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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For decades, India's Sikhs have longed to reach one of their holiest sites, a soaring white temple, built on a river bank. A new corridor will allow them visa-free access to the temple. -
Pakistan's prime minister will break ground on a corridor linking to India. It will allow visa-free travel for India's Sikhs to one of their holy sites.
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Family planning researchers point to a number of reasons. The procedure itself is legal in Pakistan — but only in limited circumstances. -
At least seven people were killed in the attack, but none of the 21 Chinese nationals in the compound were harmed. In a separate attack in northwest Pakistan, dozens were killed in an open-air market. -
Rights groups estimate as many as 1 million Uighurs are detained in Chinese camps, with the aim of stripping away their ethnic identity, suppressing their Muslim faith and ensuring loyalty to China. -
The release of Mullah Baradar more than eight years after he was detained in Karachi is seen as a goodwill gesture with the potential to bring the Taliban to the table.
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In Pakistan's port city, gangs siphon off water from government pipes and resell it to residents. Surprisingly, the municipal water board is now partnering with the mafia to distribute it. -
The Afghan-born former diplomat served as U.S. ambassador in Kabul under President George W. Bush. In Afghanistan, views of Khalilzad are mixed, with some blaming him for many of the country's woes.
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Pakistan's cricket hero, Imran Khan, has claimed victory in the country's general election, despite claims from other parties that the vote was rigged.
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Tens of millions of Pakistanis are casting votes in the country's national elections. The balloting has been scarred by violence — including a suicide bombing that killed more than two dozen people.
