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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Egyptians say that two colonial-era agreements forever guarantee them most of the Nile's flow. But other countries in the Nile River basin want more access to the water. -
Egypt uses more Nile River water than any other country, citing colonial-era agreements as proof of entitlement. But upstream, Ethiopia has begun asserting its rights and has visions of harnessing the river to produce more electricity and irrigation.
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Congolese Tutsi rebel leader Laurent Nkunda has been arrested by Congolese and Rwandan forces. Nkunda's rebel forces exacerbated the turmoil in eastern Congo late last year, displacing 250,000 people. His actions prompted some of his own commanders to turn against him.
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A Congolese military spokesman says the Rwandan army has arrested Congo rebel leader Laurent Nkunda. The spokesman says Nkunda resisted being taken into custody by a joint Rwandan-Congolese force before he was arrested.
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Many people across Africa are celebrating Barak Obama's inauguration. Nowhere was the celebration greater than in Kenya, homeland of the new president's father.
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In the western Kenyan town of Kisumu, there have been all-night parties to watch the results of the U.S. election. The town is the provincial capital of the region that is home to Barack Obama's Kenyan relatives.
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Around the globe, people marked Barack Obama's election victory with raucous celebrations. Western Kenya, the ancestral homeland of the Obama family, was no exception. Obama's father was from Kogelo, Kenya, and villagers there are planning a huge feast to celebrate.
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East Africa correspondent Gwen Thompkins has spent the last year covering the news of the Continent, traveling from her base in Nairobi, Kenya to Somalia, Sudan and South Africa. Thompkins talks about her reporting and an upcoming visit by President Bush to the Continent.
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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.
