Search results for

Robert Malley, a program director for the International Crisis Group, analyzes the complexity of the situation in the Middle East, a region where conflicts interconnect and expand upon one another. "These alliances," says Malley, "are not clear cut ... they are alliances of convenience."

New York City is home to more paintings by Johannes Vermeer — eight — than any other city. And until mid-January, it's playing host to one more: the world-renowned Girl with a Pearl Earring. Critic Lloyd Schwartz says, since the painting's 1994 restoration, "It's even more breathtaking than I remembered."

Teju Cole writes of a young man's return to Nigeria in Every Day Is for the Thief. He says his narrator is "somebody who's been away a long time and doesn't want to pretty up the picture at all."

The domestic auto industry has been making a strong comeback, but that recovery hasn't necessarily benefited beleaguered Detroit. There's only one auto plant still doing high-volume production inside the city limits, and much of the Big Three's manufacturing has shifted away from Michigan.

The deaths of hundreds of workers in Bangladesh are taking place in a garment sector that has seen explosive growth over the past three decades. Amid market pressures to cut prices, the country has managed to lure clothing-makers through a combination of low wages and light regulation.

Perhaps best known for her work on Reno 911, Nash talks to Fresh Air contributor Anna Sale about playing a nurse on HBO's Getting On, a series about an extended care facility for elderly women.

Though they hail from Brooklyn, Yeasayer sound like a melting pot of music drawn from all corners of the globe. On their sophomore album, Odd Blood, they lean a bit more towards Western synth-pop, but still retain their worldly eclecticism.

Some guard towers were unattended, and the insurgents "got lucky" by cutting through the fence at a remote area. A Congressional source says it doesn't appear anyone will be punished for the attack.

Author Kevin Maher laughed off the Dubliners as a 12-year old, yet one line stayed with him. It was that line that convinced him to go back to the stories, discovering a love of James Joyce in the process.

In Blowback, Plame channels her expertise in nuclear counterproliferation into a "realistic portrait" of a female covert agent. Plame confesses that there's a lot of downtime in the life of a spy, but still, the CIA is "the world's biggest dating agency."

Author Antoine Saint-Exupery was French, but his beloved book, The Little Prince, wasn't written in Paris. Saint-Exupery wrote it in New York, and even included references to the island in his original manuscript.

An economist wanted to find out why some farmers in the developing world were abandoning a new way of growing rice that increases yields while reducing the need for seeds and water. He found that even while their rice fields were more productive, their household income didn't go up.