Gregory Warner
Gregory Warner is the host of NPR's Rough Translation, a podcast about how things we're talking about in the United States are being talked about in some other part of the world. Whether interviewing a Ukrainian debunker of Russian fake news, a Japanese apology broker navigating different cultural meanings of the word "sorry," or a German dating coach helping a Syrian refugee find love, Warner's storytelling approach takes us out of our echo chambers and leads us to question the way we talk about the world. Rough Translation has received the Lowell Thomas Award from the Overseas Press Club and a Scripps Howard Award.
In his role as host, Warner draws on his own overseas experience. As NPR's East Africa correspondent, he covered the diverse issues and voices of a region that experienced unparalleled economic growth as well as a rising threat of global terrorism. Before joining NPR, he reported from conflict zones around the world as a freelancer. He climbed mountains with smugglers in Pakistan for This American Life, descended into illegal mineshafts in the Democratic Republic of Congo for Marketplace's "Working" series, and lugged his accordion across Afghanistan on the trail of the "Afghan Elvis" for Radiolab.
Warner has also worked as senior reporter for American Public Media's Marketplace, endeavoring to explain the economics of American health care. He's used puppets to illustrate the effects of Internet diagnostics on the doctor-patient relationship, and composed a Suessian poem to explain the correlation between health care job growth and national debt. His musical journey into the shadow world of medical coding won a Best News Feature award from the Third Coast International Audio Festival.
Warner has won a Peabody Award and awards from Edward R. Murrow, New York Festivals, AP, and PRNDI. He earned his degree in English from Yale University.
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Some Ukrainians insist the show is funnier when dubbed in Ukrainian rather than Russian. In the recent crisis in Ukraine, much has been made of the country's language divide. -
The great anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela died late Friday night in Johannesburg. South Africans woke up to the news this morning and crowds gathered outside the former Mandela family home in Soweto township. This is the home where he lived before he was arrested, before he was imprisoned for those long years, before he became an icon. The mood among the hundreds of people outside the house and on the surrounding blocks was anything but somber.
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A Kenyan intelligence official says that the "high-value terrorist leader" whose residence was targeted in a Navy SEAL raid was the senior al-Shabab leader Abdikadir Mohamed Abdikadir, alias Ikrima. Ikrima is a Kenyan of Somali descent who boasts connections to both al-Shabab in Somalia and to a Kenyan jihadist group called al-Hijra.
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The recovery operation will be a long thorough process at the Nairobi shopping mall that was attacked over the weekend. More information is emerging about the number of people who were killed, injured or are still missing.
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Kenya's interior minister said those who attacked the Nairobi mall were an international group of men, some of whom dressed as women. Kenya's foreign minister said the group included at least three Americans and one woman. Four days after the attack started, we update what is known about the group of terrorists who have held siege at the popular Westgate Mall.
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Some of the worst-paid farmers in Ethiopia were able to get their bean to the specialty coffee ball and sell to top U.S. roasters like Stumptown. But it only happened after the growers got organized and attracted the attention of coffee prospectors from the U.S. -
A billion people worldwide live in slums, largely invisible to city services and governments — but not to satellites. A global movement is putting mapping technology in the hands of slum dwellers to persuade governments and the residents themselves to see these shadow cities in a whole new light. NPR's Gregory Warner visits one slum in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. -
President Obama's trip to Africa comes at a time of increasing African economic growth and declining U.S. influence on the continent. To be successful, he will need to overcome a general perception that the United States has withdrawn from Africa. At the same time, he must convince an American public and private sector that getting more invested in Africa will be good for American jobs and the economy.
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Kenyans go to the polls next week to choose a new president. The last election was followed by allegations of vote rigging and weeks of deadly tribal violence. NPR's Gregory Warner sat down with a few perpetrators of that violence in a bar to watch the Kenyan presidential debate. And to find out what, if anything, has changed this time around.
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U.S. counterterrorism efforts include choking off the flow of cash to extremists and urging friendly countries to help. But in places like the Nairobi neighborhood of Eastleigh, where Somali refugees have flocked, it's hard to distinguish between tainted money and honest cash.
