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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A right-wing, populist party running in the upcoming German elections has hired a Texas political strategy firm to help its campaign.
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With Germany's emerging importance for European stability, eyes are on the Sept. 24 elections. Frontrunners are clear but third-place finisher may affect whether the government tilts right or left.
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Police say they shot dead the man who they believe carried out the attack last week which left dozens dead and injured. The suspect was wearing what turned out to be a fake explosives belt.
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A manhunt continues for the driver of a van who killed 13 people people in Barcelona. Police say the driver is a 22-year-old Moroccan-born man. Spain's Moroccan community fears a backlash.
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Police in Spain say the vehicle attacks that killed 14 people in Barcelona and Cambrils were carried out by a terrorist cell that had been originally planning a series of bombings.
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This year, 59 civilians have been killed and 280 injured as fighting continues in a 3-year-old war between Russian-backed separatists and government forces. Residents despair of ever seeing peace. -
Lawmakers have showed interest of working across party linesies on improving health insurance markets. Also, Brazil's Congress votes on corruption charges against the president.
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Germany is holding a conference to discuss concrete steps to curb auto pollution, but other issues like collusion and allegations of deception by the German auto industry are likely to dominate.
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Warsaw's populist government has approved large-scale logging in the ancient Bialowieza Forest, despite an injunction by Europe's highest court. The forest is a World Heritage Site. -
Germany and comedy have not been synonymous, to say the least, since World War II. But, now, German comedy is making a comeback.
