Accessibility links
Rund Abdelfatah Rund Abdelfatah is the co-host and producer of Throughline.
Rund Abdelfatah headshot
Stories By

Rund Abdelfatah

Saturday

La Última Copa: El sueño del pibe
Manan Vatsyayana / AFP via Getty Images

Throughline

La Última Copa: El sueño del pibe

Ésta semana te presentamos un episodio muy especial de nuestros amigos en NPR y Futuro Media — su primer episodio del podcast La Última Copa, en Español. Todo comenzó con una gambeta extraordinaria en una ciudad Argentina. A eso le siguió la llegada a España y el club de fútbol que definiría su carrera, el Barça. La periodista Jasmine Garsd explora el camino trazado por Lionel Messi antes de convertirse en uno de los mejores del mundo. En la Argentina, donde el fútbol a menudo se convierte en obsesión, Messi fue el chico que se marchó antes de tiempo.La historia se cruza con las vivencias de la propia Garsd durante el colapso social del 2001 en la Argentina y el impacto de la crisis en la vida de Messi.

La Última Copa: El sueño del pibe

Listen · 41:40
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1138725075/1200556333" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">

Thursday

The Last Cup: The Kid's Dream
Manan Vatsyayana / AFP via Getty Images

Throughline

The Last Cup: The Kid's Dream

This week we're bringing you something special from our friends at NPR and Futuro Media: the first episode of the podcast, The Last Cup. From his earliest goals on the soccer fields of his hometown in Argentina to his arrival at Spain's Barça Football Club, host Jasmine Garsd follows the journey of a gifted kid who would go on to become one of the best soccer players ever. In Argentina, where the national sport is a fierce obsession, Lionel Messi was the one that got away. As Garsd retraces Messi's early career, she examines the consequences of Argentina's devastating economic crisis of 2001, how it shaped Messi's path, and what it meant for her own life.

The Last Cup: The Kid's Dream

Listen · 41:40
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1138722270/1200556337" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">

Thursday

How Qatar became this year's World Cup host
Catherine Ivill/Getty Images

Throughline

How Qatar became this year's World Cup host

Football, aka soccer, is life. At least, it is for many people across the globe. There are few things that are universally beloved but this sport comes close. And as teams on nearly every continent prepare for the start of the World Cup, all eyes are on one tiny country at the tip of the desert. Qatar. The first Arab country ever to secure the World Cup bid. But it's been a long and complicated road to get to this moment. Espionage. Embargoes. Covert deals. This is the story of Qatar's decades-long pursuit of the World Cup bid and its role in the nation's transformation into a global power.

How Qatar became this year's World Cup host

Listen · 51:48
Transcript
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1136875657/1200556341" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Thursday

Middle East

Struggle for gender equality in Iran began generations before the latest protests

In light of the ongoing protests in Iran, NPR history podcast Throughline explores Iranian women's long history of political activism.

Struggle for gender equality in Iran began generations before the latest protests

Listen · 7:08
Transcript
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1135718958/1135718959" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript
Dreams, Creatures, and Visions
Chistof Stache/AFP via Getty Images

Throughline

Dreams, Creatures, and Visions

We are in the season of chaos. It can feel like everything is happening at once: You might be sprinting across an airport; or around your kitchen, with a few too many dishes cooking at once. Your phone keeps pinging — texts, weather alerts, and more and more breaking news. Here at Throughline, we're always going to different places in time and space. So this week, come with us: to another time, another place, another realm. In this episode, we'll be your sonic travel guides on a journey through bite-sized pieces of Throughline's most immersive episodes, from the shadowy world of dreams, to the midst of the Revolutionary War, to the haunting music of Radiohead and their visions of the future.

Dreams, Creatures, and Visions

Listen · 48:10
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1135166999/1200556345" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">

Wednesday

Throughline: How Korean culture went global

Korean band BTS appears at the daily press briefing with Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, in the Brady Press Briefing of the White House in Washington, DC, May 31, 2022. SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

toggle caption
SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images

Code Switch

Throughline: How Korean culture went global

From BTS to Squid Game to high-end beauty standards, South Korea reigns as a global exporter of pop culture and entertainment. How does a country go from a war-decimated state just 70 years ago, to a major driver of global soft power? Through war, occupation, economic crisis, and national strategy, comes a global phenomenon - the Korean wave. This is an episode from our play cousins Throughline and originally aired September 8th, 2022.

Throughline: How Korean culture went global

Listen · 48:05
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1134772593/1199264759" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">

Thursday

The Most Sacred Right (2020)
Kaz Fantone

Throughline

The Most Sacred Right (2020)

Born into slavery in the early 1800s, Frederick Douglass would live to see the Civil War, Emancipation, Black men getting the right to vote, and the beginning of the terrors and humiliations of Jim Crow. And through all of that, he kept coming back to one thing, a sacred right he believed was at the heart of American democracy: Voting. Next week is the midterm election. So this week, we're bringing you an episode we originally published right before the 2020 election. And we're tackling a question that still feels very timely — a question that both haunted and drove Frederick Douglass his entire life. Is our democracy set up to include everyone? And if not... can it ever be?

The Most Sacred Right (2020)

Listen · 1:02:29
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1133302141/1200556349" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">

Thursday

The State of Disunion
Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images

Throughline

The State of Disunion

Is the U.S. on the brink of civil war? It's a question that has been in the air for a while now, as divisions continue to worsen. Beyond the political speeches and debates in the halls of Congress, it's something you're likely feeling in your day-to-day life. Vaccines, school curriculums, climate change, what you define as a human rights issue, even who you call a friend. Some say we've moved beyond the point of discussion. But when words fail, what comes next? In conversation with Malcolm Nance, Anne Applebaum, and Peniel Joseph, we take a deeper look at what we mean when we say civil war, how exactly the country reached this political moment, and where we go from here.

The State of Disunion

Listen · 48:48
Transcript
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1131732636/1200556353" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Thursday

The Woman Question
Stefani Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images

Throughline

The Woman Question

What's happening in Iran right now is unprecedented. But the Iranian people's struggle for gender equality began generations before the death of 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman Mahsa Amini, also known by her Kurdish name, Jina Amini. The successes of this struggle, as well as its setbacks and horrors, are well-documented, but often misunderstood. Scholar Arzoo Osanloo argues that women have been at the center of Iran's century-long fight for freedom and self-determination. It's a historical thread that goes all the way back to Iran's Constitutional Revolution in the early 20th century: A complicated story of reform, revolution, and a fundamental questioning of whether Iranian people — and people around the Islamic world — will accept a government of clerics as the sole arbiters of Islam and the state.

The Woman Question

Listen · 49:44
Transcript
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1129998206/1200556357" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Thursday

The Dance of the Dead (2021)
Hokyoung Kim

Throughline

The Dance of the Dead (2021)

Halloween — the night of ghost stories and trick-or-treating — has religious origins that span over two thousand years. Over time, the Catholic Church, pagan groups, and even the brewing company Coors have played a role in shape-shifting the holiday. How did Halloween turn from a spiritual celebration to a multi-billion dollar industry? From the Great Famine of Ireland to the Simpsons, we present the many evolutions of Halloween.

The Dance of the Dead (2021)

Listen · 49:56
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1127279631/1200556361" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">

Thursday

Silicon Island
Annabelle Chih/Getty Images

Throughline

Silicon Island

In a world where computer chips run everything from laptops to cars to the Nintendo Switch, Taiwan is the undisputed leader. It's one of the most powerful tech centers in the world — so powerful that both China and the U.S. have vital interests there. But if you went back to the Taiwan of the 1950s, this would have seemed unimaginable. It was a quiet, sleepy island; an agrarian culture. Fifty years later, it experienced what many recall as an "economic miracle" — a transformation into not just one of Asia's economic powerhouses, but one of the world's.

Silicon Island

Listen · 46:59
Transcript
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1127015286/1200556365" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Monday

History

The NPR podcast 'Throughline' examines how Korean culture went global

From BTS to Squid Game, South Korea reigns as a global exporter of pop culture. In the past two decades, government intervention has led the country to become a major driver of global soft power.

The NPR podcast 'Throughline' examines how Korean culture went global

Listen · 7:16
Transcript
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1126517153/1126517154" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Thursday

Editing Reality
Ethan Miller/Getty Images

Throughline

Editing Reality

We live in divided times, when the answer to the question 'what is reality?' depends on who you ask. Almost all the information we take in is to some extent edited and curated, and the line between entertainment and reality has become increasingly blurred. Nowhere is that more obvious than the world of reality television. The genre feeds off our most potent feelings – love, hope, anxiety, loneliness – and turns them into profit... and presidents. So in this episode, we're going to filter three themes of our modern world through the lens of reality TV: dating, the American dream, and the rage machine.

Editing Reality

Listen · 51:58
Transcript
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1125714010/1200556369" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Thursday

Five Fingers Crush the Land (2021)

This photo taken on June 2, 2019 shows a facility believed to be a re-education camp where mostly Muslim ethnic minorities are detained, in Artux, north of Kashgar in China's western Xinjiang region. GREG BAKER/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

toggle caption
GREG BAKER/AFP via Getty Images

Throughline

Five Fingers Crush the Land (2021)

Over one million Uyghur people have been detained in camps in China, according to estimates, subjected to torture, forced labor, religious restrictions, and even forced sterilization. Last month, the United Nations released a report saying that China's treatment of Uyghurs could be considered "crimes against humanity." The vast majority of this minority ethnic group is Muslim, living for centuries at a crossroads of culture and empire along what was once the Silk Road. This week, we explore who the Uyghur people are, their land, their customs, their music and why they've become the target of what many are calling a genocide.

Five Fingers Crush the Land (2021)

Listen · 55:52
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1124231371/1200556373" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">

Thursday

Getting to Sesame Street

'Sesame Street' hosts Matt Robinson (Gordon), Will Lee (Mr. Hooper) Loretta Long (Susan) and Bob McGrath (Bob) stand with Big Bird on set, circa 1969. Hulton Archive/Children's Television Workshop/Getty Images hide caption

toggle caption
Hulton Archive/Children's Television Workshop/Getty Images

Throughline

Getting to Sesame Street

In American history, schools have not just been places to learn the ABCs – they're places where socialization happens and cultural norms are developed. Arguments over how and what those norms are and how they're communicated tend to flare up during moments of cultural anxiety. Sesame Street was part of a larger movement in the late 1960s to reach lower income, less privileged and more "urban" audiences. It was part of LBJ's Great Society agenda. But Sesame Street is a TV show - not a classroom. And it was funded in part by taxpayer dollars. This story is about how a television show made to represent New York City neighborhoods – like Harlem and the Bronx – has sustained its mark in educating children in a divided country.

Getting to Sesame Street

Listen · 49:00
Transcript
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1122499583/1200556377" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript