Sean Carberry
Sean Carberry is NPR's international correspondent based in Kabul. His work can be heard on all of NPR's award-winning programs, including Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and Weekend Edition.
Prior to moving into his current role, he was responsible for producing for NPR's foreign correspondents in the Middle East and "fill-in" reporting. Carberry travels extensively across the Middle East to cover a range of stories such as the impact of electricity shortages on the economy in Afghanistan and the experiences of Syrian refugees in Turkish camps.
Carberry has reported from more than two-dozen countries including Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Congo, Sudan, South Sudan, and Iceland. In 2010, Carberry won the Gabriel Award Certificate of Merit for America Abroad's "The First Freedom," and in 2011 was awarded the Sigma Delta Chi Award as lead producer and correspondent for America Abroad's series, "The Arab World's Demographic Dilemma."
Since joining NPR, Carberry worked with Lourdes Garcia-Navarro in Tripoli for NPR's coverage of the fall of the Libyan capital. He also covered the post-US withdrawal political crisis in Baghdad in December 2011, and recently completed a two month fill-in reporting assignment in Kabul that led to his current role.
Before coming to NPR in 2011, Carberry worked at America Abroad Media where he served as technical director and senior producer in addition to traveling internationally to report and produce radio and multimedia content for America Abroad's monthly radio news documentaries and website. He also worked at NPR Member Station WBUR in Boston as a field and political producer, associate producer/technical director, and reporter, contributing to NPR, newscasts, and WBUR's Here and Now.
In addition to his journalistic accolades, Carberry is a well-rounded individual who has also been an assistant professor of music production and engineering at Berklee College of Music in Boston, received a Gold Record as Recording Engineer for Susan Tedeschi's Grammy-Nominated album "Just Won't Burn," engineered music for the television program "Sex in the City," is a certified SCUBA diver, and is a graduate of the Skip Barber School of Auto Racing.
Carberry earned a Bachelor of Arts in Urban Studies from Lehigh University and a Masters of Public Administration from Harvard Kennedy School, with a focus in Politics, National Security, and International Affairs.
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Over the past three decades, the U.N. says Afghanistan's forest cover has decreased by about 50 percent — to just about 2 percent of the country's land. The main reason is the illegal harvesting and trade of timber. A visit to Kunar province, near the Pakistan border, reveals that many people, from top officials down, are involved.
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U.S. and other NATO troops are spending less time fighting the Taliban and more time making local Afghan governments self-sufficient. It's a slow process.
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The military has to pack up more than 11 years worth of equipment and send it home. The number of containers to move is in the six figures, and some question whether everything can be shipped out by the end of 2014.
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For nearly three years, the Afghan parliament has tried to pass a law banning violence against women. Supporters say they've made concessions to address conservatives' concerns. But critics say the proposal still violates Islamic law.
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The Afghan and Pakistani governments have agreed to convene a conference of Muslim religious leaders to issue an Islamic decree banning suicide bombings. But they have yet to agree on the details, such as which leaders should attend.
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As the 2014 deadline looms for the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, there's a debate over what kind of military hardware the U.S. will provide in its wake. Afghanistan wants tanks and planes for conventional warfare. But the U.S. says the Afghans need to focus on counterinsurgency.
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Opinions are mixed. Women are already in dangerous places handling difficult assignments. But some troops, both men and women, say they think few women will want to take combat positions, and they question whether women will be able to meet the current physical standards.
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The Taliban claimed responsibility for a multi-pronged suicide bombing attack on Afghanistan's intelligence headquarters in Kabul in Wednesday. It was the second attack on the spy headquarters in little more than a month.
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In Afghanistan, governors are not elected, they are selected — and more often than not due to family or political connections. But in an attempt to curb graft, the country has just sworn in a batch of governors — including the first female district governor — selected through a new merit-based program.
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France recently hosted discussions between Afghan and Taliban officials. The meetings again raised the possibility of negotiations to end the fighting in Afghanistan, though many analysts remain deeply skeptical.