Ruth Sherlock
Ruth Sherlock is an International Correspondent with National Public Radio. She's based in Beirut and reports on Syria and other countries around the Middle East. She was previously the United States Editor for the Daily Telegraph, covering the 2016 US election. Before moving to the US in the spring of 2015, she was the Telegraph's Middle East correspondent.
Sherlock reported from almost every revolution and war of the Arab Spring. She lived in Libya for the duration of the conflict, reporting from opposition front lines. In late 2011 she travelled to Syria, going undercover in regime held areas to document the arrest and torture of antigovernment demonstrators. As the war began in earnest, she hired smugglers to cross into rebel held parts of Syria from Turkey and Lebanon. She also developed contacts on the regime side of the conflict, and was given rare access in government held areas.
Her Libya coverage won her the Young Journalist of the Year prize at British Press Awards. In 2014, she was shortlisted at the British Journalism Awards for her investigation into the Syrian regime's continued use of chemical weapons. She has twice been a finalist for the Gaby Rado Award with Amnesty International for reporting with a focus on human rights. With NPR, in 2020, her reporting for the Embedded podcast was shortlisted for the prestigious Livingston Award.
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Saudi-led air strikes on Yemen have intensified and this week took a heavy toll. Aid groups say 70 people being held in detention by Houthi rebels were killed in an attack.
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After years of war, Ramadi has come back to be one of the safer parts of the country and a magnet for investment. Two new hospitals have been built and two new universities are being developed.
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Drought and extreme heat that scientists link to climate change are altering the UNESCO-protected marshlands. Iraq's average annual temperatures are increasing at nearly double the rate of Earth's. -
Following last week's elections, an Iraqi reformer finds himself in the parliament now - and talks about his plans to fight corruption and brave the dangers that brings.
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Most Iraqis don't expect Sunday's parliamentary elections will bring much change to a leaderships blamed for corruption and mismanagement, but some voters still thought it was important to be counted.
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With the current parties in power expected to dominate results again, many Iraqis say they see no reason to vote.
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While some new voices have emerged in the campaigning, it looks like the usual parties will win. One underdog candidate got some voters on her side when she resolved a sewer problem in a Baghdad slum.
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The fall of a Syrian opposition town to the government this week after a siege and threats of air strikes serves as a reminder that the civil war continues.
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A Human Rights Watch report states there's little chance the probe will hold any ranking officials accountable — despite evidence they failed to act on warnings about dangerous chemicals at the port.
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Tunisia's president has taken the country's fragile democracy to the brink by shutting parliament down — the latest chapter in the struggle between secular and Islamist factions there.
