At the end of the year I was interviewed by Leonard Lopate, noted book maven, on New York’s WNYC (20 minutes).

Underreported: Cellphones in the Global Economy

Dear Mr. Sullivan,
 
I hope this e-mail finds you well into the new year.
 
As you know, the Kenya Elections has been an ongoing situation keeping us at AfricaNews.com pretty busy. Here is some background on what we are doing and in terms of mobile reporting. Pretty interesting stuff that might be interesting to you and your readers. 
  
Rgrds,
 
Ben and AfricaNews.com team!
+31 (0)23 531 5040
benwhite@africa-interactive.net
 

See Voices of Africa for mobile news reports, and see how cell phones are democratizing the media. 

Or, you could call it the “smelting of cell phones.”

“The metals exit the smelter’s base as a glowing sludge. It streams into another caldron the height of a house. From there, it moves into tanks of acid. The acid is electrocuted. As electricity flows through the mixture, copper accumulates on the tank’s end plate. I watched a giant claw move across the ceiling, rip out the plate and, with a violent whack, cleave off a gleaming layer of 99.9 percent pure copper, with the unmistakable sheen of a new penny. It was thrilling to see something so clean and recognizable emerge from such an alien process.”

It’s a good piece on recycling cell phones from the New York Times Sunday magazine (Jan. 13, 2008), by Jon Mooallem. Read the story…