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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The Philippines is one of only two countries where divorce remains illegal. But a new bill permitting it has passed the House. A recent survey found 53 percent of Filipinos favor allowing divorce. -
Mahathir Mohamad, who previously led Malaysia for more than two decades, has won a surprise victory over Prime Minister Najib Razak, who has been embroiled in a long-running corruption scandal. -
Jude Sabio filed an International Criminal Court case against President Rodrigo Duterte for crimes against humanity in the war on drugs. "I'm afraid that I'll be killed at any time," Sabio says. -
Jude Sabio's crusade has led to the International Criminal Court investigating Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte for extrajudicial killings in his so-called "war on drugs."
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President Rodrigo Duterte called Boracay island a "cesspool." It draws 2 million visitors a year but isn't equipped to accommodate them. Residents agree there's a problem, but worry about losing jobs. -
An investigation by The Associated Press details a massacre and at least five mass graves in Myanmar's Rakhine State. Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya have fled from there to Bangladesh since last August.
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The deputy prime minister is believed to own some 25 luxury watches, worth more than $1 million. The fallout has tarnished the government's image, leading some to wonder how much longer it will last. -
Myanmar and Bangladesh say they have signed an agreement to allow the return of Rohingya refugees who fled to Bangladesh. But many Rohingya say they are too scared of violent attacks in Myanmar to return home.
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Bangladesh is struggling to accommodate 500,000-plus Rohingya who have poured across the border in less than two months. It isn't recognizing them as refugees and would prefer to see them repatriated. -
In August, a Rohingya militant group attacked Myanmar security forces, leading to retribution. Since then, hundreds of thousands have fled to Bangladesh. Some believe the militants went too far.
