Rob Schmitz
Rob Schmitz is NPR's international correspondent based in Berlin, where he covers the human stories of a vast region reckoning with its past while it tries to guide the world toward a brighter future. From his base in the heart of Europe, Schmitz has covered Germany's levelheaded management of the COVID-19 pandemic, the rise of right-wing nationalist politics in Poland and creeping Chinese government influence inside the Czech Republic.
Prior to covering Europe, Schmitz provided award-winning coverage of China for a decade, reporting on the country's economic rise and increasing global influence. His reporting on China's impact beyond its borders took him to countries such as Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Vietnam, Thailand, Australia, and New Zealand. Inside China, he's interviewed elderly revolutionaries, young rappers, and live-streaming celebrity farmers who make up the diverse tapestry of one of the most fascinating countries on the planet. He is the author of the critically acclaimed book Street of Eternal Happiness: Big City Dreams Along a Shanghai Road (Crown/Random House 2016), a profile of individuals who live, work, and dream along a single street that runs through the heart of China's largest city. The book won several awards and has been translated into half a dozen languages. In 2018, China's government banned the Chinese version of the book after its fifth printing. The following year it was selected as a finalist for the Ryszard Kapuściński Award, Poland's most prestigious literary prize.
Schmitz has won numerous awards for his reporting on China, including two national Edward R. Murrow Awards and an Education Writers Association Award. His work was also a finalist for the Investigative Reporters and Editors Award. His reporting in Japan — from the hardest-hit areas near the failing Fukushima nuclear power plant following the earthquake and tsunami — was included in the publication 100 Great Stories, celebrating the centennial of Columbia University's Journalism School. In 2012, Schmitz exposed the fabrications in Mike Daisey's account of Apple's supply chain on This American Life. His report was featured in the show's "Retraction" episode. In 2011, New York's Rubin Museum of Art screened a documentary Schmitz shot in Tibetan regions of China about one of the last living Tibetans who had memorized "Gesar of Ling," an epic poem that tells of Tibet's ancient past.
From 2010 to 2016, Schmitz was the China correspondent for American Public Media's Marketplace. He's also worked as a reporter for NPR Member stations KQED, KPCC and MPR. Prior to his radio career, Schmitz lived and worked in China — first as a teacher for the Peace Corps in the 1990s, and later as a freelance print and video journalist. He also lived in Spain for two years. He speaks Mandarin and Spanish. He has a bachelor's degree in Spanish literature from the University of Minnesota, Duluth, and a master's degree from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism.
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Hungarians have taken to the streets of Budapest to protest plans build a Chinese university there.
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The museum features the work of a Hungarian taxidermist who created anthropomorphized exhibits. It had 50,000 visitors in 2019, but numbers fell during the pandemic and the owner now plans to sell.
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The global fight against COVID-19 is in very different stages country to country. Reporters on three continents explain the status of the pandemic in Germany, Kenya and Colombia.
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European leaders meet in Brussels to decide how to respond to Belarus, which forced a commercial airliner to land there — allowing the police to seize an opposition activist on board.
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For Croatia, the most tourism-dependent country in Europe, opening up quickly is crucial to reviving its pandemic-battered economy. Tourist numbers plummeted last year.
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The U.S. and China are seen as the main threats to world peace in a new survey of international public opinion, but views of the U.S. are improving since President Biden's election
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Germany's long lockdowns have pushed tens of thousands of small businesses to insolvency. The government freeze on insolvency requirements could lead to a wave of bankruptcies after this week.
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Health experts in Europe say the continent is facing a third wave of coronavirus infection — exacerbated by virulent new strains and a lack of vaccines.
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The European Medicines Agency has concluded that the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine is safe for use, despite some cases of blood clots among the millions who have received the vaccine.
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There's growing criticism in Europe of some countries' governments deciding to suspend the use of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, since experts say there's no link between the shot and blood clots.
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Only a relatively small number of Germans have been vaccinated against COVID-19, and there's widespread dissatisfaction about the delay. So why then are millions of AstraZeneca shots going unused?
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The European Union condemned the closure of an independent radio station in Hungary, but critics say the EU has been slow to punish Budapest for repeatedly violating democratic principles.