World Audio/Video - NPR

Claude Levi-Strauss is widely considered the father of modern anthropology for work that included theories about commonalities between tribal and industrial societies. During his six-decade career, he authored literary and anthropological classics including Tristes Tropiques.

In a country where nearly half the population already lived below the poverty line, the worldwide recession has slashed all of Mexico's largest sources of revenue. Despite recovery elsewhere, the Mexican economy is shrinking at its fastest pace since the Great Depression.

The nation said Tuesday it has reprocessed 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods, giving it enough plutonium to build another atomic bomb. The announcement raises the stakes in an apparent effort to push the U.S. into direct negotiations.

In Morocco for a meeting with Arab foreign ministers, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sought to ease concerns that the United States is not pressuring Israel to stop all construction of Jewish settlements. Her task continues Wednesday in Cairo, where she meets with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

Even though Afghanistan's runoff election has been called off and President Karzai was declared the winner, the country's political future is uncertain. Former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad talks with Renee Montagne about what steps Karzai and his main challenger Abdullah Abdullah may take to strengthen the rule of law.

One of the most popular TV shows on Canadian public television pairs figure skaters and hockey players in a weekly ice dance-off. Only one Canadian program — Little Mosque on the Prairie — has debuted with more viewers than the CBC's Battle of the Blades. The show says it's been getting calls from producers in the U.S., Russia and Czech Republic who want to copy the show.

Two senior U.S. diplomats arrived in Myanmar for talks with that country's leadership and detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. They are the highest-ranking U.S. officials to visit Myanmar — also known as Burma — since 1995 when then U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Madeleine Albright visited the country. Tuesday's visit is part of the Obama administration's new policy of engagement with Myanmar's military leadership.

In the war-torn Russian republic of Chechnya, Moscow-backed leader Ramzan Kadyrov has ordered the return of Sufi Islam and Chechen traditions as a way to establish control and undercut Muslim extremists. Some in the Kremlin are now beginning to ask what they have unleashed in the unstable region.

The war crimes trial of former Bosnian-Serb leader Radovan Karadzic began last week at The Hague, but many Bosnians in the U.S. say the proceedings will not provide them with the justice they seek. Bosnia is still split in two, and many people are still seeking answers about loved ones who went missing during three years of ethnic cleansing in the mid-1990s.

In the face of Arab criticism, the U.S. secretary of state said her earlier praise of Israel's offer to restrain building settlements in Palestinian areas had been intended as "positive reinforcement." It did not signal a softening of the U.S. position, she said.

A suicide bomber killed at least 35 people and injured 45 others outside the Pakistani capital of Islamabad on Monday. The blast is the latest in a string of attacks that has killed hundreds, and comes during the Pakistani army's offensive in South Waziristan, a Taliban stronghold.

President Obama called Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Monday to congratulate him on winning a second term. Obama said he is ready to work with Karzai, but wants to write a new chapter in the relationship between the two countries.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai's official re-election resolves for now a damaging political stalemate, but it puts new pressure on the Obama administration to make a decision about sending additional U.S. soldiers to Afghanistan.

The standard for domain names is shifting so that a URL can exist entirely in another language that's not based on the letters A to Z. That means Internet users won't have to switch their keyboard into a different language to navigate the Web.

Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Eastern Europeans are firmly committed to democracy and free markets, but with more reservations than in the past, according to a new poll. The poll, by the Pew Research Center, found broad support for the end of communism, but growing Russian nationalism.

Nightly attacks by two man-eating lions terrified railway workers in Kenya more than 100 years ago. But modern research shows the death toll was far less than the accounts of the day. Even so, the two lions — stuffed and on display at Chicago's Field Museum — ate at least 35 human beings.

A suicide bomber killed 35 people outside a bank near Pakistan's capital Monday, as the U.N. said spreading violence has forced it to start pulling out some expatriate staff and suspend long-term development work in areas along the Afghan border.

The primary challenger to President Hamid Karzai, who pulled out of a runoff election Sunday, tells NPR that massive fraud "has marred the process" and promises to remain active in Afghanistan politics.

The country's election commission canceled the vote and proclaimed President Hamid Karzai the victor after his challenger dropped out of the race, saying he believed the election would not be free or fair.

The country's election commission announced Monday that Hamid Karzai will get another term as Afghan president. Karzai was supposed to face a runoff election on Saturday, but there was no point once it became clear he was the only candidate running. His challenger Abdullah Abdullah withdrew Sunday.

In an NPR interview, former Afghan Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah says it was "a painful decision" to abandon the fraud-marred election in advance of a scheduled runoff vote.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai will apparently remain in power. Karzai's only challenger dropped out of the runoff Sunday. Former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah cited concerns about a corrupt election process. Abdullah was widely expected to lose in the next round, and power sharing talks had failed.

A group of Iranian dissidents living in Iraq since the 1980s poses a dilemma for the U.S. government. The Mujahedeen-e Khalq organization was given U.S. military protection in 2003 after the American-led invasion of Iraq, but now the Iraqi government wants it out. The trouble is that the Iranians don't want to leave.

Daniel Pauly, a professor at the Fisheries Centre of the University of British Columbia, warns that the global fishing industry has drastically depleted the number of fish in the oceans.

McDonalds is serving up its last Big Mac in Iceland. The country's collapsing currency made importing things like chicken nuggets too expensive.

The secretary arrived in the Moroccan city of Marrakesh just after sunrise Sunday morning and over the next couple of days she'll meet with Arab foreign ministers gathered for a conference. Much of her time will also be spent talking with Israeli and Palestinian leaders in a bid to revive Middle East peace negotiations. Guest host Jacki Lyden speaks to NPR's Jackie Northam about Clinton's trip to the Middle East, and her reaction to the news of Dr. Abdullah Abdullah's withdrawal from Afghanistan's runoff elections.

The withdrawal hands Hamid Karzai a victory but raises doubts about his government's credibility.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Saturday that Israel is making "unprecedented" concessions on West Bank settlement construction — a position clearly at odds with the prevailing Palestinian view.

Earlier this week, the Taliban took credit for two attacks in Kabul. One killed eight people at a United Nations office; the other targeted the city's best-known hotel, the Serena. Reporter Jean MacKenzie of GlobalPost, who was in the Serena at the time of the attack, talks to host Guy Raz about the latest violence.

Abdullah Abdullah, the runner-up in Afghanistan's presidential election, is threatening to boycott next weekend's runoff. NPR's Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson talks to host Guy Raz about Abdullah's announcement, which is expected Sunday morning, and how that could scramble the country's political scene.

Abdullah Abdullah's decision to withdraw from the Afghan runoff effectively hands the incumbent a victory.

It's polar bear season in the town of Churchill, Manitoba. Officials usually warn kids to stay inside after dark in case a migrating bear comes too close to town. But on Halloween night, the town bands together in a polar bear patrol to keep the streets safe for trick-or-treaters.

The U.S. government established the "CERP" fund — Commander's Emergency Response Program — to win hearts and minds in Iraq by building schools, roads and water purification facilities that the country needs. Today, almost two years later, the program is still marred by allegations of corruption and waste. Stuart Bowen, the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, is leading the battle to clean up CERP. He joins host Scott Simon to talk about the progress he's made and where he'd like to see improvement.

David Nutt said a government decision to tighten restrictions on marijuana over the protests of many prominent British scientists had undermined public faith in government science. Nutt had long argued that marijuana is far less dangerous than legal drugs — including alcohol.

Iran has apparently rejected a nuclear deal with the United States, Russia and France that it initially agreed to. Iran is saying it wants another arrangement, but Iran's leaders insist they are not reneging on the deal. The U.S. and Europe aren't so sure.

A plane feared lost in the Amazon made an emergency river landing in a remote part of the rain forest and nine of the 11 people aboard survived, Brazil's Air Force said Friday. Members of the Matis Indian tribe found the plane and the survivors in a sprawling jungle reservation.

The August presidential election was so marred by fraud it has raised questions about whether Afghanistan can do much to make the Nov. 7 runoff a credible vote. The credibility of the Afghan government is at stake and the Obama administration has delayed a decision on whether to send additional troops to Afghanistan.

The de facto leader of Honduras has agreed to sign a deal to end the country's months-long political stalemate and form a power-sharing government with ousted President Manuel Zelaya.

Former French President Jacques Chirac has been ordered to stand trial in an alleged corruption scandal dating back to his tenure as Paris mayor, a judicial official said Friday. A magistrate has ordered Chirac to stand trial on charges of "embezzlement" and "breach of trust," the official said.