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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The European Union is set to stop all purchases of Iranian oil on July 1. Exports are already down, and lower prices means less profit on sales that do go through. So far, Tehran refuses to budge on its nuclear activities. But analysts say Iran has no clear way around the boycott. -
Vladimir Putin was sworn in Monday for a six-year term as president of Russia. In his inauguration speech, Putin said he was committed to democracy. But anti-Putin activists are not convinced and staged protests on the streets of Moscow. -
Iran meets the U.S. and other countries this weekend to discuss its controversial nuclear program. In the past, such talks have been fruitless. But analysts say this time might be different, because Iran's economy is under severe pressure as the result of the toughest sanctions the country has yet faced. -
Concern is growing that North Korea may test a nuclear device after it launches a long-range rocket in upcoming days — a sequence of events that occurred three years ago. Experts say the test could involve highly enriched uranium — rather than plutonium bombs, which North Korea exploded twice before. -
In February, North Korea agreed to freeze uranium enrichment and missile tests and allow international nuclear inspectors — and then immediately announced a rocket launch. North Korea watchers are puzzled by the mixed messages and wonder who is calling the shots in a country with a new, untested leader. -
The U.S. recently agreed to provide North Korea with food assistance, and it was hoped that this would help calm tensions in the region. But under its new leader, North Korea is now planning a rocket launch next month that's making everyone uneasy. -
New, tougher sanctions on Iran and its banking sector appear to be making it difficult for Tehran to carry out international transactions, while forcing ordinary Iranians into activities such as smuggling hard currency out. But India and China are still doing business with Iran. -
The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency says Iran is still not providing enough cooperation with inspectors. The agency has tried twice to visit one particular Iranian military base and has been rebuffed. -
There's a battle taking place between various conservative factions in Iran as the country prepares for parliamentary elections on Friday. The candidates seeking broad changes have been barred from running, with many in jail or under house arrest. -
Tehran has unveiled significant developments on two important components of its nuclear program. Iran also announced it was cutting off oil sales to some European countries, but quickly reversed itself.
