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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Faced with new economic sanctions from the U.S. and Europe, Iran's currency, the rial, seems to be in free fall. Several factors seem to be at work, and analysts say one of them could be government manipulation of the currency market. -
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has been in the Persian Gulf region this week, discussing access to oil in the increasingly tense region. China is the biggest customer for Iran's oil. But Saudi Arabia actually sells China more oil, and the Chinese leaders want to make sure that will continue. -
When the current president of South Korea Lee Myung-bak took office four years ago, he turned a cold shoulder to engagement with North Korea. The conservative wing in South Korea opposed improving relations with Pyongyang. But that has proven to be an unpopular policy, and now Lee finds himself in the difficult position of appealing for closer ties in this unpredictable transition period in North Korea. Lee goes to Beijing Monday to seek Chinese backing for this policy shift.
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The death of North Korea's leader Kim Jong Il and the elevation of his son Kim Jong Un could create new strategic policies in the region. China and the U.S. have vital interests in the Korean peninsula, but they are trying to compete and cooperate at the same time — all while worried about North Korea's nuclear weapons program.
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It's been only three days since the funeral for North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. In that time, his son, Kim Jung Un, has been elevated to the rank of supreme commander of the North Korean army. Meanwhile, North Korea has issued a series of scathing attacks on the government of South Korea. NPR's Mike Shuster reports it all looks like business as usual.
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Reliable details about North Korea's nuclear weapons are hard to come by, but the country is believed to have between four and 10 nuclear bombs. The country's political transition adds to the uncertainty surrounding the nuclear program. -
Two recent explosions and the unlikely capture of an American stealth drone have left a flood of questions — but very few answers — in Iran. Was it the action of Israel? Has a covert war already begun? Iranians are unnerved, feeling that the country is constantly under attack. -
Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev has been attacking the U.S. for its missile defense plans in Europe. He even said Russia might reconsider the New START agreement, which limits strategic nuclear warhead deployments. -
As a power struggle between Iran's supreme leader and its president escalates, doubts are emerging about whether the country's next presidential election will take place. Recent reports suggest a secret committee has already been convened to recommend constitutional changes to eliminate the presidency. -
The International Atomic Energy Agency failed to conclude definitively that the Islamic republic is engaged in a full-scale weapons program. But the agency said the evidence of hidden nuclear activity is growing, and the questions are deepening.
