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. -
Masked, pro-Russian forces have taken control of at least part of Ukraine's naval base in Crimea. No one was reported injured, but the Ukrainian commander was taken away by unidentified men.
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Crimeans voted overwhelmingly on Sunday to leave Ukraine and join Russia. Morning Edition checks in with NPR's Gregory Warner in Simferopol and Eleanor Beardsley in Kiev for the latest.
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A Muslim-led coup last year triggered the violence in the majority-Christian country. But there's a deeper reason: resentment over diamonds and gold, mined by Christians and traded by Muslims. -
Thousands of Muslims have resorted to hiding in mosques or even churches, afraid of being killed by Christian militias. Many are asking for help crossing the border, but the United Nations is hesitant to support the minority's exodus. -
Former U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold now serves as special envoy to the African Great Lakes, where millions have died and dozens of armed groups scramble to seize land and minerals. He is part of a team of diplomats trying to rid the region, mired in decades of war, of a dizzying array of militias. -
A dozen war heroes from South Sudan's long struggle for independence are now accused of launching a coup to overthrow the democracy they helped create. One of them, Peter Adwok Nyaba, was telling NPR's Gregory Warner about the political roots of the conflict when police came for him. -
A senior official in South Sudan said Saturday that government troops will attack the main rebel stronghold if the rebels turn down a proposed cease-fire. The government had offered a truce on Friday to end two weeks of ethnic violence that has killed more than a thousand people. -
The government says the former vice president is mobilizing an army of youth to seize key cities in the newly independent nation. The United Nations is not sure it can protect the thousands of people staying at its compound who have been displaced by recent ethnic fighting. -
Amid fighting between government soldiers and rebels in an oil-rich part of the country, President Salva Kiir appealed for peace at a Christmas celebration in a church in the country's capital. The past week of violence has left thousands dead and tens of thousands displaced.
