Hannah Bloch
Hannah Bloch is lead digital editor on NPR's international desk, overseeing the work of NPR correspondents and freelance journalists around the world.
Her first contributions to NPR were on the other side of the microphone when, as a writer and editor at National Geographic, she was interviewed by NPR for her reporting from Afghanistan and on the role failure plays in exploration. During her 2004-2014 tenure at National Geographic, she also reported from Easter Island and covered a range of topics including archaeology and global health.
From 2014-2017, Bloch wrote the "Work in Progress" column at The Wall Street Journal, highlighting efforts by social entrepreneurs and problem-solvers to make a measurable difference in the world.
Earlier in her career, she was Time Magazine's first full-time correspondent in Pakistan and Afghanistan, covering the rise and fall of the Taliban regime, Pakistan's nuclear tests, and the regrouping of al-Qaida after Sept. 11. She also established and led CNN's first bureau in Islamabad.
Bloch was part of NPR's Peabody Award-winning team covering the Ebola outbreak in 2014 and was the recipient of a John S. Knight Professional Journalism Fellowship at Stanford University and a Freedom Forum Asia Studies Fellowship at the University of Hawaii.
She is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and earned master's degrees in journalism and international affairs from Columbia University.
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The rescue operation is the largest recovery of living hostages since the war in Gaza began. Meanwhile, at least 274 Palestinians were killed and around 700 were wounded, Gaza's Health Ministry said. -
Some 33 million people are affected by this summer's floods — the result of what U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres calls a "monsoon on steroids." He calls the flooding a "climate catastrophe." -
Around the world, trucks are essential everyday vehicles. In Pakistan, trucks are also canvases for dazzling works of art. Truck art has served a social good too, and helped recover missing children. -
We take a look at the colorful Pakistani practice of turning big transport trucks into wildly bright works of art.
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Millions of people in Afghanistan are facing hunger and starvation amid a prolonged drought and economic crash. A World Food Program spokesperson says a new urban class of hungry people has emerged.
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Students and faculty with the Afghanistan National Institute of Music flew last week from Doha to Lisbon, where they will start their new lives and reconstitute their celebrated academy in exile. -
The emergency gathering of the Organization for Islamic Cooperation was the largest international meeting on Afghanistan since the country fell to the Taliban in August. -
This week, members of the Afghanistan National Institute of Music flew from Doha to Portugal, where they'll rebuild their school — and lives. They describe their escape from Kabul and future hopes.
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"We want to prove to everyone forever that we respect humanity," Taliban spokesman Muhammad Naeem Wardak told NPR in Doha, Qatar. He also said women "must have the right to education and to work." -
Risking beatings by the Taliban, Afghan women have taken to the streets to protest against the hard-line regime, its new curbs on their rights — and Pakistan's influence in their country.
