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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 Antony Blinken and everyone in between. 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.

MORE STORIES BY THIS AUTHOR
  • Ousted Haitian leader Jean-Bertrand Aristide's supporters accuse the United States of engineering the president's exit from office. Bush administration officials insist Aristide is a failed leader who resigned in the face of an armed rebellion. Rebels arriving in Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capital, met with cheering crowds. Hear NPR's Michele Kelemen and NPR's Martin Kaste.
  • Secretary of State Colin Powell says Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide should examine his position and consider what's best for the Haitian people -- a sign U.S. officials want Aristide to consider resigning. Meanwhile, rebel forces advance on Haiti's capital, but the U.N. Security Council says it's not ready to authorize peacekeepers. Hear NPR's Michele Kelemen.
  • The White House has asserted that most of the terrorism currently undermining U.S. efforts in Iraq is perpetrated by non-Iraqis. Terror analysts and Middle East experts differ in their opinion of the nature of the attacks -- and who is behind them. Hear NPR's Michele Kelemen and Rand Corporation policy analyst John Parachini.
  • As Democrats narrow the field of presidential candidates, the debate over the economic policies of the Bush White House begin to take shape. NPR's Michele Kelemen gets a preview of some of the points of contention from Robert Reischauer, president of the Urban Institute and former director of the Congressional Budget Office, and Stephen Moore, president of the Club for Growth and a senior fellow at the Cato Institute.
  • NPR's Michele Kelemen reports Secretary of State Colin Powell is putting a bit of distance between his pre-war views on the alleged weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and the growing evidence that there were none. A year ago in a speech at the United Nations, Powell insisted that known facts proved the Iraqi threat of WMD. Today he admits that if knew then what he knows today he might not have been so ready to go to war.
  • Former Secretary of State James Baker returns from a third mission asking foreign governments to forgive or reschedule Iraq's debt load. He secured promises from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait -- two of Iraq's largest creditors -- to forgive some of Iraq's debt once the country has a new government. More than a third of Iraq's debt is owed to Arab states. NPR's Michele Kelemen reports.