NPR Topics: World Story of the Day Podcast: Episodes
The extensive coverage of Nelson Mandela's fading health has sparked intense debate in South Africa. Many say the African way views the twilight years as a final journey, a time of peace and respect, and that journalists should be more sensitive.
Like people in other countries that have gone through economic turmoil, people in Myanmar want U.S. dollars that look like they just rolled off the presses.
Women account for only 36 of the more than 4,000 candidates on the ballot in Saturday's parlimentary election. One of them, Naz Baloch, is following her father into politics, but acknowledges it's a rough-and-tumble game in a country where opportunities for women are limited.
U.S. official displeasure has grown over the problem of Chinese cyber-espionage. The Obama administration has signaled that it will step up the investigation and prosecution of trade-secret theft and has not ruled out punitive measures.
Germany's biggest terrorism trial in decades began Monday. The case centers on a 38-year-old woman who is the surviving member of a right-wing extremist group called the National Socialist Underground. The group is accused of killing 10 people, most of them of Turkish descent.
After years of being treated as second-class citizens in Europe's economic powerhouse, large numbers of Turks — descendants of the first wave of immigrants — are returning to Turkey. Prospects in their homeland are looking up, while times are harder in Germany.
The U.S. says it will consider arming the rebels if it can confirm Bashar Assad's regime used the nerve gas sarin in recent attacks. But there's a danger that any weapons the U.S. provides could fall into the wrong hands.
As film festivals around the world celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Indian film industry, historians say Bollywood can trace its roots to a silent, black-and-white film that was first released 100 years ago.
More than half a million refugees have crossed into Jordan, and the number is expected to rise rapidly. Jordanian officials say the influx is threatening the stability of the kingdom.
Suspected Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev traveled to Dagestan in southern Russia twice in recent years, and investigators want to know whether that experience led him toward a radical and violent form of Islam.
Charles Darwin is known as the father of evolution. But another British naturalist, Alfred Russel Wallace, played a major role in developing the theory of natural selection before fading into obscurity. A trip to what's now Sulawesi in Indonesia, and the unique animals he found there, helped form his ...
Touted in the state-run media, "the Chinese dream" is Beijing's latest official slogan. The man who made the phrase famous says it means China becoming the world's No. 1 superpower. But as censors scrub unapproved versions of the concept from the Internet, people wonder: Just whose dream is it anyway?
Sokeel Park assists refugees from North Korea adjust to their new lives in the South. He hears first hand accounts of everyday life in the oppressive country — a life that can be poor, dangerous and rigidly controlled by the state.
A new exhibit in Berlin's Jewish Museum is intentionally provocative. The point, one curator says, is to "get people talking about how they perceive Jews, particularly in Germany today." At the center of the controversy is a display in which a Jewish person sits inside a glass showcase and answers questions ...
Miguel Diaz-Canel, Cuba's new vice president, has been tapped to take over from Raul Castro when he steps down as president in 2018. The 52-year-old former education minister is relatively unknown outside his home province, but is now on a campaign to increase his national exposure.
Italian Paolo di Canio's appointment as coach of the struggling Sunderland Football Club has reignited an old controversy over his comment in 2005 that "I am a fascist, not a racist" in describing his political beliefs at the time. After his appointment as Sunderland coach was announced Tuesday, he said ...
A group of American nuns and Catholic women has traveled to Rome for a pilgrimage to the sites where there are traces on frescoes, mosaics and sarcophagi that show how women played an important role in the church in the early centuries of Christianity. Groups say women once held "co-equal roles with men."
Pope Francis called for peace before a crowd of tens of thousands in St. Peter's Square on Sunday. He called for reconciliation in the Korean Peninsula, an end to the conflicts in Syria and between Israelis and Palestinians.
With its missile units on standby and its hotlines cut to South Korea, North Korea continues to stoke tensions on the peninsula. Even China, North Korea's main ally, is now on board with sanctions.
Aleppo was once the financial heart of Syria. But as the country's revolt grinds on, many of the city's most innovative businessmen have moved to the Turkish border town of Gaziantep. An estimated 150,000 Syrians are there — some of whom are putting down roots — raising questions about Aleppo's future.