World

Valencia spent more than $1.5 billion to build the City of Arts and Sciences, the museum complex shown here in a photo from summer 2011.

World News

How A Spanish City Went Boom, Then Bust

2:29pm February 04, 2013

by Lauren Frayer

Valencia, which once spent lavishly on tourism projects, now epitomizes the worst of Spain's economic problems. Its landscape is littered with empty and half-finished buildings, and the regional government has run out of funds to repair schools.

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U.S. May Build Base For Drones In Northwest Africa

2:29pm February 04, 2013

The United States is looking to base surveillance drones in the African nation of Niger. The base there will allow the U.S. unmanned vehicles to conduct operations in northern Africa, including in Mali, where France has intervened to fight Islamist militants. Tom Bowman talks to Melissa Block about the latest on the increasing U.S. military role in Africa.

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A shop in Tahrir Square is spray-painted with the word "twitter" after the government shut off Internet access in February 2011 in Cairo, Egypt.

'Distant Witness': Social Media's 'Journalism Revolution'

2:22pm February 04, 2013

by NPR Staff

When protests broke out across North Africa and the Middle East, NPR senior strategist Andy Carvin followed the events in real time online. In his book Distant Witness, Carvin explains how he cultivated social media sources into a new form of journalism where people on the ground controlled the news.

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Israeli Election Rekindles Debate Over Military Service

12:51pm February 03, 2013

by Larry Abramson

Military service is compulsory for most Israelis, but the exemption for ultra-Orthodox Jews is a highly charged issue. The national debate may soon come to a head as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attempts to form a government with parties on both sides of the issue.

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World News

North Korea's Rhetoric And Nuclear Capabilities

12:48pm February 03, 2013

Responding to tightened sanctions and a new United Nations Security Council resolution condemning their December rocket launch, North Korea has threatened a new nuclear test, explicitly warning that the North Korean weapons program will target the United States.

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World News

Where's The Beef? Burger King Finds Horsemeat In Its U.K. Patties

8:21pm February 01, 2013

by Vicki Barker

The fast food giant said this week that some of its burgers in Britain and Ireland were found to contain horsemeat. That's prompted a Twitter campaign and threats of a boycott.

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Armando Tenorio at his home in Mexico last December. Tenorio spends most of the year working on a blueberry farm in Canada, on a temporary work permit, to support his family in Mexico.

The Mexico-Canada Guest-Worker Program: A Model For The U.S.?

1:29pm February 01, 2013

by Carrie Kahn

Mexico has sent guest workers to Canada for nearly four decades, filling agriculture jobs that Canadians don't want, with Mexicans who do. Some say the U.S. should consider this model as it looks at overhauling the immigration system.

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The Nazis imprisoned Czech composer Rudolf Karel (shown here in a sketch from 1945) for helping the resistance in Prague. He wrote his compositions down on toilet paper.

Honoring 'Our Will To Live': The Lost Music Of The Holocaust

9:56am February 01, 2013

by Sylvia Poggioli

For two decades, Italian musicologist Francesco Lotoro has searched for and resurrected works of music written in World War II concentration, labor and POW camps. He wants to fill the hole the Holocaust left in Europe's musical history and document the triumph of creativity over brutality.

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Brazilian federal police patrol the Mamore River, which separates Brazil from Bolivia. The river is used by traffickers to ferry cocaine from Bolivia into Brazil, where cocaine consumption is rising rapidly.

World News

As U.S. Consumes Less Cocaine, Brazil Uses More

7:55pm January 31, 2013

by Juan Forero

The cocaine market in the Americas is changing among both producers and consumers. The old model was Colombian cocaine going to the U.S. Now, it's increasingly common for Bolivian cocaine to be headed to Brazil.

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World News

After Benghazi Attack, Improving American Security Abroad

2:35pm January 31, 2013

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told Fox News that Secretary of State Hilary Clinton "got away with murder" for her handling of the attacks on the U.S. consulate in Libya. Ambassador Thomas Pickering, who led the independent investigation into the attacks, talks about the future of diplomatic security.

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