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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In Dalit Kitchens of Marathwada, Shahu Patole pays tribute to a cuisine that has long been considered not worthy of documentation. We interviewed Patole — and are sharing some of his recipes. -
Assad's fall came too late for the father of NPR's Diaa Hadid, who was briefly detained by Syrian forces during their occupation of northern Lebanon.
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The operation came hours after thousands of Khan supporters broke through a barrier of shipping containers blocking off Islamabad and clashed with security forces. -
Protesters surged into the capital Islamabad -- amid gunfire and teargas -- as they demanded the release of former Prime Minister Imran Khan.
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The world's most populous country has consistently favorable views of U.S. President-elect Trump. In a Pew Research Center poll, 42% of Indians, including 51% of men, said they had confidence in him. -
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. -
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. -
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. -
A report into sexual assault in one of India's most respected film industries has triggered a #MeToo-style reckoning.
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Some Amazon workers in India are speaking out -- saying they want better conditions. One worker explains what it was like to work at a loading dock at an Amazon facility during the recent heatwave.
