Stories: Roads
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Rural Life in Ethiopia
It is impossible to understand Ethiopia without visiting the countryside. In a country of 90 million people, the rural land of Ethiopia is where over 90% of Ethiopians live and catching a glimpse of their way of life is absolutely fascinating. During my two weeks in Ethiopia as a fellow with the International Reporting Project, my favorite times were when we were...
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Ethiopia’s Key to Safer Births? Better Roads
From the booming capital of Addis Ababa to Ethiopia’s remotest border regions, excavators are busy scraping earth, making way for roads that will finally connect the far reaches of this largely rural country. Ergedu Mitiku rocks her seven-week-old son in her home in Mosebo, a village in Ethiopia's Amhara Region on June 19. 2014. There...
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Think L.A. Is Bad? Take a Drive Through Traffic-Clogged Lagos
Robert Siegel: For another kind of gridlock, we turn now to Nigeria. The city of Lagos is on the fast track to being the most populous in Africa, but the city is often stuck in traffic. Buses, taxis and overloaded trucks are held hostage to a road network that hasn't been updated in decades. The locals call them go-slows....
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The Environmental Cost of the Construction Boom in Haiti
The construction boom in Haiti--driven by Diasporan money, UN [MINUSTAH] and government funds--is destroying the local environment around the outskirts of Port-au-Prince. Hillsides are being cut away and river beds decimated to feed the huge demand for rock and gravel for personal homes, warehouses and post earthquake reconstruction by the government–in short everything but low cost housing. I...