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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For most of 2014, Afghanistan was suffering from economic paralysis as its presidential election teetered on the brink of collapse. The inauguration of President Ashraf Ghani eased tensions and buoyed optimism that business will turn around.
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Currently, there are about 100 refugees living in Afghanistan. But the country has no asylum laws, and the refugees are fighting for legal status or resettlement elsewhere.
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A power-sharing deal announced over the weekend ends the long dispute over who will lead Afghanistan. Afghan election officials announced that Ashraf Ghani is the country's next president.
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The top two presidential candidates in Afghanistan shake hands and sign a power-sharing deal, ending months of bitter disputes over who will succeed Hamid Karzai.
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When NPR's Kabul bureau caught fire recently, it came as a pleasant surprise that the fire department in the Afghan capital is good at putting out fires.
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Applications are soaring for a special U.S. visa program for Afghans. But many applicants don't qualify and are trying to bluff, bribe or buy their way in.
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There are 30,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan and 20,000 will head home shortly. Millions of them transited in and out through a base in Kyrgyzstan, until the government there didn't renew the lease.
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U.S. combat troops will be gone by year's end and Afghanistan is still trying to sort out its presidential election. The Taliban, meanwhile, have launched some of their largest offensives in years.
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American troops are scheduled to withdraw from Afghanistan by year's end. So the military is sifting through 13 years of accumulated stuff to see what will be scrapped, given away or sent home.
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Afghan and international monitors are muddling through an audit of all the ballots cast, and the two candidates are trying to come to agreement on the terms of a national unity government.