Story Archives of 'Ghana'

Live call-in talk shows have become staples on radio stations across the globe, just like here in the U.S. They are relatively cheap to produce and the worldwide proliferation of cell phones connects eager callers to discussions on public affairs. Callers are mostly regular people, who call in on a whim.

Talk show hosts in Ghana are finding themselves up against a crop of professionals that hijack the conversation. Producers call them dedicated serial callers, and they are a growing force on Ghana’s airwaves.

Anna Boiko-Weyrauch has more from Accra, Ghana. Reporting for this piece was conducted by Karen Attiah.

(Photo courtesy Anna Boiko-Weyrauch)

When containers of old computers first started arriving in West Africa a few years ago, the Ghanaian government welcomed them as donations. It soon became clear that as few as 50 percent of the donated computers were in working condition or showed any hope of being fixed.

Broken, discarded computers up in massive piles outside of Ghana’s most impoverished slums. There, children melt down toxic plastic casings to retrieve scraps of valuable metals inside. Emmy-award winning journalist Peter Klein and a team of grad students from the University of British Columbia traveled to Ghana, China, and India to find out where our used electronics end up. The result of their investigation airs this week on PBS's Frontline/World. Producer and correspondent Peter Klein joins us on the line to tell us more.

Watch the trailer for "Digital Dumping Ground":

(Photo by Vibek Raj Maurya via Flickr/Creative Commons)

Jenny Thompson spent 14 years as a world-class swimmer. She set a bunch of records and won 10 Olympic medals. Now, she's stepping out of the pool, toweling off, and going to medical school. And, we'll meet a computer programmer who took his skills to Ghana as a high-tech volunteer. To learn more about Geek Corps, click on www.geekcorps.org.