Jackie Northam
Jackie Northam is NPR's International Affairs Correspondent. She is a veteran journalist who has spent three decades reporting on conflict, politics, and life across the globe - from the mountains of Afghanistan and the desert sands of Saudi Arabia, to the gritty prison camp at Guantanamo Bay and the pristine beauty of the Arctic.
Northam spent more than a dozen years as an international correspondent living in London, Budapest, Bangkok, Phnom Penh, and Nairobi. She charted the collapse of communism, covered the first Gulf War from Saudi Arabia, counter-terrorism efforts in Pakistan, and reported from Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein.
Her work has taken her to conflict zones around the world. Northam covered the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, arriving in the country just four days after Hutu extremists began slaughtering ethnic Tutsis. In Afghanistan, she accompanied Green Berets on a precarious mission to take a Taliban base. In Cambodia, she reported from Khmer Rouge strongholds.
Throughout her career, Northam has put a human face on her reporting, whether it be the courage of villagers walking miles to cast their vote in an Afghan election despite death threats from militants, or the face of a rescue worker as he desperately listens for any sound of life beneath the rubble of a collapsed elementary school in Haiti.
Northam joined NPR in 2000 as National Security Correspondent, covering US defense and intelligence policies. She led the network's coverage of the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal and the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Her present beat focuses on the complex relationship between international business and geopolitics, including how the lifting of nuclear sanctions has opened Iran for business, the impact of China's efforts to buy up businesses and real estate around the world, and whether President Trump's overseas business interests are affecting US policy.
Northam has received multiple journalism awards during her career, including Associated Press awards and regional Edward R. Murrow awards, and was part of an NPR team of journalists who won an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award for "The DNA Files," a series about the science of genetics.
A native of Canada, Northam spends her time off crewing in the summer, on the ski hills in the winter, and on long walks year-round with her beloved beagle, Tara.
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During her 11 years in office, she remade Britain and became an iconic figure for conservatives in her homeland and abroad. But Thatcher, who was 87, was also a divisive leader. -
Schmidt, who recently traveled to North Korea, will be the first senior executive of a major U.S. tech firm to visit Myanmar since it began political and economic reforms. Myanmar plans to vastly expand its telecom infrastructure. But sanctions remain against members of the military, many of whom hold positions in the telecom sector. -
Many young Pakistanis have grown up in the grip of religious extremism. But Saeed Malik is trying to reverse that trend, starting at the most basic level. He has created a bookmobile that offers English and Urdu books to underprivileged children, in hopes of broadening their minds and fostering tolerance. -
Dr. Tahir-ul-Qadri returned to his home country late last year, after spending eight years in Canada. The cleric has ignited a disgruntled electorate by taking on Pakistan's government, saying it has failed to curb militancy or fix the economy. His critics call him a demagogue who's more interested in the limelight. -
Pakistani developers are planning a $30 million amusement park in Abbottabad, the place Osama bin Laden secretly lived for several years before his death. The park's project manager says he wants to look past the event that put the town on the map. -
In January 2009, the president signed an executive order to close the U.S. prison camp. But four years later, the prison remains open, and critics say the president miscalculated how difficult it would be to close the facility that houses terrorism suspects. -
Algeria has been acting alone in the hostage situation at the remote In Amenas natural gas field, relying on its years of experience fighting terrorism internally. It has turned down offers of support and advice from other nations, including the U.S. Yet any anger over Algeria's go-it-alone approach has been muted; the nation is a critical ally of the U.S. -
President Hamid Karzai is in Washington this week for meetings with President Obama and other officials. One of the key issues to be discussed is the number of American troops to remain in Afghanistan after 2014, when the bulk of U.S. and NATO forces leave. -
A team of archaeologists is excavating an ancient cemetery in the Swat Valley. The site reveals the ancient Dardic community's burial and post-burial rituals, including using graves for more than one generation. -
The Taliban attack on young Malala Yousafzai had a profound effect on her hometown, Mingora, in Pakistan's picturesque Swat Valley. For the other girls with Malala that day, the scars are both emotional and physical.
