State of the World from NPR

After U.S.-backed Iraqi and Syrian forces defeated ISIS, its surviving fighters went to prison. Their wives and children were sent to detention camps, where many remain to this day.  NPR visits the last detention camp for ISIS wives and children in an increasingly precarious northeastern Syria.   

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In 2024, Israel killed Hezbollah's top leaders and is thought to have decimated its arsenal. So how is the Iran-backed group still firing rockets into Israel? NPR’s Lauren Frayer looks as how Hezbollah has re-armed and changed tactics.

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Ukraine has been a country living through war for more than four years, since Russia’s full-scale invasion. But the experience of that war varies widely. Cities on the front line often bear the brunt of attacks, and yet residents a forced to persevere. In our second story from the southern Ukraine city of Kherson, we hear about a former mayor, taken captive, who returns to a city where life has been altered in horrifying ways by the technology of war.

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Weapons evolve over the course of a war, and for the war in Ukraine the use of drones has radically altered the battlefield. But those same weapons have an impact on civilian populations in frontline cities as well. We go to the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson where four years of war has forced residents to constantly adapt.

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President Trump announced a two-week ceasefire with Iran, just ahead of a deadline he imposed for the country to open the Strait of Hormuz or face catastrophic attacks on infrastructure. In the Middle East there are feelings of relief, anger and uncertainty, after the ceasefire was announced. We hear from NPR reporters in Israel and Lebanon to hear how people are reacting.

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One Moscow poet is making rare criticism of the Russian war on Ukraine. The Russian assault on Ukraine is now in its fifth year. For ordinary Russians, dissent against the war is dangerous. Poet Vadim Dzyuba is speaking out anyway. It’s cost him his job, and he faces an ongoing threat of jail.

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When a 9,000 year-old grave of a shaman was discovered in 1930s Germany, the discovery was quickly politicized to support Nazi propaganda. But new analysis shows those assumptions were all wrong.

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It’s been three months since the capture of President Nicolás Maduro. Ordinary Venezuelans reflect on what that night of the Maduro capture was like, and on what may be ahead for their country. They say they’re now able to openly talk politics and demonstrate in the streets. Still, the most difficult part of transforming their country may lie ahead.

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Israel has invaded Lebanon as the war in Iran expands in the region. Israel says the move is in pursuit of Iran-backed Hezbollah fighters— Hezbollah began firing rockets at Israel last month in support of Iran. Israel’s invasion has caused a humanitarian crisis in Lebanon with over a million civilians displaced and more than 1,300 killed in Israeli attacks, according to Lebanon’s government. And among the dead are at least 53 paramedics. Human rights groups say some of those first responders were targeted. We go to Beirut to examine that claim.

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On Monday, President Trump threatened to destroy civilian infrastructure across Iran, including the country’s desalination plants, vital for drinking water in the arid Gulf. Kuwait authorities said Iran had attacked one of their desalination plants earlier that day. Deliberately attacking essential civilian infrastructure is a war crime under international law. Yet both sides have hit civilian infrastructure in this conflict. We ask a legal expert about accountability in war.

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