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 Crimea, is Alaska next? A petition on the White House website calling for just that has more than 37,000 signatures. -
The buildup of Russian troops on Ukraine's border is unnerving residents to either side. Though sharply divided in opinion, all fear to lose ties of family and trade. -
Politicians have adopted the orange and black ribbons in a symbolic move that was first introduced by Catherine the Great in the 18th century. -
Germany and its European allies react to Sunday's referendum in Crimea. NPR's Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson joins us from Berlin.
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel says that Russia risks "massive political and economic damage" if it continues its policy on Ukraine and that the European Union's relationship with Russia may suffer.
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After two days of violence and more than 100 deaths, calm has settled in Kiev. Opposition leaders signed a peace deal with the Ukrainian president, but it's unclear whether protesters will embrace it.
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Fighting between police and the opposition in Ukraine continues despite attempts at diplomatic intervention. Dozens were killed in Kiev overnight, many in gun attacks shown on television.
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Police in Kiev continue to try to clear protesters from the streets of the Ukrainian capital, where violence has left both police and demonstrators dead.
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Iran, the U.S. and five other world powers will meet later this month in Vienna. But the quest for a long-term deal on Iran's nuclear program will have to overcome the deep mistrust that was on display at a security conference in Munich. -
Ursula von der Leyen is the first woman to hold the job. She has no military experience and is best known for social policies such as expanded parental leave. But she has already said that Germany should play a more active role in foreign missions, and that could involve sending troops into conflict zones.
