Underreported from WNYC's The Leonard Lopate Show

Roughly 14 years have passed since the signing of the Good Friday peace accord, which ended decades of bloody conflict in Northern Ireland. But that doesn’t mean the area is free of conflict, tensions and even violence. Jamie Smyth of the Financial Times talks about the situation. His recent article is called "A Peace to Protect."

As violence escalates in Syria, thousands of refugees are pouring across the border into neighboring countries. International Rescue Committee’s Melanie Megevand and Sanjayan Srikanthan talk about what’s happening on the ground there.

Donatella Rovera, senior adviser on crisis response for Amnesty International, spent several weeks this spring in 23 of Syria’s towns and villages. On this week’s Underreported, she describes the damage she saw as traveled around the country and the stories she heard from Syrians about the tactics of the national army as fighting continues there, 16 months after the protests first began.

Scientists recently made an unlikely discovery under thinning arctic ice: a massive algae bloom. Kevin Arrigo, a biological oceanographer at Stanford University who led the NASA-sponsored mission that discovered the algae, explains how it changes our thinking about arctic ecosystems and how they’re responding to climate change.

A report from the New America Foundation has found that the Obama Administration has dramatically escalated its drone war in Yemen. Peter Bergen talks about the report’s findings and their regional implications.

Thailand is one of the largest exporters of seafood to the United States. On today’s Underreported segment, Global Post’s senior southeast Asian correspondent Patrick Winn investigates claims that forced labor is used on Thai fishing boats.

University of Pennsylvania law professor David Skeel explains the recent judicial expansion of the Martin Act of 1921, which now makes it easier for private investors to file lawsuits against investment firms.

On today’s Underreported, directors Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher talk about the people who serve as human test subjects for medications being developed by pharmaceutical companies. They look at how those medications are being marketed, sold, and used throughout the United States after they’ve been approved. It’s the subject of their documentary, “Off Label,” which is being shown at the Tribeca Film Festival.

In China, Asiatic black bears are kept in cages for their bile, which is valued in Asian medicine. Jill Robinson, the founder and CEO of Animals Asia, who appears in the documentary "Cages of Shame," talks about bear bile farming and bear rescue efforts.

"Cages of Shame" premiers at the Rubin Museum of Art April 14.

Quinoa has become an incredibly popular food in recent years, with prices for the whole grain tripling in the last five years. On today’s Underreported, Time writer Jean Friedman-Rudovksy talks about how the exploding market for quinoa has also created problems, including land disputes in Bolivia and environmental issues.