Diaa Hadid
Diaa Hadid chiefly covers Pakistan and Afghanistan for NPR News. She is based in NPR's bureau in Islamabad. There, Hadid and her team were awarded a Murrow in 2019 for hard news for their story on why abortion rates in Pakistan are among the highest in the world.
Hadid has also documented the culture war surrounding Valentines' Day in Pakistan, the country's love affair with Vespa scooters and the struggle of a band of women and girls to ride their bikes in public. She visited a town notorious in Pakistan for a series of child rapes and murders, and attended class with young Pakistanis racing to learn Mandarin as China's influence over the country expands.
Hadid joined NPR after reporting from the Middle East for over a decade. She worked as a correspondent for The New York Times from March 2015 to March 2017, and she was a correspondent for The Associated Press from 2006 to 2015.
Hadid documented the collapse of Gadhafi's rule in Libya from the capital, Tripoli. In Cairo's Tahrir Square, she wrote of revolutionary upheaval sweeping Egypt. She covered the violence of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria from Baghdad, Erbil and Dohuk. From Beirut, she was the first to report on widespread malnutrition and starvation inside a besieged rebel district near Damascus. She also covered Syria's war from Damascus, Homs, Tartous and Latakia.
Her favorite stories are about people and moments that capture the complexity of the places she covers.
They include her story on a lonely-hearts club in Gaza, run by the militant Islamic group Hamas. She unraveled the mysterious murder of a militant commander, discovering that he was killed for being gay. In the West Bank, she profiled Israel's youngest prisoner, a 12-year-old Palestinian girl who got her first period while being interrogated.
In Syria, she met the last great storyteller of Damascus, whose own trajectory of loss reflected that of his country. In Libya, she profiled a synagogue that once was the beating heart of Tripoli's Jewish community.
In Baghdad, Hadid met women who risked their lives to visit beauty salons in a quiet rebellion against extremism and war. In Lebanon, she chronicled how poverty was pushing Syrian refugee women into survival sex.
Hadid documented the Muslim pilgrimage to holy sites in Saudi Arabia, known as the Hajj, using video, photographs and essays.
Hadid began her career as a reporter for The Gulf News in Dubai in 2004, covering the abuse and hardships of foreign workers in the United Arab Emirates. She was raised in Canberra by a Lebanese father and an Egyptian mother. She graduated from the Australian National University with a B.A. (with Honors) specializing in Arabic, a language she speaks fluently. She also makes do in Hebrew and Spanish.
Her passions are her daughter, photography, cooking, vintage dress shopping and listening to the radio. She sings really badly, but that won't stop her.
Meet Hadid on Twitter @diaahadid, or see her photos on Instagram. She also often posts up her work on her community Facebook page.
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Amazon India says it ensures breaks and worker safety, but workers tell NPR they're pressured not to stop for water or to use the toilet, especially while processing same-day orders.
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In Indian-controlled Kashmir, residents are voting in elections that some hope will lead to restoration of the territory's statehood, which ended when it became a federally governed territory in 2019.
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A new morality law is full of restrictions. No neckties for men. Photos cannot be reproduced. The harshest rules are for women — who are singing out on social media to protest the ban on singing.
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They're out on the streets directing traffic and are taking part in Bangladesh's new interim government. Hopes are high — but there also are doubts about what they can realistically achieve.
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In her first statement since fleeing Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina denied responsibility for deaths in protests that led to her ouster. A court ordered police to open a murder investigation against her.
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The Nobel Peace laureate known for fighting poverty returns to Bangladesh Thursday to begin leading an interim government after former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina fled to India earlier this week.
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For the most vulnerable in New Delhi, it's a struggle to survive. Ishtiyaq, 24, who sells the cooling yogurt drink lassi in a bazaar, says: “What can I say brother? The poor must endure it all.”
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For the first time, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will lead a coalition after his party was humbled in its traditional stronghold of the Hindi-speaking belt of northern India.
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Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has won a third term, but voters drastically clipped his wings by handing his alliance a narrower margin than predicted.
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As Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi looks to win a third term, NPR visited some of his voter base in the north.