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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Iran announces it has produced enriched uranium at a nuclear research facility. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad maintains the program is designed only to produce energy, but the United States and other Western powers remain concerned Iran might build nuclear weapons.
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This week marks the third anniversary of the beginning of the war in Iraq. Mike Shuster tracks the events leading up to the U.S.-led invasion. These include Bush administration claims -- since discredited -- of ongoing Iraqi nuclear weapons development and links with al Qaeda. -
Iran's initial step to restart research into uranium enrichment dismays the United States, Europe and Russia. All are trying to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. The next move appears to be an appeal to the U.N. Security Council.
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Iran resumes operations at a key nuclear plant, ending two years of inactivity. The U.N. nuclear watchdog agency said Iran intended to undertake work on uranium enrichment, which could produce fuel for nuclear weapons. The move sparked sharp criticism from the United States and Europe. -
In the final installment of our four-part series on China-U.S. relations, Mike Shuster explores China's diplomatic role in the world. The United States has encouraged Chinese involvement with international issues like North Korea's nuclear weapons. But now, diplomacy has become another area where the U.S. and China are competitors.
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This year the Chinese National Offshore Oil Company made a bid to buy the American oil company Unocal. The bid, later withdrawn, sparked a new controversy between Washington and Beijing and reinforced China's status as a competitor for fuel. Mike Shuster has the third part of his series on China-U.S. relations.
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Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld arrived in Beijing Tuesday, where he is expected to highlight U.S. concerns that the recent growth of China's military could affect the balance of power in Asia. Washington is also concerned about China's enormous trade surplus with the United States. In the second of a four-part series, we look at the economic issues' impact.
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America's relationship with China is drawing renewed attention from the Bush administration. China is a growing economic power and is well along with a military modernization effort. What are China's ultimate intentions?
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Iran is threatening to use trade and oil supplies as weapons against countries that voted against Tehran at a recent meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency. The IAEA approved a resolution referring Iran's suspect nuclear program to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions.
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Israel says it will finish a separation barrier around Jerusalem, which critics say will make a viable Palestinian state impossible. The Israeli government says the wall could eventually be torn down.
