Middle East

A driver sits in the cab of a combine harvester during the summer harvest in a field of wheat in Varva, Ukraine. Ukraine accounts for more than 10% of the global wheat market. Russia's war threatens to disrupt the spring planting season.

Russia's war on Ukraine is dire for world hunger. But there are solutions

9:59am March 06, 2022

by Nurith Aizenman

Both countries are huge suppliers of grains and other essential foods. And with widespread hunger and high food prices already, the war couldn't have come at a worse time.

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A hair salon becomes a beauty shop of horrors in Palestinian thriller 'Huda's Salon'

6:08pm March 04, 2022

by Bob Mondello

A visit to a hair salon in the West Bank turns nightmarish in Palestinian filmmaker Hany Abu-Assad's new thriller Huda's Salon.

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What the Saudi crown prince's latest interview says about the future of Saudi Arabia

4:43pm March 04, 2022

NPR's Ari Shapiro speaks with Graeme Wood, staff writer at The Atlantic, about his profile of Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia.

Dragon blood tree at Diksam Plateau, on Yemen's Socotra Island. It's one of the sites included on the 2022 Watch from the World Monuments Fund.

Sites in Beirut, Benghazi and Brownsville, Texas, make a most-endangered list

11:23am March 01, 2022

by Neda Ulaby

Beirut's historic city center and the traditional territory of the Carrizo Comecrudo Tribe of Texas are among 25 places listed by World Monument Watch as in urgent need of preservation.

Left: The Putin Pub in Jerusalem, before the owners removed the word Putin from the sign. Right: On Feb. 24, the first day of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the Russian-speaking owners of the Putin Pub removed "Putin" from the sign.

World News

After Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Jerusalem's Putin Pub is now just named Pub

1:56pm February 28, 2022

by Daniel Estrin

Israel is keeping good ties with ally Putin, as well as with Ukraine. But the owners of Jerusalem's Putin Pub, a bar for Russian-speaking immigrants, erased his name when Russia invaded Ukraine.

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African residents in Ukraine wait at the platform inside the Lviv railway station on Sunday in Lviv in western Ukraine.

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Europe welcomes Ukrainian refugees but others, less so

11:46am February 28, 2022

by The Associated Press

The hospitality greeting Ukrainians fleeing the violence in their native country has highlighted the stark differences in treatment given to migrants and refugees from the Middle East and Africa.

The Putin Pub in Jerusalem is looking for a new name

5:01am February 28, 2022

by Daniel Estrin

The Putin Pub, a 22-year-old mainstay of Jerusalem's Russian-speaking immigrant community, can no longer tolerate the joke of being named after President Putin.

A farmer harvests a wheat field about 130 miles north of Kyiv in 2009.

World News

Russia's invasion of Ukraine may cause havoc for wheat-importing Mideast nations

2:00pm February 25, 2022

by Jason Beaubien

Last year, the region imported more than 36 million metric tons of wheat, mostly from Russia and Ukraine. The concern is that Russia's war in Ukraine could disrupt supplies and drive up prices.

Phil Mickelson, seen at the Charles Schwab Series at Ozarks National in 2020, says he "used words I sincerely regret" in an interview about a Saudi-financed golf league.

Phil Mickelson apologizes for controversial comments about a Saudi-backed golf league

3:57pm February 23, 2022

by Becky Sullivan

The six-time major winner said he "used words I sincerely regret" in an interview about a Saudi-financed golf league in which he brushed aside human rights violations by the Saudi regime.

This photo shows two carved standing stones at a remote Neolithic site in Jordan's eastern desert. A team of Jordanian and French archaeologists said Tuesday that it had found a roughly 9,000-year-old shrine.

Archaeologists find a 9,000-year-old shrine in the desert in Jordan

9:35pm February 22, 2022

by The Associated Press

Researchers said the find "sheds an entire new light on the symbolism, artistic expression as well as spiritual culture of these hitherto unknown Neolithic populations."