Ruth Sherlock
Ruth Sherlock is an International Correspondent with National Public Radio. She's based in Beirut and reports on Syria and other countries around the Middle East. She was previously the United States Editor for the Daily Telegraph, covering the 2016 US election. Before moving to the US in the spring of 2015, she was the Telegraph's Middle East correspondent.
Sherlock reported from almost every revolution and war of the Arab Spring. She lived in Libya for the duration of the conflict, reporting from opposition front lines. In late 2011 she travelled to Syria, going undercover in regime held areas to document the arrest and torture of antigovernment demonstrators. As the war began in earnest, she hired smugglers to cross into rebel held parts of Syria from Turkey and Lebanon. She also developed contacts on the regime side of the conflict, and was given rare access in government held areas.
Her Libya coverage won her the Young Journalist of the Year prize at British Press Awards. In 2014, she was shortlisted at the British Journalism Awards for her investigation into the Syrian regime's continued use of chemical weapons. She has twice been a finalist for the Gaby Rado Award with Amnesty International for reporting with a focus on human rights. With NPR, in 2020, her reporting for the Embedded podcast was shortlisted for the prestigious Livingston Award.
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Two activist friends talk about their efforts to protest for reform in Iraq — despite intimidation and attacks from powerful parties that will likely come out on top in Sunday's elections.
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With the current parties in power expected to dominate results again, many Iraqis say they see no reason to vote.
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While some new voices have emerged in the campaigning, it looks like the usual parties will win. One underdog candidate got some voters on her side when she resolved a sewer problem in a Baghdad slum.
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The election in Iraq that anti-government protestors gave their lives calling for is this weekend — but it might not lead to the changes people want.
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The fall of a Syrian opposition town to the government this week after a siege and threats of air strikes serves as a reminder that the civil war continues.
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With areas of Lebanon mired in power cuts and a historic economic crisis, some are getting into the mountains where hiking has started to gain popularity.
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The people of Beirut are still reeling from the effects of the deadly port explosion a year ago — and asking that leaders who could have prevented it be held responsible.
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As Lebanon marks a year since a huge blast at the Beirut port, the sister of one of the victims is still working to pick up the pieces of her life and continue her search for justice.
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A Human Rights Watch report states there's little chance the probe will hold any ranking officials accountable — despite evidence they failed to act on warnings about dangerous chemicals at the port.
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Tunisia's president has taken the country's fragile democracy to the brink by shutting parliament down — the latest chapter in the struggle between secular and Islamist factions there.