Neha Wadekar
May 18, 2023Radio
How did Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich end up wrongfully imprisoned in Russia, and what happens now? On March 29, Russian authorities arrested Evan and accused him of spying on Russia on behalf of the US government. Evan was imprisoned in Moscow’s Lefortovo prison, where he remains today. In this special episode from Project Brazen, you’ll hear from those close to Evan — his friends, newsroom colleagues, even his former soccer coach — about his shocking arrest, efforts to bring him home, and how he became the journalist he is today. Evan is the first American reporter to be charged with espionage in Russia since the Cold War. The charge, which The Journal vehemently denies, can carry a sentence of up to 20 years.
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April 19, 2023Radio
In this bonus episode of Dynamite Doug, I traveled to Kenya to see how it is responding to the loss of its own cultural heritage to traders and colonizers. More than 32,000 Kenyan cultural artifacts, ranging from drinking gourds to tribal belts and ceremonial shields, live in museums around the world, and are largely inaccessible to Kenyan people. Kenyan artists and technologists are working to digitally catalog these items and bring them to life through 3D printing and virtual reality – but critics say it’s no replacement for repatriation.
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Two Harvard Grads Saw Big Profits in African Education. Children Paid the Price.
For six months, The Intercept’s Ryan Grim and I investigated horrendous child sex abuse allegations at Bridge International Academies, a chain of low-cost, for-profit private schools started by two former Harvard graduates and funded by Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and Pierre Omidyar, as well as the International Finance Corporation, the lending arm of the World Bank.
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February 16, 2023Radio
In this bonus episode of Kabul Falling, I interviewed Mohsin Mohi Ud Din, the founder of Me We International, an international organization that uses art – like poetry, creative writing, song, dance, and theater – to help refugees heal from trauma and author their futures.
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February 15, 2023Articles
Thailand has long been one of the world’s major sex tourism destinations. Estimates of sex work’s contribution to GDP vary widely because the industry operates almost entirely underground. But in 2015, the black market research company Havocscope valued it at $6.4 billion per year—about 1.5 percent of the country’s GDP that year.
Despite earning billions annually, the industry is effectively illegal, controversial among Thais, and highly stigmatized. Now, the debate over sex work is spilling into public forums, with a progressive lawmaker introducing a bill in parliament to legalize it. Its proponents argue that criminalization has deprived sex workers of basic labor rights and protections enjoyed by other workers, making them more vulnerable to health risks, harassment, exploitation, and violence—while making sex work itself no less visible.
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November 10, 2022Radio
Neha Wadekar, Associate Producer of Kabul Falling, speaks with Rahman, a former acting general in the Afghan army, and Carly Sparkes, operations manager at Azadi Charity, about what it’s like to leave behind the only life you’ve ever known and resettle in a foreign country to rebuild anew.
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December 9, 2022Press
At the IACC 2022, I moderated the plenary entitled Fighting Greed, Kleptocracy, Oligarchs, Money Laundering and their Enablers. My intro starts at 24:15 in the video. The esteemed panelists did an amazing job, and the discussion got heated. Check out their perspectives by clicking on the link!
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December 19, 2022Articles
December 9th was International Anti-Corruption Day. Fuller Project contributor Neha Wadekar attended the International Anti-Corruption Conference (IACC), a gathering in Washington, D.C., that brought together heads of state, civil society, business leaders and investigative journalists.
The conference drew some of the world’s most prominent anti-corruption voices. Among them was Maria Pevchikh, Chief Investigator at the Anti-Corruption Foundation, a non-governmental organization founded by Alexei Navalny, the leading political rival of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Read our interview with Maria here.
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December 19, 2022Videos
December 9th was International Anti-Corruption Day. Fuller Project contributor Neha Wadekar attended the International Anti-Corruption Conference (IACC), a gathering in Washington, D.C., that brought together heads of state, civil society, business leaders and investigative journalists.
The conference drew some of the world’s most prominent anti-corruption voices. Among them was Maria Pevchikh, Chief Investigator at the Anti-Corruption Foundation, a non-governmental organization founded by Alexei Navalny, the leading political rival of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Watch our interview with Maria here.
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December 28, 2022Videos
In one of the world’s most popular sex tourism destinations, sex workers, nonprofit organizations and politicians are part of a growing movement to decriminalize the industry. It’s an attempt to help sex workers earn basic rights and protections. Special correspondent Neha Wadekar reports from Thailand.
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