Michael Sullivan
Michael Sullivan is NPR's Senior Asia Correspondent. He moved to Hanoi to open NPR's Southeast Asia Bureau in 2003. Before that, he spent six years as NPR's South Asia correspondent based in but seldom seen in New Delhi.
Michael was in Pakistan on 9-11 and spent much of the next two years there and in Afghanistan covering the run up to and the aftermath of the U.S. military campaign to oust the Taliban and al Qaeda. Michael has also reported extensively on terrorism in Southeast Asia, including both Bali bombings. He also covered the attacks on the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. Michael was the first NPR reporter on the ground in both Thailand and the Indonesian province of Aceh following the devastating December 2004 tsunami. He has returned to Aceh more than half a dozen times since to document the recovery and reconstruction effort. As a reporter in NPR's London bureau in the early 1990s he covered the fall of the Soviet Union, the troubles in Northern Ireland, and the aftermath of the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Before moving to New Delhi, Michael was senior producer on NPR's foreign desk. He has worked in more than 60 countries on five continents, covering conflicts in Somalia, the Balkans, Haiti, Chechnya, and the Middle East. Prior to joining the foreign desk, Michael spent several years as producer and acting executive producer of NPR's All Things Considered.
As a reporter, Michael is the recipient of several Overseas Press Club Awards and Citations for Excellence for stories from Haiti, Afghanistan, and Vietnam. He was also part of the NPR team that won an Alfred I DuPont-Columbia University Award for coverage of 9-11 and the war in Afghanistan. In 2004 he was honored by the South Asia Journalists Association (SAJA) with a Special Recognition Award for his 'outstanding work' from 1998-2003 as NPR's South Asia correspondent.
As a producer and editor, Michael has been honored by the Overseas Press Club for work from Bosnia and Haiti; a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for a story about life in Sarajevo during wartime; and a World Hunger Award for stories from Eritrea.
Michael's wife, Martha Ann Overland, is Southeast Asia correspondent for The Chronicle of Higher Education and also writes commentaries on living abroad for NPR. They have two children.
Michael is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He's been at NPR since 1985.
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Myanmar's new military rulers continue squashing dissent with poets and other activists firmly in their sights. Part of a decades long strategy of "state terror and torture" against their citizens.
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"They shoot in the head, but they don't know the revolution is in the heart," Khet Thi wrote. He died in police custody. In opposing the coup, "I have decided to sacrifice my life," he told a friend. -
For over a year, mainland Southeast Asia was largely spared from the COVID-19 pandemic. Not anymore. Recent outbreaks in Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand are infecting and killing more than ever before.
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It's been three months since Myanmar's military seized control. The number of civilians killed protesting the takeover has risen to over 750, and neither side is showing any willingness to compromise.
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A University of Washington professor who's written extensively about Myanmar's military is painting a grim picture of what's to come. She just left the country for what she fears may be the last time.
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U.N. officials warn of civil war in Myanmar as militias run by the country's numerous ethnic minorities weigh an offer to create a federal state with the deposed government of Aung San Suu Kyi.
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China's relationship with Myanmar's military is complicated. Protesters allege that China is turning a blind eye to the military's crackdown — and have recently torched several Chinese factories.
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Violence amid rallies have continued in Myanmar since the military coup which started on Feb. 1. One of the leaders, a young woman, is in no mood to negotiate and wants the military to give up power.
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Myanmar's military has used live ammunition to quell ongoing protests, which are trying to restore democratic rule, killing scores of protesters in recent days.
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Premier Prayuth Chan-ocha, who seized power in a coup six years ago, issued a statement addressing months of unrest, promising to use "all" the country's laws to quash the protests.
