NPR Topics: World Story of the Day Podcast: Episodes
Elite rescue teams from France, Spain and the United States have plucked seven people out of the flattened Hotel Montana, once one of the nicest hotels in Port-au-Prince. The quake destroyed the luxury compound. But as time passes, hope for rescuing other survivors fades.
The window to find survivors in the rubble is slowly closing — but there was at least one success story today. An Estonian man was pulled from the collapsed U.N. headquarters. Still, nearly 200 U.N. workers remain unaccounted for, with 36 confirmed dead. The earthquake has dealt a devastating blow ...
Hundreds, if not thousands, of people are feared dead in an earthquake that shattered buildings in Haiti's capital — from the presidential palace to hospitals, schools and the headquarters of the United Nations. President Obama called it a cruel tragedy for the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, ...
Afghanistan's northern province of Balkh — governed by a former warlord — is often cited as an example of what's going right in the country. It also highlights what could go wrong if the West places too much power and money in the hands of local governments too quickly.
Egypt is building a new underground barrier aimed at blocking hundreds of smuggling tunnels under its border with the Gaza Strip. Palestinians fear what the barrier could mean for Gaza, while Egyptians are angry about the new criminal class the tunnels have spawned.
In 2005, Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard was asked by his newspaper, <em>Jyllands-Posten</em> to draw a picture of the prophet Muhammad "as you see him" The assignment changed Westergaard's life forever. His cartoon outraged many Muslims, who called it blasphemous and offensive. Host Liane Hansen ...
The headwaters of the Middle East's great rivers, the Euphrates and Tigris, originate in Turkey, which controls flow of the waters to the Arab world downstream. A three-year drought has devastated Syria and Iraq, fueling resentment against the Turks.
A quietly growing eco-tourism movement in Egypt is beginning to bring smaller groups to more out-of-the-way areas where package tour operators don't visit. In the remote Dakhla Oasis, new eco-lodges have sparked both hope and apprehension among local villagers.
Senegal's president, Abdoulaye Wade, is under mounting pressure to quit. The latest controversy: a 160-foot, $27 million monument he says celebrates African liberation from centuries of ignorance, intolerance and racism. Wade says he hopes it will rival the Statue of Liberty and the Eiffel Tower as a ...
Many of Iran's political dissidents have fled to Turkey, since the disputed presidential election in June and subsequent government crackdown. While many bloggers say they can continue reporting on Iran's anti-government protests from Turkey, they say Iranian intelligence agents cross the border, and ...
While the United States has allocated $13 billion for the construction of high-speed rail over the next five years, China plans to spend $300 billion in the next decade to build the world's most extensive and advanced high-speed rail network.
The events of the past year and a half have reshaped the world economy, left governments and bankers with new worries and altered the geopolitical landscape. Once-dominant countries, including the United States, have largely been eclipsed, with emerging economies now poised to play leadership roles that ...
Unregulated home-brewed alcoholic beverages in Uganda are ubiquitous and can be extremely potent. Drinking is a cultural tradition, and drunkenness is one of the few accepted vices. As a result, alcohol consumption there is a public, often deadly problem.
As the world focuses on the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians, a divide is growing within Israel. Religious and secular Jews are increasingly at odds, and nowhere is the split more obvious than in Israel's two main cities, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
Airports across Europe are on high alert after a passenger traveling from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day managed to board the jetliner with a plastic explosive that he tried to detonate. Following the incident, some European officials are pushing for tighter security, including mandatory full-body ...
An indictment in the largest and most explosive trial in Turkish history claims that an ultranational gang plotted to overthrow the government. The trial has raised tensions between Turkey's secular military and the ruling party, the AKP, which swept to power in 2002 by a rising class of Turks who identify ...
The family of the 23-year-old Nigerian man held after a failed Christmas Day attempt to set off an explosive device on a plane en route to Detroit issued its first formal statement Monday, describing Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's recent behavior as entirely out of character. But his father told authorities ...
Iranian officials often refer to America as the "Great Satan," the meddler constantly working to undermine their country. Host Guy Raz talks to Abbas Milani, director of Iranian studies at Stanford University, who argues in a new article that the "Great Satan" may not be as diabolical as it's been portrayed.
Almost 2,600 people have been killed in Juarez this year, making it the hemisphere's murder capital. The wave of killings that has grown steadily over the last two years has spawned a secondary crime wave of kidnapping and extortion. The violence has left the city in a state of shock.
Christians in Iraq are celebrating the birth of Jesus with some trepidation. This year, Dec. 25 coincides with one of the most important dates on the Shiite Muslim calendar. So Iraqi Christians are refraining from public signs of celebration out of respect for — or fear of — their Muslim neighbors.