World News

A woman looks at clothes inside a shop in Rio de Janeiro. Consumption has been a huge driver of the Brazilian economy, but the boom years are over, and economists say the outlook isn't good.

World News

As Economy Cools, Brazilians Find Themselves Trapped In Debt

8:44pm September 17, 2013

by Lourdes Garcia-Navarro

Brazil's banks started giving easy credit about eight years ago. The country was booming, and a new consumer class was created, fueling growth. But that boom is now over, and Brazilians are some of the most indebted people in the world.

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Inspector Mohammad Saleem Taqi takes a photo of sanitation workers as they clear out debris in sewers. The government feeds the photos into a map to track the city's effort to stop dengue fever.

How Smartphones Became Vital Tools Against Dengue In Pakistan

2:14pm September 17, 2013

by Beenish Ahmed

Two years ago Pakistan's Punjab province was hit with one of the world's worst dengue outbreaks. This year the number of recorded cases has plummeted. Many leaders credit a mobile phone app that tracks mosquito populations and city workers' efforts to contain them.

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Rice farmers pull a harvest festival cart down country lanes in Narita city, Chiba prefecture. The area is home to Tokyo's main airport, but also has many agricultural areas.

Japan's Rice Farmers See Trade Deal As Threat To Tradition

9:38am September 17, 2013

by Anthony Kuhn

Each summer, the rice farmers of Narita, Japan, gather to pray for bountiful harvests with dancing, music and elaborate festival carts. This year, some farmers feel their way of life is under threat from a major trade agreement.

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Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking cover

Kitchen Time Machine: A Culinary Romp Through Soviet History

9:38am September 17, 2013

Author Anya Von Bremzen's new memoir, Mastering The Art of Soviet Cooking, is a tragic-comic history of a family and a nation as seen through the kitchen window. Everything we ate in the Soviet Union was grown ... by the party state," she says. "So, with the food, inevitably, you ingested the ideology."

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World News

U.N. Report Doesn't Assign Blame To Syrian Chemical Attack

9:38am September 17, 2013

U.N. weapons inspectors have issued their report on last month's chemical weapons attack in Syria. Anthony Cordesman, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, tells Steve Inskeep that the report bolsters U.S. and European charges that the Assad regime deployed the sarin gas.

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Carlos Mesquita (left) and Filipe Preto invented Vem aí a Troika (Here Comes the Troika), a satirical card game that pokes fun at Portugal's economic crisis and its creditors.

World News

With A Card Game, The Portuguese Get Back At Their Creditors

1:39pm September 16, 2013

by Lauren Frayer

Here Comes the Troika is a satirical card game where players can stash away savings in Swiss bank accounts or fund useless airports or high-speed trains to nowhere. The winner is the one who can hide the most money in offshore accounts, win elections — and avoid the dreaded troika card.

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World News

Weapons Inspector Points Out Challenges Facing Deal On Syria

7:09am September 16, 2013

Steve Inskeep talks to David Kay, former chief U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq about the Russia-U.S. brokered plan to destroy Syria's chemical weapons.

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World News

Engineers Begin Righting Wrecked Cruise Ship

7:09am September 16, 2013

The Costa Concordia is lying on its side in shallow waters off the west coast of Italy. It struck a reef 20 months ago when the captain steered too close to land. Thirty-two people died. On Monday, the task is to begin to slowly rotate the ship to an upright position, using a complex system of chains and underwater platforms and cables.

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South Sudanese pan for gold in Nanakanak, in the eastern part of the impoverished country. Tens of thousands of informal miners are looking for gold, and the government is trying to attract international mining companies to carry out the search on an indu

World News

Panning For Gold In South Sudan, A Gram At A Time

7:08pm September 15, 2013

by Hannah McNeish

In the desperately poor country, some 60,000 informal miners are working by hand to unearth an estimated $660 million worth of gold each year. The government is hoping to lure international mining companies to carry out the search on an industrial scale.

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A wounded Syrian, suffering skull, stomach and pancreas injuries from an explosion, in intensive care at Ziv Medical Center in Israel. Hospital staff asked that faces and names not be included to protect the safety of the Syrian patients who could get in

World News

An Unlikely Refuge: Some Wounded Syrians Treated In Israel

10:40am September 15, 2013

by Daniel Estrin

Many Syrians have fled their homes and sought refuge in neighboring countries. But Israel and Syria are enemies, and Israel hasn't opened its gates to Syrians fleeing the violence. But it has helped about 200 injured Syrians get medical attention. The Syrians come to Israel at great personal risk.

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