Dina Temple-Raston

Adding to the coverage of NPR's national security team, Dina Temple-Raston reports about counterterrorism at home and abroad for NPR News. Her reporting can be heard on NPR's newsmagazines. She joined NPR in March 2007 fresh from a two year sabbatical in which she completed two books, learned Arabic and received a Master's Degree from Columbia.

A long-time foreign correspondent for Bloomberg News in Asia, Temple-Raston opened Bloomberg's Shanghai and Hong Kong offices working for both Bloomberg's financial wire and radio operations. She also served as Bloomberg News' White House correspondent during both Clinton administrations and covered financial markets and economics for both USA Today and CNNfn.

Temple-Raston is an award-winning author. Her first book, entitled A Death in Texas and about race in America, won the Barnes' and Noble Discover Award and was chosen as one of the Washington Post's Best Books of 2002. Her second book, on the role Radio Mille Collines played in fomenting the Rwandan genocide, was a Foreign Affairs magazine bestseller. She has two books related to civil liberties and national security. The first, In Defense of Our America (HarperCollins) written with Anthony D. Romero, the executive director of the ACLU, looks at civil liberties in post-9/11 America. The other, The Jihad Next Door (Public Affairs), is about the Lackawanna Six, America's first so-called "sleeper cell" and the issues that face Muslims in America.

Temple-Raston holds a Bachelor's degree from Northwestern University and a Master's degree from the Columbia University's School of Journalism. She was born in Belgium and French was her first language.

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Asia
6:56 am
Sat January 5, 2013

Pakistani Cafe Is Oasis In Desert Of Civil Discourse

Originally published on Sat January 5, 2013 9:59 am

Transcript

LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST:

In Pakistan, there's a cafe called the Second Floor. It's listed in a local Karachi social blog as one of the coolest cafes in town. Since it opened its doors five years ago, it's become a haven in a city more known for its violence than its civil discourse. NPR's Dina Temple-Raston paid a visit.

DINA TEMPLE-RASTON, BYLINE: The artwork on the front stoop of the Second Floor Cafe in Karachi says it all.

SABEEN MAHMUD: I wanted something right at the entrance...

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Middle East
4:54 pm
Fri January 4, 2013

Pakistani Military Hopes Rehab Will Lead Men To Paralympics

Originally published on Fri January 4, 2013 7:02 pm

Transcript

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Audie Cornish.

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

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Asia
11:01 am
Wed January 2, 2013

The Tony Soprano of Karachi: Gangster Or Politician?

Originally published on Wed January 2, 2013 7:56 pm

Gangsters have been part of life in Karachi, Pakistan's largest city, for decades. And nowhere is their rule more notorious than in the slums of Lyari, a dusty warren of low-slung tenement houses in the south central part of Karachi.

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World
3:49 am
Wed January 2, 2013

Pakistan's 'Patriot Act' Could Target Politicians

Credit Ahmad Kamal / Xinhua/Landov
A policeman stands guard at the Parliament building in Islamabad, Pakistan, in June. The Lower House recently passed a bill similar to the United States' Patriot Act, touching off a debate about privacy in the country.

Originally published on Wed January 2, 2013 11:16 am

Earlier this month, Pakistan's powerful Lower House of Parliament passed what analysts have dubbed Pakistan's Patriot Act. Its name here is "Investigation for Fair Trial Bill."

It has been presented to the Pakistani people as a way to update existing law and usher the rules for investigation in Pakistan into the 21st century. Among other things, it makes electronic eavesdropping admissible as evidence in court.

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World
2:59 am
Tue January 1, 2013

Multiple Feuds Bring A Record Year Of Violence To Karachi

Originally published on Wed February 13, 2013 10:35 am

The sad truth about Karachi in 2012 was that whatever your religion, business affiliation, or political party, someone was willing to kill you for it.

The murder rate in Pakistan's largest city and commercial hub hit an all time high last year. Over 2,500 people died in violent crimes in Karachi in 2012, a 50 percent increase over the year before.

Most of the deaths were attributable to sectarian killings and score settling. Shia Muslims took on the brunt of the violence. But Sunni Muslims were killed in reprisal attacks that added to the tally.

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World
5:10 am
Sun December 30, 2012

Street Signs Intended To Give Pakistani City New Direction

Credit Dina Temple-Raston
Street signs in the city of Lahore, Pakistan, are rare. The few that exist are in disrepair, like the one above. Two entrepreneurs are looking to change that and improve navigation in the city.

Originally published on Wed March 20, 2013 10:31 am

Landlords built Lahore in a haphazard way over centuries. They didn't concern themselves with city grids or sensible mapping. As a result, Lahore is renowned in Pakistan for being almost impossible to navigate.

And that's where Asim Fayaz and Khurram Siddiqi come in.

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World
4:29 pm
Wed December 19, 2012

In Pakistan, Tax Evaders Are Everywhere — Government Included

Credit Kenzo Tribouillard / AFP/Getty Images
An investigative report found that less than a third of Pakistani lawmakers filed tax returns for 2011. The report said Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari, photographed in Paris in December, did not file a return, though his spokesman says he did.

Originally published on Wed December 19, 2012 8:32 pm

Tax evasion is a chronic problem in Pakistan — only about 2 percent of the population is registered in the tax system, and the government collects just 9 percent of the country's wealth in taxes, one of the lowest rates in the world.

But now a new investigative report is making headlines. It says that just a third of the country's 446 federal lawmakers bothered to file income tax returns last year.

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The Two-Way
3:31 am
Mon November 5, 2012

Recovery To Take 'Quite A Long Time' In Storm-Ravaged Breezy Point

Originally published on Mon November 5, 2012 8:17 pm

Anyone who traveled to Breezy Point, Queens, in New York City in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy, even as recently as a few of days ago, would have needed an SUV — its main thoroughfare was under 3 feet of water. Today, you can see pavement. It sounds like a small victory, but this beachfront, blue-collar town is willing to accept progress in increments.

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NPR Story
10:48 am
Sat November 3, 2012

What Went Wrong? N.Y. Hospitals Swiped By Sandy

Transcript

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

The power outages and flooded also critically affected New York's hospitals. Several had to evacuate patients during the storm. New York University's Langone Medical Center was one of them. NPR's Dina Temple-Raston has the story.

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National Security
4:43 pm
Fri October 26, 2012

As Jihadists Spread, Connecting The Dots Proves Hard

Credit Adama Diarra / Reuters /Landov
The Ansar Dine group in northeastern Mali is among the Islamist factions proliferating in North Africa and the Middle East. Officials have focused on possible links between these groups and al-Qaida, but counterterrorism experts say understanding the differences is just as important.

Originally published on Fri October 26, 2012 5:57 pm

More than a year after popular protests rocked the Arab world, U.S. intelligence officials are struggling to understand the myriad of Islamist groups that have filled the vacuum.

Those groups run the gamut from moderate believers who are willing to give the political process a try to violent extremists. The difficulty is figuring out which is which.

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