Mike Shuster
Mike Shuster is an award-winning diplomatic correspondent and roving foreign correspondent for NPR News. He is based at NPR West, in Culver City, CA. When not traveling outside the U.S., Shuster covers issues of nuclear non-proliferation and weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, and the Pacific Rim.
In recent years, Shuster has helped shape NPRs extensive coverage of the Middle East as one of the leading reporters to cover this region – traveling in the spring of 2007 to Iraq to cover the increased deployment of American forces in Baghdad. He has traveled frequently to Iran – seven times since 2004 – to report on Iran's nuclear program and political changes there. He has also reported frequently from Israel, covering the 2006 war with Hezbollah, the pullout from Gaza in 2005 and the second intifada that erupted in 2000. His 2007 week-long series "The Partisans of Ali" explored the history of Shi'ite faith and politics, providing a rare, comprehensive look at the complexities of the Islamic religion and its impact on the Western world.
Shuster has won numerous awards for his reporting. He was part of the NPR News team to be recognized with a Peabody Award for coverage of September 11th and its aftermath. He was also part of the NPR News teams to receive Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards for coverage of the Iraq War (2007 and 2004); September 11th and the war in Afghanistan (2003); and the Gulf War (1992). In 2003, Shuster was honored for his series "The Middle East: A Century of Conflict" with an Overseas Press Club Lowell Thomas Award and First in Documentary Reporting from the National Headliner Awards. He also received an honorable mention from the Overseas Press Club in 1999, and the SAJA Journalism Award in 1998.
Through his reporting for NPR, Shuster has also taken listeners to India and Pakistan, the Central Asian nations of Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan, and the Congo. He was NPR's senior Moscow correspondent in the early 1990s, when he covered the collapse of the Soviet Union and a wide range of political, economic, and social issues in Russia and the other independent states of the former Soviet Union.
From September 1989 to June 1991, Shuster was stationed in England as senior editor of NPR's London Bureau. For two months in early 1991, he was assigned to Saudi Arabia to cover the Gulf War. While at the London Bureau, Shuster also covered the unification of Germany, from the announcement of the opening of the Berlin Wall to the establishment of a single currency for that country. He traveled to Germany monthly during this time to trace the revolution there, from euphoria over the freedom to travel, to the decline of the Communist Party, to the newly independent country's first free elections.
Before moving to London, Shuster worked as a reporter and bureau chief at NPR New York, and an editor of Weekend All Things Considered. He joined NPR in 1980 as a freelance reporter covering business and the economy.
Prior to coming to NPR, Shuster was a United Nations correspondent for Pacifica News Service, during which he covered the 1980 election of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe. He traveled throughout Africa as a freelance foreign affairs reporter in 1970 and again in 1976; on this latter trip, Shuster spent five months covering Angolan civil war and its aftermath.
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Israel launches new airstrikes in south Lebanon, just hours after the announcement of a 48-hour suspension of the aerial campaign. The partial suspension came after the bombing Sunday of an apartment building in the southern Lebanese town of Qana that left more than 50 civilians dead.
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An Israeli airstrike on the southern Lebanon town of Qana killed at least 50 people, according to the Lebanese government, including many children. The strike has the potential of changing the playing field, as condemnations from around the world are directed at Israel. -
Ground combat came nearly to a halt Saturday between the Israeli army and the forces of Hezbollah in Lebanon, as Israel pulled its troops out of the Lebanese town of Bint Jbail. But Israel kept up its air and artillery barrages of southern Lebanon, and Hezbollah continued to fire rockets into Israel. Meanwhile, Secretary of State Rice has returned to Israel for further talks.
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Israel decides not to expand its 17-day-old offensive in Lebanon, one day after its soldiers suffered their bloodiest day in the battle against Hezbollah. Nine soldiers were killed Wednesday, and almost two dozen wounded, in two Lebanese towns near Israel's northern border.
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U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrives in Beirut to begin a diplomatic mission to the Middle East. Her unannounced stop in Lebanon is intended to show support for the country's beleaguered government. Rice will work to end hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah.
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Israeli politicians and commentators, for the moment at least, clearly support the country's military operations in Lebanon. But the goals -- and the final result -- of that operation are less clear.
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North Korea appears to have completed preparations for a test launch of a three-stage missile, as U.S. officials say the rocket is now completely fueled. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said any such launch by North Korea would be regarded as "a provocative act."
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Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki says that locals in an area about 35 miles north of Baghdad tipped off the government to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's location several weeks ago. That information was then passed along to U.S. officials, who used it to kill Zarqawi and seven associates with an airstrike Wednesday.
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According to the White House, President Bush closely followed the hunt for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The president was initially told Wednesday afternoon that U.S. forces may have killed the terrorist. Officials confirmed Zarqawi's death for the president Wednesday evening.
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U.N. Security Council members, plus Germany, met Wednesday in London to try and reach agreement over how to approach Iran on its nuclear program. They failed to come to any comprehensive agreement, although there are signs that the European position may be moving closer to that of the U.S.
