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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Germany's anti-immigrant party, the AfD, is in turmoil after its most prominent politician Frauke Petry dropped out of the upcoming German parliamentary elections.
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Martin Schulz, a former bookseller with no high school diploma, could become the next chancellor of Germany, thanks in part to an anti-Trump sentiment.
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Germany has banned an interactive doll manufactured by an American company that German regulators charge can spy on children and collect personal data from them and their parents. But some consumer watchdogs say the ban alone is not enough.
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Vice President Mike Pence and Defense Secretary James Mattis talked at the Munich Security Conference this week. They reinforced the U.S. commitment to NATO and asked other countries to spend more.
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Far-right politicians from across Europe, drawing breath from Brexit and Donald Trump's victory, gathered in Koblenz, Germany, to map strategy for upcoming elections in their countries. -
U.S. tanks have returned to Europe to help defend Poland and Baltic states from possible Russian aggression. The Kremlin sees it as a threat. -
German police say at least nine people are dead and many more injured after a truck was driven into a crowded Christmas market in Berlin. They say they are investigating the incident as a possible terrorist attack
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A play based on the experiences of one of the few journalists to have reported from behind ISIS lines is causing controversy. Critics are wary of how students will receive the sensitive themes. -
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the most important voice for liberal democracy in Europe, announced on Sunday that she will run for another term in 2017.
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France says the unofficial migrant camp on the north coast of the country will be demolished "within days." That means up to 10,000 asylum-seekers are being resettled at centers across France.
