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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The Taliban accuse the government of spreading COVID-19 in prisons and warn of revenge if their prisoners are harmed. With prisoners on both sides at risk, peace efforts have become more complicated.
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As incomes dry up for low-paid Pakistanis during the COVID-19 crisis, the government is massively expanding a program that gives cash to the out-of-work. But concerns are being raised about its reach.
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Pakistan has reported thousands of cases of COVID-19, but the more immediate threat for many there is hunger. The lockdown has dried up income for millions of tradesman, beggars and day laborers.
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Social distancing may be key to stopping the spread of COVID-19, but it's impossible if you live places like the urban slums of Pakistan.
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Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, who was looking into jihadi terrorism, was beheaded on camera in early 2002. The Pakistani prosecutor is appealing the ruling to his country's supreme court.
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One Pakistani entrepreneur is making protective gear. A Pakistani lawyer raised thousands of dollars and converted his office into a food storehouse for people in need.
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The prisoner swaps, stipulated in last month's peace deal between the U.S. and Taliban, were in doubt for weeks amid Afghan government discord. They're expected to kickstart inter-Afghan peace talks.
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The Tablighi Jamaat, a global missionary group, brought together thousands of Muslim preachers from 80 countries. The Gaza Strip's first cases of coronavirus infection are linked to this gathering.
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Communal Friday prayer is a touchstone of life for Muslims. But African and Arab communities have halted those prayers to prevent spread of the coronavirus. In Pakistan, clerics are defiant.
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We've heard a great deal about the experience of the coronavirus pandemic in China and Europe but how is it impacting other countries? We check in with our reporters in Pakistan, Kenya and Mexico.