Newsletter Archive

Hillary Clinton will be the seventh person in U.S. history to make the leap from secretary of state to commander in chief if she wins the presidential election. In the early days of the American Republic, it was common for a secretary of state to become president, but that tradition ended in the mid-1800s. Since then, few presidents have had foreign affairs experience before being elected, which makes us wonder, how much do Americans actually care about foreign policy?

Vietnamese are the sixth-largest immigrant group in the United States and are known to have a keen interest in politics. Vietnamese-Americans are also known for a generational divide in their political preferences. However, when it comes to election 2016, there are those in the community who are reluctantly supporting the candidate they consider to be the lesser of ‘two devils.’

They might be disgusted by Donald Trump’s vulgar language about women in a videotape released last week, but some hardcore Trump supporters in West Virginia are standing by their man. Voters in coal country seem ready to overlook the Republican presidential candidate’s faults in the hope he’ll bring change to a state with an uncertain future.

A leaflet put out by Hungary’s leaders recently identified several British cities as “no-go zones” where immigrants, many of them Muslim, dominate. English isn’t heard very often on the streets of Peterborough, where store signs advertise products in Dari, Pashto, Arabic, Polish and Hungarian. That diversity hasn’t put off city leaders, who recently voted unanimously to receive Syrian families over a 5-year period, keeping their city a ‘go-to’ zone for immigrants.

Streams of blood trickle down the streets in a southern Lebanon town where Shi’ite Muslims are commemorating the holy day of Ashura. The bloodletting is largely shunned elsewhere, but in Nabatieh, VOA found people observing the ritual by striking themselves with swords and knives.

VIDEO: The Islamic State has destroyed numerous archaeological sites for profit, publicity and ideology. Now, as troops across Iraq prepare to re-take Mosul, archaeologists are bracing for the destruction left behind. VOA is in Iraqi Kurdistan, where experts from around the world are training local archaeologists for the IS aftermath — and the race to determine whether any of the ancient treasures can be salvaged or repaired.

2016 is on track to be the worst year yet for IED attacks in Somalia. VOA goes on patrol with a platoon of African Union soldiers outside Mogadishu as they try to find improvised explosive devices (IEDs) planted by al-Shabab insurgents, before the deadly devices claim more victims.