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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Pakistan struck Iranian territory in response to Iranian strikes in Pakistani territory earlier this week. Pakistan has expelled the Iranian ambassador.
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Sheikh Hasina has been elected to a fourth successive term in elections that were marred by a boycott and low voter turnout. What's next, and what are the implications for the U.S.?
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In Pakistan, illiterate fishermen have become citizen scientists, helping to revive the fortunes of the endangered Indus River dolphin. -
Bangladesh heads to elections on Sunday. Experts warn the expected victory of the ruling party will likely cause more instability amid a crackdown on political opponents, critics and the press.
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Bangladesh heads into this weekend's election with the ruling party expected to sweep to power again — amid a crackdown on political opponents, critics and the press.
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January 1 is a common birthday in Pakistan and Afghanistan because 1/1 is an easy date for people to remember in cultures that don't follow Western standards of time.
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India and Russia have a decades-old, friendly relationship that has only grown closer since Russia's invasion of Ukraine. But India is also close to the United States, which opposes the war.
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It's considered the world's most polluted megacity. The air is so bad that a new report estimates that on average each resident loses 12 years of life. Here's what they're doing about it. -
The relationship between the U.S. and India took a hit after the Justice Department announced charges against an Indian national for allegedly taking part in a murder-for-hire scheme on U.S. soil.
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India rejoices as 41 men are rescued from a tunnel they were trapped inside for 17 days. The tunnel is part of a government flagship project to expand access to sacred shrines in the Himalayas.
