Doualy Xaykaothao
Doualy Xaykaothao is a newscaster and reporter for NPR, based in Culver City. She returned to NPR for this role in 2018, and is responsible for writing, producing, and delivering national newscasts. She also reports on breaking news stories for NPR.
Before she came to NPR, Xaykaothao was a correspondent at Minnesota Public Radio, where she covered race, culture, and immigration. She also served as a senior reporter at KERA, NPR's Member station in Dallas and was an Annenberg Fellow at Member station KPCC in Pasadena.
Xaykaothao first joined NPR in 1999 as a production assistant for Morning Edition, and has since worked as a producer, editor, director, and reporter for NPR's award-winning newsmagazines. For many years, Xaykaothao was also based in Seoul and Bangkok, chasing breaking news in North and Southeast Asia for NPR. In Thailand, she covered the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami. In South Korea, she reported on rising tensions between the two Koreas, including Pyongyang's attack on the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong. In Nepal, as a 2006 International Reporting Project Fellow, she reported on the effects of war on children and women. In 2011, she was the first NPR reporter to reach northern Japan to cover the Tōhoku earthquake and the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear meltdowns.
Xaykaothao is a multi-platform journalist whose work has won Edward R. Murrow and Peabody Awards. She is a member of the ethnic Hmong hill tribe, born in Laos, but raised in France and the United States. She attended college in upstate New York, where she specialized in ethnic studies, television, radio, and political science.
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In the city of Aizuwakamatsu, evacuees gathered at a small shelter at a technical high school say what they need most is information about what to do next. The school's assistant principal has taken on the role of disaster coordinator. He says it's important that people see him staying calm. -
As many as 400,000 people in Japan are now displaced due to the earthquake, tsunami and subsequent crisis at the nuclear power plant. Doualy Xaykaothao reports for NPR from Fukushima prefecture, in one of the largest shelters in Koriyama City.
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Thousands of people have fled northeast Japan's exclusion zone around the crippled nuclear power plant. Thousands more Japanese lost their homes in last week's earthquake and tsunami.
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After another explosion was reported at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, Japan's prime minister announced that those living within about a 20-mile radius should stay inside their homes. But many did the exact opposite: They packed their cars or got into buses — and headed west. -
Japan grapples with the mounting humanitarian crisis that has followed from the massive earthquake and tsumani. Thousands are dead and displaced in the northeastern part of the country.
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Japan continues to report strong aftershocks following the most powerful earthquake in its modern history. Teams of emergency workers, including soldiers and volunteers, are still looking for survivors along the hardest hit areas of Japan's northeastern coast. In addition, reporter Doualy Xaykaothao says an estimated 170,000 people have been evacuated in the Fukushima prefecture to avoid exposure to radiation from nuclear reactors at a power plant.
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As military drills between the U.S. and South Korea go forward, residents of Yeonpyeong island have sought shelter at a spa complex on the mainland. But they are anything but relaxed. -
Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter has won the release of an American citizen from a North Korea prison. Boston native Aijalon Gomes had been teaching in South Korea when he crossed illegally into the North and was imprisoned in January.
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The U.S. ambassador to Thailand said an American plane filled with relief supplies was ready to take off for Myanmar on Thursday, but the government there revoked permission. U.S. disaster relief specialists are also having trouble getting in, despite their unique and badly needed skills.
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The most senior woman in Nepal's Maoist insurgency is known as Comrade Parvati. In a rare interview from hiding in India, she explains why women are drawn to the insurgency, how children are used in the insurgency and why killing is sometimes neccessary.
