Gwen Thompkins
Gwen Thompkins hosts Music Inside Out on WWNO in New Orleans.
Up until recently, she was an NPR foreign correspondent covering East Africa. She was based in Nairobi, Kenya, reporting on the countries, people and happenings from the Horn to the heart of Africa.
Since arriving in Africa in 2006, Thompkins has reported on the toppling of the Islamic Courts Union government in Somalia, ethnic violence in Kenya, insecurity in Darfur and Sudan's first nationwide elections in a generation. She has also written a series on the Nile River, traveling from the shores of Lake Victoria to the Mediterranean Sea. Heading south, she has reported stories from South Africa and Antarctica.
From 1996 to 2006, Thompkins was senior editor of Weekend Edition Saturday. Working with Scott Simon she learned — among other things — that when a horse walks into a bar, the bartender has to say, "So, why the long face?"
While at Weekend Edition, Thompkins also reported from her hometown of New Orleans. In the months following Hurricane Katrina, she and senior producer Sarah Beyer Kelly filed stories on the aftermath of the storm and the rebuilding efforts.
Before coming to NPR, Thompkins worked as a reporter and editor at The Times-Picayune newspaper.
A graduate of Newcomb College at Tulane University, Thompkins majored in history and Soviet studies. While on a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship, she was in Eastern Europe when the Berlin Wall fell. Fortunately, she says, she was not injured.
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Opposition supporters riot in Kenya after President Mwai Kibaki names new members to his cabinet, ending hopes of negotiations for power-sharing with Raila Odinga. Almost 500 people have died since the election Dec. 27 returned Kibaki to power. He is accused of stealing the election.
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Politicians in Kenya are under pressure to calm the political crisis stemming from recent political elections. More than 300 people have died in violence that exploded after the incumbent President Mwai Kibaki was named the winner in a disputed election there.
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Kenya's disputed presidential election triggers an explosion of violence that has killed more than 275 people, including dozens burned alive as they sought refuge in a church. President Mwai Kibaki, newly inaugurated for a second term, calls for a meeting with his political opponents.
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Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki takes the oath of office for a second term amid protests. Kibaki claims a dramatic, come-from-behind victory over challenger Raila Odinga in the tightest presidential race in Kenya's history. Fewer than 300,000 votes separated the two candidates. -
A painfully familiar scene unfolded last week in Mogadishu. Somalis triumphantly dragged the body of a dead Ethiopian soldier in the street, recalling what has become known as the Blackhawk Down incident of 1993. -
A weekend conference in Libya intended to bring peace to Sudan's troubled Darfur region was hobbled in part by the absence of key black rebel groups who are considered essential to any lasting agreement. What their absence portends has become a main topic of the discussions.
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The conflict in Sudan's western region of Darfur has raged for four years. More than 200,000 people have been killed, and more than two million have been driven from their homes. But there are optimists in the midst of the tragedy.
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There are reports of at least two U.S. military strikes in Somalia, said to have targeted al-Qaida figures wanted for the bombing of two U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998. The Pentagon refuses to confirm or deny the operation.
