
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.
-
A high-stakes vote in Thailand's parliament could end nearly a decade of conservative rule that began with a military coup.
-
Voters in Thailand have delivered a stinging rebuke to the nine-year rule of the military-led government. But will the opposition party that won the most votes get a chance to rule?
-
Voters in Thailand overwhelmingly backed opposition parties promising to bring change — delivering a stunning rebuke to the military-backed government that has led them for nearly a decade.
-
A progressive political party popular with young people is challenging the status quo in Thailand, where voters will go to the polls on Sunday after nine years of military-backed rule.
-
Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. says he aims to forge a stronger relationship with Washington, and China's territorial expansion in the South China Sea will be a major topic to discuss.
-
Nilar Thein, an activist who met her husband while imprisoned, started a family during the heady days of Myanmar's experiment with democracy. Her husband now dead, she's on the run.
-
Two years after Myanmar's military coup, the country continues to be unstable. Meanwhile, about one million minority Rohingya refugees continue to languish in camps in neighboring Bangladesh.
-
Two years after Myanmar's military coup, the country continues to be unstable. Meanwhile, about one million minority Rohingya refugees continue to languish in camps in neighboring Bangladesh.
-
Friday should be the end of Myanmar's former leader's legal drama. What's next for Aung San Suu Kyi?
-
President Biden will be in Cambodia this weekend for summits with Asian leaders. Myanmar's military rulers were not invited — their 2021 coup has left the country in chaos.