Kelly McEvers
Kelly McEvers is a two-time Peabody Award-winning journalist and former host of NPR's flagship newsmagazine, All Things Considered. She spent much of her career as an international correspondent, reporting from Asia, the former Soviet Union, and the Middle East. She is the creator and host of the acclaimed Embedded podcast, a documentary show that goes to hard places to make sense of the news. She began her career as a newspaper reporter in Chicago.
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Secretary of State Hillary Clinton held an emergency meeting with her Russian counterpart in Dublin Thursday to try to reach new consensus on how to end the Syrian conflict. A prominent human rights group has put the death toll in Syria at 42,000 people killed in the nearly two years of fighting there — which began with a series of political protests, and turned into an armed rebellion.
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There was fierce fighting around the Damascus airport in Syria on Tuesday, as well as more reported defections from the regime of President Bashar Assad. Kelly McEvers talks to Audie Cornish.
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Islamist rebels are among the groups fighting to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad, raising concerns in the West about what their role would be in a Syria without Assad. NPR's Kelly McEvers recently spent some time with these Islamist fighters in the embattled city of Aleppo. -
At least two international airlines have cancelled flights to Damascus amid reports of heavy fighting along the Syrian highway that links the airport to the capital. There were also reports on Thursday that the Internet was down virtually throughout the country. Some land lines have also been cut off. Melissa Block talks to Kelly McEvers.
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Syrian rebels claim to have shot down a government MiG fighter jet and captured one of its pilots. It appears to be one of the first times Syrian rebels have successfully used a type of portable missile and could mark a turning point as the rebels challenge the regime's advantage in the air.
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Najaf in southern Iraq is beginning to feel the pain of neighboring Iran's economic woes. Business around Shiite sites, which usually draw scores of Iranians for the holy days of Ashura, is way down.
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Arab-Kurd skirmishes in southern Iraq late last week injured dozens of people and killed at least one. Now troops from both sides are escalating and tensions are high again. This all comes as Kurdistan president Massoud Barzani battles Iraqi Central government Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Analysts say Barzani has been emboldened by independent oil contracts, the increasing support of Turkey, and ongoing events in Syria.
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On Thursday, there were talks in Qatar aimed at restructuring and reinforcing Syria's opposition movement.
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Efforts to revamp Syria's fractured opposition reached a peak at a conference in the Persian Gulf state of Qatar. The U.S. has led what some have termed an overly public diplomatic campaign to restructure the opposition in exile and tighten its links with rebel commanders on the ground in Syria.
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It's been more than three months since rebels in Syria launched an offensive to take the northern city of Aleppo. In the early days of the offensive, the rebels took about half the city. But since then, neither the rebels nor government forces have managed to gain the upper hand.
