Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson
Special correspondent Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson is based in Berlin. Her reports can be heard on NPR's award-winning programs, including Morning Edition and All Things Considered, and read at NPR.org. From 2012 until 2018 Nelson was NPR's bureau chief in Berlin. She won the ICFJ 2017 Excellence in International Reporting Award for her work in Central and Eastern Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and Afghanistan.
Nelson was also based in Cairo for NPR and covered the Arab World from the Middle East to North Africa during the Arab Spring. In 2006, Nelson opened NPR's first bureau in Kabul, from where she provided listeners in an in-depth sense of life inside Afghanistan, from the increase in suicide among women in a country that treats them as second class citizens to the growing interference of Iran and Pakistan in Afghan affairs. For her coverage of Afghanistan, she won a Peabody Award, Overseas Press Club Award, and the Gracie in 2010. She received the Elijah Parish Lovejoy Award from Colby College in 2011 for her coverage in the Middle East and Afghanistan.
Nelson spent 20 years as newspaper reporter, including as Knight Ridder's Middle East Bureau Chief. While at the Los Angeles Times, she was sent on extended assignment to Iran and Afghanistan following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. She spent three years an editor and reporter for Newsday and was part of the team that won the 1997 Pulitzer Prize for covering the crash of TWA Flight 800.
A graduate of the University of Maryland, Nelson speaks Farsi, Dari and German.
-
We have the latest details about the attack on the Capital Gazette newsroom in Maryland that killed five people. Also, the retirement of Justice Kennedy sets the stage for an abortion rights battle.
-
The German chancellor hopes to find some answers to that question at a European Union summit beginning Thursday. The parties she counts as allies have been deeply divided over how to treat newcomers. -
The new U.S. ambassador to Germany upset his hosts, and Democratic senators back home, with his announced support for right-wing populists in Europe. -
The partial ban went into effect Thursday. Many Germans question whether the ban is an environmental milestone or a political shell game that could end up creating more pollution. -
The European Union's new data protection law is intended to strengthen privacy rights and stop abuses by social media giants. But the law also forbids people from posting anyone's picture online without their permission — and that includes tourist vacation photos.
-
Foreign Ministers from the U.K., France and Germany, as well as the European Union's foreign policy chief, are meeting Iran's Foreign Minister in Brussels Tuesday to discuss ways to preserve the Iran nuclear deal despite threatened U.S. sanctions.
-
In his defense, Richard Grenell said his tweet instructing German companies to "wind down operations immediately" in Iran was just following "White House talking points." -
Handshakes and cheek kisses from the U.S. president surprised onlookers, but they were the only unanticipated events to happen during Friday's two-hour talk between the world leaders. -
A 21-year-old Israeli Arab who says he isn't Jewish but only conducting an "experiment" by wearing a skullcap took video of the attack last week in Berlin. -
Gerhard Schroeder went from chancellor of Germany to chairman of key Russian energy corporations. But many Germans are in no mood for more sanctions against Kremlin interests.
