Newsletter Archive

What a year it’s been. Donald Trump barely registered in the polls when he began his quest for president. Yet the New York businessman built his brand as a political outsider during a time when many underestimated the public’s craving for change. And he managed to pull off the biggest U.S. political upset in modern times.

A difference of opinion on the disputed South China Sea is straining relations between the United States and China. The sea handles about half the world’s marine shipping traffic, and the United States wants it to stay free for international use. But China claims about 95 percent of the sea, which is rich in fisheries, as well as possible undersea fossil fuel reserves. There’s no telling how the dispute between the superpowers could shift once U.S. President-elect Donald Trump takes office next month.

Refugees from Cambodia’s genocide lost their country when they fled the Khmer Rouge regime 40 years ago. Now settled in the United States, many Cambodian-Americans worry about losing their culture. But the city of Long Beach, California, offers a way to hold onto their cultural traditions by reconnecting them with their language.

Dear Santa… Every Christmas, children worldwide write letters to Santa Claus. But while the missives never make it to the North Pole, the U.S. Postal Service does make sure they reach Santa Claus…in Indiana, where elves answer every letter. They also get a unique insight into what children — and adults — from around the globe want this holiday season.

‘Almost everyone in Mosul has been whipped.’ Islamic State turned ordinary homes into houses of horror — prisons where ordinary Iraqis were locked up for the most mundane things. In Iraq, VOA talks with residents who seethe with rage more than a month after their town was liberated from IS control.

Home for Christmas? The Central African Republic is closing a camp for internally displaced people at the capital’s international airport. VOA is in Bangui, where the government says it wants to send the city’s estimated 28,000 displaced residents — who fled fighting between Muslim and Christian militias — home for the holidays. Conditions in the camp aren’t great but many of its residents worry about being able to survive in the outside world.