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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Hungary is closing all of its refugee camps across the country, and sending asylum seekers to a camp on the border with Serbia where they will live in converted shipping containers while their cases are processed.
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The museum opened March 23 in Gdansk, where the war began. "This is the museum of a war, but not a military museum," says historian Pawel Machcewicz. The government wants something different. -
Central European University is widely considered Hungary's top private university. It was founded by financier George Soros, who has a strained relationship with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. -
Martin Schulz, a former bookseller with no high school diploma, could become the next chancellor of Germany, thanks in part to an anti-Trump sentiment.
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A new World War II museum just opened in the Polish city of Gdansk. But the populist Polish government wants to take over the museum and reshape its exhibits to fit a narrower, more flattering view.
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Germany has banned an interactive doll manufactured by an American company that German regulators charge can spy on children and collect personal data from them and their parents. But some consumer watchdogs say the ban alone is not enough.
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Vice President Mike Pence and Defense Secretary James Mattis talked at the Munich Security Conference this week. They reinforced the U.S. commitment to NATO and asked other countries to spend more.
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel talked with President Trump Saturday. The two discussed NATO, Russia and security cooperation during the 45-minute call.
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Frauke Petry's Alternative for Germany party enjoys the most support of any nationalist faction in that country since World War II. Its counterparts in Europe are also seeing surges in support. -
Far-right politicians from across Europe, drawing breath from Brexit and Donald Trump's victory, gathered in Koblenz, Germany, to map strategy for upcoming elections in their countries.
