburg, is responsible for some of the most daring art actions. “They declared a war,” Anna Nemtsova, Moscow correspondent for Newsweek, tells Studio 360’s Kurt Andersen, “to state corruption, injustice, and the political regime.”

Last year Voina painted a 210-foot phallus on a drawbridge facing the Federal Security Bureau, the former KGB.

Which country’s income equality levels are closest to Turkey (39.7) - France or the United States?

The NewsHour has a quiz for that. (Spoiler: It’s ….)

newshour:

Do you have “inequality intuition”? Test it in this quiz

Opportunity: Grant money for African journalists

Opportunity:

The Pulitzer Center seeks applications from African journalists to participate in a collaborative reporting project on reproductive health in Africa. Apply!

Know anyone?

An info graphic depicting famine in Somalia by the numbers shared by The Washington Post.

Seven hundred and fifty thousand Somalis may die of starvation this year. That’s equivalent to wiping out every single person in Washington, plus 150,000 more.

First Prize for a Child in Somalia: An AK-47

Over the weekend, a Somali radio station run by the Shabab, the most powerful Islamist militant group in the war-ravaged country, held an awards ceremony to honor children who were experts at Shabab trivia and at reciting the Koran. The prizes? Fully automatic assault rifles and live hand grenades. 

More from Jeffrey Gettleman » 

Without an effective central government, Somalia has one of the lowest primary school enrollment rates in the world. The famine in Somalia is currently impacting over 12 million people and the Shabab has been the main target of blame. The Shabab control much of southern Somalia and has forced out many aid organizations and blocked starving Somalis from leaving the country.


The Revolutions Were Tweeted — an stunning visualization of information flows on Twitter during the 2011 Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings. Go play.

“September 11 was a terrible crime that killed 3,000 innocent people,” Othman said in an interview. “But the number of people killed in Iraq since September 11 is much, much bigger than the number of Americans who died. And no one in the world seems to know or care.” 

Remembering 9/11, from Iraq »

Above: The death notice for a 22-year-old police officer killed in Iraq. Muhammad Al-Rikabi was a traffic officer. Image by Yochi Dreazen. Iraq, 2011.