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.
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The latest uprising in Iran is about much more than mandatory hijab. We've complied a list of books that offer insight into the lives of Iranian women and what is happening in their country. -
For many Egyptians, Mubarak became the symbol of all that was wrong with their country. His nearly 30-year rule is recalled as a time of repression and economic stagnation for all but an elite few. -
For many Egyptians, Mubarak became the symbol of all that was wrong with their country. His nearly 30-year rule is recalled as a time of repression and economic stagnation for all but an elite few.
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There's a deep fascination in the West with how women function in ultra-conservative societies where repression can be violent and even deadly. This anthology pulls back the curtain on those places.
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Angela Merkel is still the chancellor of Germany and could stay in that job until 2021 — although you could be forgiven for thinking otherwise, given the speculation over who is to be her successor.
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On Friday, the Christian Democratic Union chose its general secretary, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, a strong Merkel supporter. -
The Polish government is asking the U.S. to open a military base in Poland as a counter balance to Russia. They've offered the U.S. up to $2 billion, as well as a promise to call it "Fort Trump."
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Merkel had told her party she won't run for re-election as its chairwoman. Her decision comes after the CDU suffered heavy losses in regional elections. She's held the chancellor post for 18 years.
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EU leaders are gathering in Brussels on what is supposed to be the deadline for a deal to ease the U.K. out of the bloc next March. Plans to unveil a draft declaration have been scrapped.
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Bavarian voters dealt German Chancellor Angela Merkel a tough blow Sunday. Her conservative allies there are projected to receive their second-worst result in regional elections since 1946.
