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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British Prime Minister Theresa May was urged to bring "new facts" to Wednesday's summit of E.U. leaders in Brussels. But U.K. ministers say the ball is the EU's court, so Brexit talks appear to be at stalemate as the clock ticks down.
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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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A booming economy and ever fewer migrants crossing the border haven't eased a populist backlash against the German chancellor's political allies in the wealthy alpine state of Bavaria. -
Beijing wants to up its manufacturing game to make high-end technology — so it has gone on a buying spree, acquiring key German tech firms. -
The AFD is benefiting from being the official opposition to Chancellor Merkel's grand coalition government. Polls rate it Germany's second most popular party, dropping the Social Democrats to third.
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British Prime Minister Theresa May appealed to her European counterparts, trying to preserve Britain's access to the EU's single market after the Brexit. But EU leaders are playing hardball. -
Physicians in Berlin say that anti-Kremlin activist Pyotr Verzilov's illness does not appear to be caused by infection or disease. But they could not confirm what he was poisoned with, or by whom. -
Far-right and anti-immigrant activists rallied in the German town of Chemnitz on Saturday to protest the murder of a local, allegedly at the hands of migrants. -
Under the deal, migrants registered in other European Union countries will be held in transit centers as Germany negotiates their return, ending a threat to Merkel's 12-year ruling coalition. -
Under the deal, migrants registered in other European Union countries will be held in transit centers as Germany negotiates their return, ending a threat to Angela Merkel's ruling coalition.
