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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Tunisia's fragile democracy is put to the test as the president shuts down parliament — drawing praise from crowds in the streets but also accusations of an attempted coup.
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President Biden plans to host Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi at the White House on Monday. One of the major topics will be how long the last of the U.S. troops will remain in the country.
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The Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha finds people in Lebanon mired in an economic crisis that makes eating or paying rent difficult — let alone taking part in family celebrations.
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Lebanon's former prime minister has given up on forming a new government, as the country's political and economic crises continue to worsen.
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In Iraq, where COVID-19 is surging, the death toll from a fire in the coronavirus ward of a hospital continues to climb. Officials say more than 90 people have died and dozens more have been injured.
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On Monday, flames swept through outbuildings of the al-Hussein Teaching Hospital in Nasiryah that had been set up to isolate COVID-19 patients. -
The once-thriving middle class in Beirut, Lebanon, has collapsed amid a historic economic crisis. Banks are freezing withdrawals and pharmacies are running out of medicines.
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The U.S. struck militia bases in Syria and Iraq after a series of drone attacks on U.S. bases. Now the region waits to see what will happen next.
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Some nations that cut relations with the authoritarian regime of Bashar Assad are now hoping to influence Syria's future and contain their rivals. The U.S. says it still stands against normalization. -
It was a decision that appalled and angered Syrian opposition groups and international medical organizations. On May 28 Syria was appointed to the World Health Organization's Executive Board.
