The Russia-Ukraine war is sometimes compared to the static, deadlocked, trench warfare of World War I.  

Yet it’s also been the defining conflict of the 21st century, dominated by drones that have created a so-called “kill zone” along the front line.  We hear about what the kill zone is like and what it means for the future of warfare.

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Chinese manufacturers have not had it easy these past few years, with U.S. tariffs as well as the wars in Ukraine and Iran pushing up their costs and shrinking profits.  

But there is one sector that is thriving despite all of this, the manufacturers of this Chinese tile-game, called mahjong. It’s been trending in the U.S. and that has given a boost to one mahjong manufacturing hub.

We go to eastern China to understand the global implications of this trend.

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In the Israeli occupied West Bank, dozens of Americans have been detained, including a politician running for Congress.  

Settler violence and detentions by the Israeli military have been on the rise for years in the Palestinian territory, which is occupied by Israel. But according to two Israeli lawyers, this is the largest mass detention of activists there in a decade. 

A team from NPR witnessed the detention of a group made up primarily of American and Israeli rabbis, activists and U.S. Democratic congressional nominee Brad Lander. They had been helping Palestinian families harvest their olives to try to prevent attacks by Israeli settlers.

We hear from our reporter who witnessed the event and one of the American rabbis who was detained.

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Sometimes it feels like when we aren’t worried about AI destroying humanity — we worry about it replacing white collar jobs like lawyers, accountants, coders. But tech companies have plans for AI-powered robots to replace blue collar jobs as well.  

We go to southern India, where our correspondent found domestic and factory workers being enlisted to train AI, sometimes without their knowledge.

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Israel holds an election on October 27th, electing members of the Knesset, their parliament.  And this election will decide the future of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

It is the first vote since Hamas-led attacks of October 7th, 2023 and the Gaza war. And a major question shaping the elections is whether the prime minister should be held responsible for the Hamas attacks. We go to Israel, to hear how Israelis are thinking about this election.

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Ukraine finds itself in a difficult situation.  It has endured increased airstrikes from Russia, especially in the capital Kyiv.

One way the country fights back is by hitting Russian energy infrastructure, a way to deny Russia the money it needs to conduct the war.  But President Trump has blamed those strikes on the high cost of diesel in the United States.  He has pressured Ukraine to stop its attacks and he has temporarily lifted sanctions on Russian diesel. 

In today’s episode we hear from Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, about his relationship with President Trump, whether Ukraine is to blame for energy prices, and what he thinks a path to peace looks like.

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In the new documentary “NAZA”, two dozen anonymous Israeli military and intelligence officers describe how they used an AI-powered system to kill Palestinians in Gaza. The film’s premiere received a 25-minute standing ovation at Venice International Film Festival. But in Israel, it has caused a major backlash.  

We hear from the filmmakers and reaction from Israelis.

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The arrest last week of Germany’s former intelligence head, August Hanning, has left the country in shock. He’s suspected of sharing state secrets with other governments. That’s also worrying Western agencies like the CIA, which share intel with Germany.

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With a battered economy made worse by war, many Iranians are looking for ways to provide for their families.  Some decide to travel days over land to make their way to Turkey where they can work under the table.  But the jobs they’re looking for don’t always materialize.  We meet a bus of Iranians arriving in Istanbul in search of employment.


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In this encore episode, we learn about our evolving understanding of an ancient find. When a 9,000 year-old grave of a shaman was discovered in 1930s Germany, the discovery was quickly politicized to support Nazi propaganda. But new analysis shows those assumptions were all wrong. 

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We go to Mexico’s gulf coast to learn about fandango. It is a joyous musical tradition born in the Mexican state of Veracruz that’s been going on for more than 300 years and whose popularity has spread around the world.

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