Michele Kelemen
Michele Kelemen has been with NPR for two decades, starting as NPR's Moscow bureau chief and now covering the State Department and Washington's diplomatic corps. Her reports can be heard on all NPR News programs, including Morning Edition and All Things Considered.
As Diplomatic Correspondent, Kelemen has traveled with Secretaries of State from Colin Powell to Mike Pompeo and everyone in between. She reports on the Trump administration's "America First" foreign policy and before that the Obama and Bush administration's diplomatic agendas. She was part of the NPR team that won the 2007 Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia University Award for coverage of the war in Iraq.
As NPR's Moscow bureau chief, Kelemen chronicled the end of the Yeltsin era and Vladimir Putin's consolidation of power. She recounted the terrible toll of the latest war in Chechnya, while also reporting on a lighter side of Russia, with stories about modern day Russian literature and sports.
Kelemen came to NPR in September 1998, after eight years working for the Voice of America. There, she learned the ropes as a news writer, newscaster and show host.
Michele earned her Bachelor's degree from the University of Pennsylvania and a Master's degree from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Russian and East European Affairs and International Economics.
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The tiny Persian Gulf nation of Qatar has pledged $100 million to help victims of Hurricane Katrina, and the Qatari ambassador will visit New Orleans to find out what more he can do for the storm victims. The ambassador says the motivation is not to improve the image of his Arab nation.
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U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick is in Nigeria, hoping to mediate a peace deal between rebels and government leaders in Sudan's Darfor region. The African Union has extended a deadline for talks to midnight Tuesday. The three-year conflict has led to nearly 200,000 deaths and 2 million refugees.
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The United Nations says Iran has ignored the Security Council's call to suspend all nuclear fuel enrichment. Instead, the U.N. says Iran has accelerated its program. Bush administration officials say it is now time for the Security Council to act against Iran.
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Ilham Aliyev, president of Azerbaijan, visits President Bush at the White House. Aliyev became president of the oil-producing nation in 2003 after elections that observers called flawed. He's also accused of corruption.
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Countries need to step up assistance to Darfur, Sudan, or risk the situation getting much worse, says the United Nations' lead official on Humanitarian Crises. Jan Egeland says that after seeing improvements in 2005, more violence and more displacement have hurt the country.
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A year ago, the U.N. Security Council authorized targeted sanctions against Sudanese officials, and others responsible for atrocities in Sudan's Darfur region. But some U.N. diplomats accuse the U.S. of holding up talks on a list of people to be targeted by the sanctions.
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The United States is canceling or suspending more than $400 million in projects in the Palestinian territories and shifting some of that money to help meet basic humanitarian needs. The change was made after Hamas, which the United States considers a terrorist organization, assumed the Palestinian leadership.
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The rhetoric has been escalating in Washington as the U.N. Security Council considers how to push Iran to abandon a suspected nuclear weapons program. The United States wants to isolate Iran and its leaders, but other nations are far more cautious, given the Bush administration's record in Iraq.
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Envoys from the United States, Russia, the U.N. and the European Union consider halting aid to the Palestinian Authority unless Hamas renounces violence and recognizes Israel's right to exist. The militant Islamist group is likely to lead the next government after its success in last week's polls.
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Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice heads to London amid a flurry of diplomatic activity over Iran's nuclear program. The U.S. and key European nations want to bring Iran before the United Nations Security Council, and they will be trying to convince Russian and Chinese officials to agree on that step.