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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Bob Bradley, 53, is the new coach of Egypt's national soccer team, hired to bring back a team that was once the toast of the African continent. But he and his players are struggling in the aftermath of the revolution and, more recently, a fatal post-game riot that caused the country's soccer federation to shut all games down. -
American democracy workers are headed home from Egypt, where they had been under a travel ban.
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More than a dozen candidates are seeking to become Egypt's next president in what looks to be the most competitive election ever. Still, many Egyptians fear those in power will try to manipulate the process. -
Islamists dominated the recent parliamentary elections in Egypt, and some Christians say they fear they will face discrimination and threats from the Muslim majority. -
Faiza Aboul Naga, a holdover from Hosni Mubarak's regime, is emerging as the driving force behind Egypt's efforts to clamp down on U.S.-funded pro-democracy groups. The female Cabinet minister says U.S. aid has been used to shape post-revolution Egyptian politics, stoking widespread xenophobia. -
Egyptians may be dissatisfied with their ruling generals, but they generally support the move to prosecute American and other pro-democracy groups for allegedly operating illegally and fomenting unrest. Even those who have benefited from the foreign groups are hesitant to speak out. -
Saturday marks the first anniversary of the fall of Hosni Mubarak. Last February, millions of jubilant Egyptians poured out onto the streets across the Arab country. That mood has given way to widespread frustration. Host Scott Simon talks to NPR's Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson about the state in Egypt.
