State of the World from NPR

Politician, activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado has returned to Venezuela. She led the opposition to authoritarian leader Nicholas Maduro and fled Venezuela in 2025 after more than a year in hiding.

This is Machado’s first time back in her country following the U.S. arrest of Maduro in January.  We hear how her presence is putting pressure on the U.S.-backed Venezuelan regime to hold elections.

And with this year’s ‘super El Nino’ expected to bring flash floods and landslides to Kenya, thousands of workers in Nairobi have been preparing. A youth employment group called the Green Army is clearing drainage systems and waterways to try and prevent flooding this winter. But there are tradeoffs to this large-scale cleanup effort.

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Israel has held an important election– its first since the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attacks on that country.

The vote is a referendum on the leadership of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyhu who was in power when the attacks occurred and presided over the military responses that followed.  And so far, there is no clear winner.

With more than half the votes counted neither Netanyahu nor his center-right challenger Gadi Eisenkot have the majority needed to form a government.  We hear what happens now and an analysis of what it means.

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Russia and Ukraine have agreed to a very limited ceasefire to help a Ukrainian city that’s been under Russian occupation for nearly five years.  We hear about the horrific conditions residents have been living under in the city of Oleshky.

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We look at unexpected election results in different parts of the globe, in which the youth vote played a major role.

In Brazil, the leftist incumbent in his 80’s cinched a stunning come-from-behind win.  And in Serbia a student movement that emerged from years of anti-corruption protests toppled the long-time leader.

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The Russia-Ukraine war is sometimes compared to the static, deadlocked, trench warfare of World War I.  

Yet it’s also been the defining conflict of the 21st century, dominated by drones that have created a so-called “kill zone” along the front line.  We hear about what the kill zone is like and what it means for the future of warfare.

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