The World: Latest Stories

Ten years ago today, Washington and Havana announced a historic deal to normalize diplomatic relations. President Donald Trump then rolled back the accord. The World's Host Marco Werman speaks with the two diplomats who hammered out the deal: Ricardo Zuniga, a former senior director for Western Hemisphere affairs at the National Security Council, and Ben Rhodes, the former deputy national security advisor.

A mass grave in Al-Qutayfah, Syria, has been located, bringing clarity to the fate of political prisoners under the regime of former President Bashar al-Assad. Mouaz Mustafa, the executive director of the Syrian Emergency Task Force, was involved in the site's discovery, and explains what's been found.

Canada has long been an attractive option for international students. It's seen as a safe and generally non-discriminatory place to study, with impressive schools and post-graduation work rights. But 2024 brought a year of significant changes to the education sector. Prospective international students fear an unknown future. The World's Bianca Hillier reports.

The fate of more than 50 men accused of rape and sexual assault in a harrowing case that has gripped France will be decided by a French court this week. Gisele Pelicot waived her anonymity so the men, including her ex-husband, would face trial in public. Pelicot has since become a feminist icon in France, and her case has sparked discussion about attitudes toward sexual assault in the country. The World's Europe correspondent Orla Barry reports.

There's an archive at Manhattan University in New York for the De La Salle Christian Brothers, a lay order founded in France and now headquartered in Rome. The order, dedicated to education, is shrinking. As its institutions shut down, boxes upon boxes of relics are being sent to this campus, where an archivist wants the objects to be displayed in a reliquary so that visitors can venerate them. Jon Kalish reports.

The Royal Mail, the UK's postal service, will be sold to Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky. It was privatized back in 2013, but Krestinky's "EP Group" will be the first foreign owners of the postal service. The World's Host Marco Werman explains.

Early this morning, a bomb went off in Moscow, killing a Russian general by the name of Igor Kirillov. He was the head of the Russian military's nuclear, biological and chemical protection forces. The World's Daniel Ofman reports.

An iceberg the size of Rhode Island is once again floating through the Southern Ocean, after being stuck in place due to being caught in a vortex. The World's Host Marco Werman speaks with Till Wagner about why the iceberg was stuck and what its release means for life on the planet.

The straits of Denmark are notoriously narrow and shallow. And they're a strategic gateway for Russian oil. But because that oil is sanctioned by the West, Russia tries to sneak it out through Danish waters to the North Sea and on to places like China and India. The World's Joshua Coe has our story.

The six justices on South Korea's constitutional court have begun deciding whether or not to remove President Yoon Suk Yeol from office. The World's Host Marco Werman has more.

In the south of Thailand, the dialect is faster, the sun is hotter and the food is not just spicy, it's atomic. The World's Patrick Winn visited a small-town cook in the region who makes curry soup with a twist - adding big, gooey eggs from a local species of giant catfish.

After Jamaica gained independence from England in 1962, it retained the British monarch as head of state. But if new legislation presented in parliament were to pass - which is unlikely - that would bring the ceremonial nod to the island's colonial past to an end. The World's Host Marco Werman explains.

When Amazon brought a fulfillment center to Tijuana's Nueva Esperanza neighborhood in Mexico, the business community praised the new addition as a welcome boost to the local economy. A city press release said the new warehouse would contribute to the ongoing (post-pandemic) economic recovery." Three years later, residents the Nueva Esperanza neighborhood say little has changed; the community still lacks paved roads, drinkable water and a functional storm drain system. From KPBS, Gustavo Solis reports.

There's a Barcelona neighborhood that's home to a cluster of women whose average lifespan far exceeds the global average. But that neighborhood in Spain, "L'Eixample", is anything but a haven of healthy living. It's filled with polluting cars, few green spaces and a lot of noise. So, what might explain their longevity? The World's Gerry Hadden takes a look.

Cyclone Chido roared through the island nation of Mayotte on Monday with 140-mile-per-hour winds. Thousands are feared dead in the French Indian Ocean territory, though France's interior minister said it could be "days and days" before an exact death toll is known. The World's Sarah Birnbaum reports.

Zakir Hussain died on Sunday in San Francisco. Zakirji, as he was known to his admirers, was a man whose fingers turned into a blur when he performed on the tabla - drums from the Indian subcontinent. The World's Host Marco Werman had the opportunity several times to speak with him. We hear excerpts from two interviews in which Hussain describes performing for American audiences for the first time, and his great fortune in being able to collaborate with artists from a wide range of musical backgrounds.

If you're unfamiliar with the science around "mirror life", well, welcome to the club. But this somewhat obscure field of research is coming under new scrutiny. Because a new study says that "mirror microbes" could actually be an existential threat to life on Earth. Host Carol Hills speaks with Vaughn Cooper, an evolutionary microbiologist at the University of Pittsburgh.

An Iranian singer was hailed as a hero by supporters on Thursday but faced prosecution after giving an online concert without wearing a head covering - the hijab - in defiance of the Islamic dress code. Host Carol Hills has the story of Parastoo Ahmadi, who streamed the concert on her YouTube channel late on Wednesday.

President Sadyr Japarov of Kyrgyzstan has proposed updating the country's national anthem. The current anthem was adopted shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union and no longer represents the mature republic Kyrgyzstan has become in the years since, according to Japarov. Host Carol Hills has the details.

Emerging research pinpoints the exact time when Neanderthals and Homo sapiens began interbreeding to 47 years ago. That interbreeding left a genetic marker on modern human beings. Host Carol Hill speaks with evolutionary scientists Chris Springer about the significance of the study and what these genetic markers actually look like.

Sednaya Prison in Damascus was synonymous with the brutality of Syria's Assad regime. Once inside, prisoners had little chance of coming out alive. Yet over the past week, thousands of families rushed to the prison in the hope of finding their missing loved ones. Many left with no answer. The World's Shirin Jaafari reports.

For decades, Canada has been home to the largest Sikh community outside the Indian state of Punjab. But as diplomatic tensions flare up between Canada and India, some members of the Sikh faith face heightened threats. The World's Bianca Hillier reports from Toronto.

Amrith Saligrama spent the early days of the 2020 COVID-19 lockdown in his Massachusetts town going on long walks with his grandfather until the lack of public restrooms on their route became a problem. Saligrama tried to make restrooms easier to locate, but he hit a bureaucratic wall. Ultimately, one of his grandfather's proverbs inspired him to try a different approach. This story comes to us from the television show, "Stories from the Stage."

Climate change is a challenge for farmers everywhere. That includes coffee farmers. But climate change alone doesn't explain the current uptick in prices. There's another force at play. Peter Roberts, an academic director of specialty coffee programs at the Business and Society Institute at Emory University, helps demystify what's happening in the market.

In northern Tunisia, along the coast, farmers have been practicing a unique form of agriculture that goes back to the 17th century. It is called Ramli, where crops grow on sandy substrates in the lagoons by the sea. Because of climate change and urbanization, this unique form of agriculture is now threatened. Lilia Blaise reports from the small beach town of Ghal El Mellah.

On Thursday, South Korea's embattled President Yoon Suk-sol vowed to fight on until "the very last minute" as members of his own party seem poised to side with the opposition in a second impeachment vote this weekend. Yoon justified his declaration of martial law last week as defending South Korea's democracy against "legislative tyranny." Carol Hills gets the latest from Washington Post reporter Kelly Kasulis Cho, who's in Seoul.

The Assad regime is over. But the work Syria needs to do to rebuild from years of war and destruction will cost billions of dollars. The World's Omar Duwaji discusses the likelihood of sanctions lifting, the current impact of sanctions on everyday life in Syria, and what needs to happen for Syrians to regain access to crucial goods and services.

While most of Syria has fallen to the rebels, a triangle-shaped territory in the northeast corner of Syria is controlled by a Kurdish group called the Syrian Democratic Forces. Now, they're being targeted by rebel factions. Carol Hills speaks with Wladimir Van Wilgenburg, who has worked on two books about the Syrian Kurds and is based in Erbil, a Kurdish area in northern Iraq.

Tinariwen is a Tuareg music collective from the Sahara Desert that fuses American blues with Tuareg and African folk styles. Their new album, "Idrache (Traces of the Past)" came out last month. Carol Hills has the story.

The art of sake brewing has a 1,300-year-old history that represents more than just a drink - it's a symbol of Japanese culture, craftsmanship and community. Earlier this month, UNESCO's advisory panel added sake brewing techniques to its list of intangible cultural heritage. Rebecca Rosman reports from Fukushima prefecture in Japan.

You've probably seen those warnings about online romance scams and can't-lose-investment schemes. Well, these days a lot of those hustles are coming out of Southeast Asia. And some of them are being committed by people who are forced to scam at gunpoint. Dina Temple-Raston from the "Click Here" podcast has the story of one man who was captured and forced into the business.

International college students - and their schools in the US - are bracing for President-elect Donald Trump's second term. College administrators insist foreign students are welcome on campus. But as GBH's Kirk Carapezza reports from Boston, that message doesn't always match the student experience.

The Arctic tundra is now releasing more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than it stores. Host Carolyn Beeler speaks with Twila Moon, deputy director of science at the National Snow and Ice Data Center. She is the lead editor of this year's Arctic Report Card, released yesterday, which shows how rising temperatures are forcing the Arctic's plants, wildlife and the people that depend on them to rapidly adapt to a warmer, wetter and less certain world.

After decades of refusing to allow a movie version of his most famous novel, the two sons of Gabriel Garcia Marquez have sold the rights to Netflix. The series begins today. "One Hundred Years of Solitude" is an upcoming Colombian magical realism television series based on the 1967 novel of the same name. The World's Sarah Birnbaum reports.

Nigel Richards is a professional Scrabble player from New Zealand who won this year's Spanish-language Scrabble world championship despite two obvious handicaps: It was the first time he'd entered the tournament and, more importantly, he doesn't speak Spanish. Richards is a global phenom and has also won the French-language Scrabble world championship twice in recent years despite not knowing French. Host Carolyn Beeler speaks with 2024 North American Scrabble champion Mack Meller about how Richards does it and the fascination he has inspired among Scrabble players around the world.

Nuclear waste from fuel production is tricky. If mishandled, it can irradiate large areas and drinking water - and linger for decades. Canada has recently come to an agreement to bury nuclear waste deep under the ground near the remote town of Ignace. Edwin Lyman is the director of nuclear power safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists, who explains how the disposal process ideally works and what makes it challenging.

Sometimes it feels like we're all getting dumber. A new report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) sheds light on the matter. It found reading and math scores for adults in most of the world's high-income countries have declined during the past decade. One of the study's authors, the OECD's Glenda Quintini, talks with The World's Host Carolyn Beeler about the findings.

Kenya's Ruth Chepng'etich won the Chicago Marathon in October in the fastest time ever recorded for the distance. She crossed the finish line in just 2 hours, 9 minutes and 56 seconds. That's faster than 5 minutes per mile. The win was so extraordinary that it had some people questioning whether it was valid. Now, the results are in and Chepng'etich's world record is finally official. The World's Bianca Hillier has the details.

Governments across Europe have paused asylum applications from Syrians following the fall of President Bashar Al Assad. Germany, which is home to close to a million Syrian refugees, announced this week that it is freezing its asylum application system because the situation in Syria is so unclear. The Austrian government said it is planning a deportation program for Syrians living in the country. The speed at which European countries have announced the change is being condemned by human rights groups. The World's Europe correspondent Orla Barry reports.

Syrians waited in long queues at border gates in southern Turkey this week, preparing to return to the country. With a dictator gone and loved ones newly released from prison, many Syrians who have lived in Turkey for years are eager to return. Others say an evolving security situation and financial concerns are giving them pause. The World's Durrie Bouscaren reports.

The Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, northern Spain, helped transform a post-industrial city in decay into a hub for culture and tourism. The museum wants to expand that success by opening annexes in the nearby Basque countryside. But the site it's chosen is ruffling some feathers: an old shipyard abutting the an important bird sanctuary and migratory resting spot. The World's Gerry Hadden reports from the Urdaibai wetlands.

With Canada's first WNBA team, a new soccer league and a successfully launched hockey league, Toronto is on the forefront of the growth of women's sports. The World's Bianca Hillier reports on the movement and how it could impact young Canadians.

Chiung Yao, a romance writer who published best-selling novels in the Chinese-speaking world, died on Wednesday. She was 86. She died at her home in New Taipei City, Taiwan. She began writing in the early '60s, and almost single-handedly helped shape the idea of romantic love for generations. Her novels were so popular that many named their children after her characters. The World's Sarah Birnbaum reports.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took the stand today in his long-running corruption trial. He faces charges of fraud, breach of trust and taking bribes - all of which he denies. Host Carolyn Beeler has the details.

In the aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks, the Israeli government canceled tens of thousands of Palestinian work permits, leaving many important sectors - agriculture and construction in particular - understaffed. Meanwhile, youth unemployment in India has people there looking for jobs outside their own country. That's created a new labor migration pipeline from India to Israel. Sushmita Pathak reports from New Delhi on the workers being lured to a conflict zone for work.

The universe's rate of expansion is 8% faster than all theories on the subject suggest. That's been confirmed by data from the James Webb Space Telescope in a paper published this week. The paper corroborates previous data from the Hubble Space Telescope. Host Carolyn Beeler explains the details.

As many Syrians rejoice at the downfall of the former dictatorship in their country, they also face immediate challenges. Israel has been conducting numerous strikes on targets across Syria, many of which have reportedly destroyed chemical weapons stores belonging to the former Assad regime. Host Carolyn Beeler speaks with Natasha Hall, a senior fellow at the Center for International and Strategic Studies, about what Israel is seeking to accomplish with its strikes on Syria.

The number of foreign-born older people in the US is increasing fast: It's expected to reach 23% of the total older population by 2060. But the US health care system is not well prepared to cater to aging immigrants. In an increasingly immigrant community in the Hamptons, in New York, Ashley Milne-Tyte reports on a hospital offering fall prevention classes in Spanish.

Ghana's former President John Dramani Mahama has clinched a comeback election victory and will return to power seven years after stepping down. High youth unemployment and a crumbling economy were top of mind for many voters, as reporter Ridwan Karim Dini-Osman tells The World's Host Carol Hills.

In South Korea, a motion to impeach President Yoon Suk Yeol failed over the weekend. The motion was called after Yoon unexpectedly declared martial law last week, sending waves of panic across the country. While the impeachment vote failed, Yoon now faces an investigation and a travel ban. But the country is now facing political uncertainty, with many calling for the president to resign.