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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The Rev. Sun Myung Moon, founder of the Unification Church, has died at the age of 92 in Korea. Unification church members viewed him as a messiah, despite allegations of cult-like behavior and financial fraud. Moon was known for presiding over mass weddings and starting the conservative newspaper The Washington Times.
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Groups like Girls' Generation and 2NE1 have turned South Korea into a global pop hot spot. A look inside auditions at one of the country's biggest pop factories. -
President Obama is visiting South Korea for a nuclear security summit just three months after new leader has come to power in North Korea. All parties are looking to see if the atmosphere is changing, but for now, tensions are still running high along the armistice line. -
A year after the earthquake and tsunami that killed almost 20,000 people in northeast Japan, schoolchildren are moving on, but have not forgotten. The students and their teachers talk about the effect the quake and its aftermath has had on them. -
Radiation still leaks from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant in northeast Japan after last year's meltdowns. The continuing threats from the disaster go beyond contamination: For farmers, uncertainty can also be toxic. -
The Kaesong Industrial Complex is a joint North Korea and South Korea experiment. Every day hundreds of workers from South Korea go to work in North Korea, and thousands of workers from North Korea go to jobs in South Korean factories at the complex. The atmosphere was heavy after North Korean leader Kim Jong Il died.
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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.
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In Nepal, Maoist rebels have waged a war against the king for a decade. A visit to the heartland of the Maoist rebellion in Nepal reveals more about the roots of this decade-long civil war and its effects on women and children.
