
Jane Arraf
Jane Arraf covers Egypt, Iraq, and other parts of the Middle East for NPR News.
Arraf joined NPR in 2016 after two decades of reporting from and about the region for CNN, NBC, the Christian Science Monitor, PBS Newshour, and Al Jazeera English. She has previously been posted to Baghdad, Amman, and Istanbul, along with Washington, DC, New York, and Montreal.
She has reported from Iraq since the 1990s. For several years, Arraf was the only Western journalist based in Baghdad. She reported on the war in Iraq in 2003 and covered live the battles for Fallujah, Najaf, Samarra, and Tel Afar. She has also covered India, Pakistan, Haiti, Bosnia, and Afghanistan and has done extensive magazine writing.
Arraf is a former Edward R. Murrow press fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. Her awards include a Peabody for PBS NewsHour, an Overseas Press Club citation, and inclusion in a CNN Emmy.
Arraf studied journalism at Carleton University in Ottawa and began her career at Reuters.
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Prime Minister Omar Razzaz tells NPR Jordan is determined to protect the most vulnerable and "went for a very different model ... based on social solidarity." There have been just 11 COVID-19 deaths.
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Crowds have seized supplies for ill relatives, and officials warn the health system could collapse. "This is a war against the coronavirus and we have lost the war," says an Iraqi official.
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Tourists' absence from the ancient city has made way for the cats, dogs, birds and other creatures to take over.
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The coronavirus pandemic has done what even war did not — bring Jordan's vital travel industry to a halt, and with it, the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of workers.
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Giving to the poor is an essential part of the holy month, which began Friday, and with so many people thrown out of work, observers say it's particularly needed now.
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Five years of fighting has left the country in ruins. "We are bracing for the worst," a U.N. official said. The country is already dealing with war, poverty and malnutrition.
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The virus is upending burial traditions across cultures, from the washing of the body of a loved one in Iraq to the gathering of mourners in Israel.