The World from PRX

Richard HallRH

Richard Hall

Correspondent, Lebanon
Richard Hall is a correspondent for Public Radio International's The World and PRI.org, covering the Middle East from his home base in Lebanon. He has reported across the region since 2009, covering Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Turkey.Richard began his career at Lebanon’s Daily Star, an English-language daily newspaper in Beirut.Since then he has contributed to numerous publications in the US and UK, including the Guardian, Al Jazeera, Esquire Magazine and USA Today, and has worked on staff for The Independent and Agence France-Presse. He began at GlobalPost in 2014 as a Middle East editor and correspondent in Beirut, before becoming a PRI correspondent in 2015.Richard has written extensively on the Syrian civil war and the rise of the Islamic State. His reporting on the Kurdish issue has taken him across Turkey and up the Qandil Mountains in northern Iraq.
Migrants are brought aboard a Save the Children rescue boat
Conflict & Justice
Inside Italy’s plot to infiltrate migrant rescue boats in the Mediterranean
Residents and members of the Syrian Civil Defense, or "White Helmets," look for survivors at a damaged site after what activists said was a barrel bomb dropped by forces loyal to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad in the Al-Shaar neighborhood of Aleppo, Sy
Conflict
Trump freezes funding for ‘White Helmet’ volunteers as part of larger cut to Syrian aid
Hands hold a hose over a child's head and water streams down his hair and face.
Conflict
Chemical attack in Syria grabs Trump’s attention, but he has few options available
A man holds a child after an airstrike in eastern Ghouta, Syria, Feb. 7, 2018. In the Damascus suburb, besieged by government forces since 2013, about 78 civilians were killed by airstrikes and artillery fire on Tuesday, according to monitors. A further 2
Conflict
Syria’s war enters a dangerous new phase
A migrant carrying a child waits to cross the border with Croatia near the village of Berkasovo, Serbia, Oct. 19, 2015. Women face assault, harassment and sexual violence at every step of the way along the European migrant trail, including on European soi
Conflict
As the European migrant trail has gone underground, the threat of sexual violence has increased
A man leads a caravan of camels at the King Abdulaziz Camel Festival in Saudi Arabia, a monthlong extravaganza honoring the “ships of the desert” and their place in the country’s history.
Culture
What a camel beauty contest can tell us about the future of Saudi Arabia
Smoke rises as people inspect damage at the site of airstrikes in the city of Saada, Yemen, Jan. 6, 2018.
Conflict
Saudi Arabia promises $1.5 billion in aid to Yemen — but it’s still bombing the country
St. Shmuni Church in Bartella, Iraq, shows damage sustained while the town was under ISIS control for two years.
Conflict
ISIS turned this young Iraqi Christian into an atheist
Migrants wait for food distribution inside an abandoned factory close to the Croatian border near the town of Sid, Serbia, Dec. 19, 2017. There are about 8,000 refugees and migrants stranded in Serbia, a result of a tougher European border policies that f
Conflict
Migrants stuck in Serbia play a desperate ‘game’ to reach the EU
Two migrants play checkers with bottle caps in an abandoned warehouse where they live on the Greek island of Lesbos.
Conflict
Trapped by border closings, these young migrants are hiding out in an abandoned warehouse
A Syrian refugee boy stands in front of his family tent at a makeshift camp for refugees and migrants next to the Moria camp on the Greek island of Lesbos, Nov. 30, 2017.
Conflict
An overcrowded refugee camp on Lesbos is making children sick
A Lebanese army soldier and two UNIFIL peacekeepers discuss the route of their joint patrol near the Lebanon-Israel border, Nov. 29, 2017.
Conflict
Keeping the peace on the Israel-Lebanon border
Cars pass next to a poster depicting Saad Hariri, who has resigned as Lebanon's prime minister, in Beirut
Global Politics
Lebanon wants to know: Is our prime minister a prisoner?
People walk next to a poster depicting Lebanon's Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri
Conflict
Talk of war and instability are all too familiar in Lebanon
Taxi driver Gabriel Saad searches for passengers in Beirut.
Economics
Uber has met its match with Lebanon’s old-school carpool taxis
Syrian Democratic Forces fighters dance along a street in Raqqa, Syria, on Oct. 18, 2017.
Conflict
Raqqa liberated from ISIS: ‘My city is now ruined and burned down’
Iraqi security forces advance in military vehicles in Kirkuk on Oct. 16, 2017.
Conflict
US allies turn their US guns on each other in Iraq
Australia crushed Syria's World Cup dreams in a 2-1 match in Sydney on Tuesday. Some Syrians celebrated the loss.
Conflict
Many Syrians are thrilled their national soccer team didn’t make it to the World Cup
Tens of thousands turn out for a rally in Erbil, northern Iraq, in support of Kurdistan's independence referendum.
Conflict
Should Kurdistan break off from Iraq? We asked young voters.
Migrants fall into the water during a rescue in the Mediterranean.
Conflict
What it’s like aboard an NGO ship rescuing hundreds of migrants in the Mediterranean
A convoy of ISIS fighters and their families begin to depart from the Lebanon-Syria border in Qalamoun, Syria, on Aug. 28, 2017.
Conflict
The US bombs path of ISIS convoy in Syria after a controversial withdrawal deal
A Hezbollah fighter poses for journalists on a tour of areas recently recaptured from Nusra militants in the mountains between Lebanon and Syria.
Conflict
Hezbollah to Trump: ‘We fight terrorism while the US supports it’
Migrant Offshore Aid Station rescues migrants from a rubber dinghy during an operation in the central Mediterranean
Conflict
This group wants to ‘defend Europe’ from migrants at sea
A general view shows tents for Syrian refugees at a makeshift settlement in Bar Elias, a town in the Bekaa valley, Lebanon, on March 28, 2017.
Conflict
Lebanon banned all protests after Syrians called for better refugee conditions
A view of part of western Mosul, Iraq, on May 29.
Conflict
Were high civilian casualties in Mosul unavoidable?
African migrants arriving in Italy from Mediterranean
Conflict
African migrants are reaching Europe with tales of kidnap and torture in Libya
A settlement for Syrian refugees in the Bekaa Valley, Lebanon.
Economics
Refugee Day: Photos of a historic migration of people seeking safer and better lives
The remains of a destroyed church in the town of Qaraqosh, south of Mosul, Iraq, on April 13.
Religion
Iraqi Christians are slowly returning to their homes, wary of their neighbors
The Libyan coast guard boards a boat in the Mediterranean while humanitarian groups bring migrants onto their ships.
Conflict
Libya’s coast guard is ‘endangering lives’ of migrants trying to reach Europe
Ramlet al-Baida is the only public beach in Lebanon's seaside capital Beirut, in a city with a serious public space shortage.
Global Politics
Beirut’s only public beach is about to be taken over by an exclusive private resort
Migrants look out toward the Maltese island of Gozo, as the boat the Phoenix makes its way toward Italy after rescue operations off the coast of Libya, on May 5.
Conflict
Fewer migrants are crossing the Mediterranean than last year. But almost as many are dying.
Conflict
The US is killing more civilians in Iraq and Syria than it acknowledges
Children play with a kite at a shelter for displaced Yazidis on Mount Sinjar, northern Iraq.
Conflict
Years after US Iraq intervention, Yazidis are still seeking safety on a mountain
US strike on Syria
Conflict
Syrians who have lived under Assad’s bombs celebrate US missile strike
Lina Shahab is recovering in a hospital in Erbil, northern Iraq, after surviving an airstrike in Mosul.
Conflict
‘I saw everything burning’: Iraqi survivors of a suspected US coalition airstrike speak
Ibrahim Noel reopened his liquor store in Qaraqosh, northern Iraq, after he said ISIS demolished it.
Economics
An Iraqi liquor store has quietly reopened after ISIS
The Marines deploying in Syria reportedly have M777 howitzers, seen here with artillerymen at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center.
Conflict
US Marines are deploying to fight ISIS in Raqqa, Syria
Rani Khaled Yaqoub Erbil
Conflict
For war refugees, sanctuary in the West isn’t always a happy ending
A satellite image of Syria’s Saydnaya military prison, annotated by Amnesty International, via Google Earth and DigitalGlobe.
Conflict
Amnesty accuses Syria of ‘extermination’ of thousands of prisoners
Over a million Syrians have fled their country and set up refugee camps in neighboring Lebanon.
Conflict
After Trump’s ban, Lebanon renews calls to send back Syrian refugees
Kinan Azmeh, a Syrian clarinet player who lives in New York, performs at Germany’s Morgenland Festival Osnabrück in 2010.
Music
This celebrated clarinetist worries Trump’s border rules could bar him from going home to New York
Capt. Khatoon Khider, left, commander of the all-female Yazidi Sun Brigade, with her sister, Aliya, in a home near the city of Dohuk, in Iraqi Kurdistan, on Sept. 24.
Conflict
These Yazidi sisters took up arms to take revenge against ISIS
For two years, Ismail al-Kanon and his mother, Jandar Nasi, were captives of ISIS. More than most living under the terror group’s rule, they had reason to expect that they would never escape — because they were Iraqi Christians.
Conflict
How an Iraqi Christian teenager survived two years in the heart of the ISIS ‘caliphate’
Riyad al-Jaboury, an Iraqi English teacher, with his birds in his yard in Hamam al-Alil, northern Iraq.
Conflict
ISIS forced this Iraqi teacher to change all his lessons — ‘it became all about death’
Zikra Younis, right, and her daughter Huda at the Khazer camp for displaced people. The camp is east of the Iraqi city of Mosul, where they escaped from last November.
Conflict
This Iraqi woman escaped ISIS and a bad marriage, all for the love of her children
Migrant workers Lebanon
Culture
Migrant worker union members are being arrested in Lebanon
Iraqi special forces intelligence agents check men's IDs in the search for Islamic State fighters in Mosul, Iraq on Nov. 27.
Conflict
What happens to ISIS fighters when they are captured
Iraqi firefighter at oil well fire in Qayyarah
Conflict
ISIS was booted from this Iraqi town months ago, but its toxic oil fires won’t die
A group of kids play in the Mosul
Conflict
Civilians fleeing Mosul face a deadly journey to freedom
Iraqi men at a barber shop in the Intisar district of Mosul
Conflict
ISIS jailed and beat up this Iraqi barber for giving the wrong haircut
Israeli soldiers at a bus stop covered with posters from the Israeli branch of the US Republican Party, near the West Bank Jewish settlement of Ariel on Oct. 6.
Global Politics
How Donald Trump’s presidency will affect the Middle East
In this photo, migrant families had just crossed the border from Serbia to Croatia, on Sept. 24, 2015.
Election 2016
Trump’s new ad plays on Europe’s refugee crisis — and the videographer is fuming
Donald Trump, at a campaign event in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Oct. 26, and Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, during a campaign rally in Winston-Salem, North Carolina
Global Politics
Arab countries are underwhelmed by Clinton, but most prefer her to Trump
Newly elected Lebanese President Michel Aoun arrives at the presidential palace in Baabda, near Beirut, Lebanon on Oct. 31.
Global Politics
Lebanon finally elected a president — a Christian ally of Hezbollah
US soldiers ride a military vehicle in al-Kherbeh village, northern Aleppo province, Syria on Oct. 24.
Conflict
‘World War III’? How Trump and Clinton measure up on Syria
Ahmed, 3 years old, in a hospital in Hajjah receiving treatment for moderate acute malnutrition.
Conflict
The US-backed Saudi war in Yemen could leave ‘an entire generation crippled by hunger’
Rebels take Dabiq from ISIS
Conflict
The Islamic State’s branding crisis
Kurdish forces in battle for Mosul, Iraq
Conflict
Mosul after ISIS will be a test for all of Iraq
A giant cross stands on top of the Mount Qanat Bakish in Lebanon, in a photo from Oct. 1, 2010.
Education
Americans in Lebanon say they’re on a mission from God to teach Syrian refugee kids
Members of the Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army in the border town of Jarablus, Syria, Aug. 31. Free Syrian Army fighters reportedly protested against the US on Friday.
Conflict
US special forces were reportedly run out of a Syrian town by ‘friendly’ rebels