Middle East

World News

U.S. Bombs Used In Airstrike On Yemeni Market, Rights Group Says

3:45pm April 08, 2016

The Saudi-led coalition battling Shiite rebels dropped bombs on a market in northwest Yemen. Steve Inskeep talks to Sarah Leah Whitson of Human Rights Watch about U.S. involvement in the war in Yemen.

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American Kevin Patrick Dawes, 33, has been released after being held in Syria for four years. It was not clear what Dawes was doing in Syria when he was taken in 2012. Prior to that, he went to Libya, where he said he was a medic and a rebel fighter.

World News

Syrian Government Releases American Held For 4 Years

2:47pm April 08, 2016

by Greg Myre

Kevin Dawes was seized in Syria in 2012. The government never acknowledged holding him, but has now freed him after what U.S. officials described as lengthy negotiations.

World News

ISIS Reportedly Carries Out Mass Kidnapping Of Factory Workers In Syria

7:40pm April 07, 2016

by Merrit Kennedy

There are conflicting stories about how many people were kidnapped from a cement factory near Damascus. A rights group says 170 people were taken, but state media puts that number at more than 300.

World News

Sunni States' Contribution To Anti-ISIS Coalition Lags, Pentagon Says

7:14am April 07, 2016

Defense Secretary Ash Carter said two months ago he was confident that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates would provide commandos for the fight against ISIS. They haven't even sent trainers.

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Tunisian Olfa Hamrouni points at pictures of her daughters Rahma (above) and Ghofran. The teenage girls were exploited by extremist recruits and left their homeland to join ISIS in neighboring Libya.

World News

She's Lost 2 Daughters To ISIS; Will Her Younger Girls Be Next?

2:07pm April 06, 2016

by Leila Fadel

A Tunisian mother says poverty and a lack of education and opportunity drove her older daughters to join ISIS. Without help, she fears that her younger girls will become "two little bombs."

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An Egyptian youth, trailed by his friends, gropes a woman as she crosses a Cairo street.

Street Harassment Around The World: What's Your Story?

10:34am April 06, 2016

by Malaka Gharib

How do men treat women in public spaces in different countries? What do women do to protect themselves? We asked activists to share their stories.

A view of Gaza City's Shujaya neighborhood shows this rebuilt home surrounded by others that were destroyed in 2014 and have not yet been reconstructed.

World News

In Gaza, A Few New, Shiny Homes Rise Amid The Rubble

4:47pm April 05, 2016

by Emily Harris

There's now limited reconstruction in the territory that was badly damaged in the 2014 war with Israel. But it's very uneven, depending on factors like whether money comes from Qatar or Kuwait.

Dagmar Nordberg, a Swedish museum director, met Waliullah Hafiz, an asylum-seeker from Kabul, on a train platform last November. He'd fled Afghanistan after refusing to transport bottle bombs for the Taliban.

World News

After Fleeing The Taliban, An Afghan Reinvents Himself In Sweden

2:13pm April 05, 2016

by Eleanor Beardsley

An electrician who fled Afghanistan after the Taliban tried to force him to smuggle bombs into a military camp is starting a new life. He has just been approved to start a forestry apprenticeship.

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A police officer escorts a deported migrant from a small Turkish ferry carrying migrants deported from Greece as they arrive at the port of Dikili on Monday.

World News

EU Deports First Group Of Migrants To Turkey

10:41am April 04, 2016

by Merrit Kennedy

This is part of the EU's controversial deal with Turkey. The agreement, aimed at stemming the flow of migrants into the EU, has been widely criticized by rights groups.

World News

Greek Authorities Begin Deporting Migrants To Turkey

8:04am April 04, 2016

The flow of migrants into Europe, more than a million in the past year, is reversing. Under a deal with the Europe Union and Turkey, Greece began mandatory returns of refugees who crossed from Turkey.

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