Sylvia Poggioli
Sylvia Poggioli is senior European correspondent for NPR's International Desk covering political, economic, and cultural news in Italy, the Vatican, Western Europe, and the Balkans. Poggioli's on-air reporting and analysis have encompassed the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, the turbulent civil war in the former Yugoslavia, and how immigration has transformed European societies.
Since joining NPR's foreign desk in 1982, Poggioli has traveled extensively for reporting assignments. These include going to Norway to cover the aftermath of the brutal attacks by a right-wing extremist; to Greece, Spain, and Portugal reporting on the eurozone crisis; and the Balkans where the last wanted war criminals have been arrested.
In addition, Poggioli has traveled to France, Germany, United Kingdom, The Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Sweden, and Denmark to produce in-depth reports on immigration, racism, Islam, and the rise of the right in Europe.
She has also travelled with Pope Francis on several of his foreign trips, including visits to Cuba, the United States, Congo, Uganda, Central African Republic, Myanmar, and Bangladesh.
Throughout her career Poggioli has been recognized for her work with distinctions including the WBUR Foreign Correspondent Award, the Welles Hangen Award for Distinguished Journalism, a George Foster Peabody, National Women's Political Caucus/Radcliffe College Exceptional Merit Media Awards, the Edward Weintal Journalism Prize, and the Silver Angel Excellence in the Media Award. Poggioli was part of the NPR team that won the 2000 Overseas Press Club Award for coverage of the war in Kosovo. In 2009, she received the Maria Grazia Cutulli Award for foreign reporting.
In 2000, Poggioli received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Brandeis University. In 2006, she received an honorary degree from the University of Massachusetts Boston together with Barack Obama.
Prior to this honor, Poggioli was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences "for her distinctive, cultivated and authoritative reports on 'ethnic cleansing' in Bosnia." In 1990, Poggioli spent an academic year at Harvard University as a research fellow at Harvard University's Center for Press, Politics, and Public Policy at the Kennedy School of Government.
From 1971 to 1986, Poggioli served as an editor on the English-language desk for the Ansa News Agency in Italy. She worked at the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy. She was actively involved with women's film and theater groups.
The daughter of Italian anti-fascists who were forced to flee Italy under Mussolini, Poggioli was born in Providence, Rhode Island, and grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She graduated from Harvard College with a bachelor's degree in romance languages and literature. She later studied in Italy under a Fulbright Scholarship.
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Italian film director Paolo Sorrentino discusses his new film The Hand of God, which opens in U.S. theaters Dec. 3. It's about the tragedy he experienced as a teen and the escape he found in cinema.
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Trieste has a reputed approach to bringing people with mental illnesses out of hospitals and into the community. Now the region's hard-right politicians are breaking the system apart. -
It was a busy day at the G20 Summit, as leaders from the world's 20 wealthiest countries met in Rome, Italy for their first in-person gathering after nearly two years of coronavirus lockdowns.
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President Biden is beginning his European trip by meeting with Pope Francis at the Vatican. These two leaders know each other quite well, and share many of the same concerns.
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Following violent neo-fascist protests earlier this week, Italy's largest labor federation is holding a rally Saturday to condemn the far-right.
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One of the world's largest regattas, the Barcolana in Trieste, Italy, held its 69th race this week. It is a time to celebrate the good life.
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Italy is imposing one of the most strict COVID vaccine mandates in the world starting next month by requiring workers in public or private jobs to show proof of vaccination or lose pay.
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The "green pass" will show whether a person has been vaccinated, recently recovered from COVID, or tested negative for the virus. Workers failing to present a pass will be suspended without pay.
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Overshadowed by nearby Venice, the lesser-known city of Trieste is one of Italy's great destinations and once the stomping ground of great writers like James Joyce. -
Vatican prosecutors accuse a once-powerful cardinal, as well as nine other people, with defrauding the Holy See of millions of dollars. Their trial started this week after a two-year investigation.
