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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After the Paris attacks, refugees in Berlin have felt increased scrutiny, as police comb their numbers for potential threats. But many Syrians there say they fear ISIS as much as their hosts do.
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The investigation continues into the deadly attacks in Paris on Friday, and in Germany, a major soccer match was canceled Tuesday after a bomb threat.
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Germany has struggled with a record number of refugees, prompting calls for increased deportations. But German businesses see an opportunity in these newcomers to ease a shortage of skilled workers.
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Russian gas is expensive, so many Poles still rely on coal. Krakow is one of the most polluted cities in the EU's most polluted country. All that coal is akin to "smoking 2,000 cigarettes per year."
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Afghanistan is a mountainous land where mountain climbing is rare among men and virtually nonexistent among women. An American is now preparing young Afghan women to scale the country's highest peak.
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Andrei Kemenici, who was a colonel then, says he still thinks about the 4 days he held Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife in custody before their execution 25 years ago on Christmas Day.
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Iran and Israel are sworn enemies, but Germany is neutral ground where people from those countries can collaborate musically. Sistanagila, an Israeli-Iranian ensemble, is doing just that.
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In Ukraine, there's been renewed fighting between government forces and pro-Russian separatists. The Ukrainian military is working to retake cities near the border with Russia.
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Secretary of State John Kerry is in Geneva to meet with his diplomatic counterparts from Russia, Ukraine and the European Union. They are trying to find a resolution to the crisis in Ukraine.
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Germany is one of the few EU countries that has welcomed Syrians fleeing civil war. But it offers refuge only to a few thousand out of the millions who need it. And it actually deported Syrian asylum-seekers last year because of treaty requirements. Still, Syrians are risking their lives to get there.