Hannah Bloch

She was the widow of Abdul Sattar Edhi, founder of Pakistan's best-known social services network. A nurse, she worked alongside her husband and focused especially on the welfare of children and women.

Around the world, trucks are essential everyday vehicles. In Pakistan, trucks are also canvases for dazzling works of art. Truck art has served a social good too, and helped recover missing children.

We take a look at the colorful Pakistani practice of turning big transport trucks into wildly bright works of art.

"It shouldn't be a lottery of life about who gets to eat, who doesn't get to eat. Do I keep my child warm or do I give my child food?" a World Food Programme Afghanistan spokesperson tells NPR.

Millions of people in Afghanistan are facing hunger and starvation amid a prolonged drought and economic crash. A World Food Program spokesperson says a new urban class of hungry people has emerged.

Students and faculty with the Afghanistan National Institute of Music flew last week from Doha to Lisbon, where they will start their new lives and reconstitute their celebrated academy in exile.

The emergency gathering of the Organization for Islamic Cooperation was the largest international meeting on Afghanistan since the country fell to the Taliban in August.

This week, members of the Afghanistan National Institute of Music flew from Doha to Portugal, where they'll rebuild their school — and lives. They describe their escape from Kabul and future hopes.

"We want to prove to everyone forever that we respect humanity," Taliban spokesman Muhammad Naeem Wardak told NPR in Doha, Qatar. He also said women "must have the right to education and to work."

Risking beatings by the Taliban, Afghan women have taken to the streets to protest against the hard-line regime, its new curbs on their rights — and Pakistan's influence in their country.

Afghans have lived through Soviet and U.S. invasions, civil war, insurgency and a previous period of heavy-handed Taliban rule. Here are some key events and dates from the past four decades.

In a year overshadowed by COVID-19, the world saw plenty of other significant developments. Here are some glimpses of the protests, conflicts — and efforts at peace — that helped define 2020.

A turbulent decade began with the Arab Spring and ended with a swell of anti-government demonstrations from Latin America to India, Sudan and Hong Kong. Here's a glimpse of protests outside the U.S.

Some of the most-read stories by NPR's international reporters looked at endangered rhinos, livid Canadians, Mexico's response to migrants and a show-stealing eye roll at a Chinese political event.

With the ban lifted on female drivers, Saudi women can sit legally in the driver's seat for the first time. But global concern is high over detention of activists who fought for the right to drive.

Tuesday's meeting between President Trump and Kim Jong Un marks the start of a long negotiation process over North Korea's nuclear weapons program. Here are highlights in photos from a momentous day.

After five years and nearly 3,500 stories — from Pakistan to Papua New Guinea and Paris — the Parallels blog is closing. You'll now find all of NPR's coverage from around the globe at npr.org/world.

The day was marked by violence and bloodshed, as tens of thousands of Palestinians protested the embassy opening and Israeli army forces killed dozens of protesters.

Shah Marai with Agence France-Presse was among those killed in twin suicide blasts in Kabul. "Life seems to be even more difficult than under the Taliban because of the insecurity," he wrote in 2016.

Sharif served as Pakistan's prime minister three times since 1990, and now has been removed from office three times. In the country's 70-year history, no prime minister has completed a five-year term.