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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The collection features some 700 letters that the leader of the Nazis' notorious SS corps wrote to his wife. Editors at Die Welt say Himmler's writings show the intimate thoughts of a "clearly cold, feeling-less, self-righteous bureaucrat." -
The owner of the Taverna du Liban, attacked by a suicide bomber in Afghanistan Friday night, treated each of his customers as a personal friend. NPR's Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson was a regular at the cozy Kabul restaurant, and remembers Kamal Hamade's friendship.
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German farmers protested Wednesday against a free trade deal with the U.S. that could lift restrictions on American meat sold in Europe. The farmers say they are worried not just about poor quality meat but about unfair competition.
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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. -
The new Desert Flower Center offers treatment for the physical and psychological effects of female genital mutilation. But fear of alienation from their families and communities may keep some victims, mainly immigrants from Africa, from taking advantage of the center.
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More than 240 people have left Germany to join the civil war in Syria 鈥� the largest reported number from a European country. Some officials fear the radicalized German fighters could eventually pose a security threat to Europe.
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A German brewers association is seeking UNESCO World Heritage status for a 500-year-old law that dictates how to make beer. The brewers argue that the law ensures purity in German beers. But others say the law is from a bygone era.
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A recent U.N. study rated Germany high in quality of life for seniors. Even so many Germans spend their final days in Eastern European countries like Poland where elder care is less expensive. The practice has some asking whether it's wrong to send loved ones far away to save money. -
As many as 5,000 Syrian refugees are moving to Germany this month, but they aren't receiving the warmest welcome in a country where a growing number of Germans are unhappy about the steady stream of asylum seekers. Fanning the flames are extremists, who want Germany to close its doors to refugees. -
There's no evidence that it appeals to voters, but a pair of politicians gave the cameras an upthrust middle finger this week. The German candidate tweeted a defense of his gesture, saying: "Straight talk doesn't always need words."
