Newsletter Archive

She lost them all in one day: the friend who coaxed her into studying law, the boss who taught her the ropes, and friends who were like family. Jalila Haider was late for work – and missed the deadly August 8 suicide bombing in Pakistan’s southwestern city of Quetta that killed more than 70 people, most of them lawyers. In a Skype interview with VOA, Haider speaks of survivor’s guilt: “I call it my misfortune that I wasn’t part of their sacrifice, or my luck that I am still alive.”

Kurdish peshmerga forces are making headway in the battle to recapture the northern Iraqi city of Mosul from Islamic State militants, occupiers since June 2014. A VOA Persian service reporter, accompanying peshmergas, files a report from the front line.

Meanwhile, the U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State cleared the way for a group of Russian bombers to pass through Iraq en route to Syria. As per a memorandum of understanding, the Russians notified the coalition about the bombers’ planned movements to ensure their safe passage. Russia announced earlier Tuesday that its warplanes took off from an Iranian airbase for the first time to carry out airstrikes against militants in Syria.

Muslims in a neighborhood of Queens, New York, are reeling from the murders of a local imam and his associate, shot in broad daylight Saturday. Oscar Morel, 35, has been charged in the crime. It may have resulted from a dispute, police said. But at the Bangladeshi imam’s mosque, the faithful suspect religious hatred may have been a factor – and they fear future incidents.

A dozen youngsters concentrate while trying to make an animated cat come to life on a computer screen. The so-called Baby Lab, set in a poor neighborhood of Ivory Coast’s capital, teaches digital skills and coding, “the language of the 21st century,” as the lab’s co-founder says. It also operates with the premise that everything can be recycled. So, using cast-off computer parts, kids learn to fashion clocks and toys that are sold to help with funding. Similar fabrication laboratories, or “fab labs,” have opened across the continent.  

After a year of combat in Iraq, U.S. soldier Patrick Skluzacek came home suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and an inability to sleep through the night. That was in 2007. Eventually, son Tyler – while studying computer science in college – teamed up with friends to create a smartwatch app that helps veterans and others with PTSD. The myBivy monitors a sleeper’s movements and heart rate, vibrating to disrupt the onset of night terrors. The design is moving from the testing phase to clinical trials.