Newsletter Archive

Diminishing returns? Births are up in China after a 2015 decision to end that country’s one-child policy, and allow families to have two kids. However, the bump is smaller than officials anticipated, which presents a problem. China’s work force is shrinking due to an aging population. At the same time, the number of births is expected to dwindle as the number of women eligible to have a second child drops. Is China’s policy shift too little, too late?

Polls show close to half of all Americans support President Donald Trump’s move to temporarily restrict immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries. A US District Court judge suspended the ban Friday, outraging the White House, which says the order is to protect the U.S. from foreigners who wish to do it harm. We speak with Trump supporters who have ‘no problem’ with the ban.

VIDEO: Americans often take for granted the freedom to speak their mind, but there are writers in many places around the world who face persecution for expressing their opinions. City of Asylum Pittsburgh provides support and safety for writers in exile, giving them a chance to experience freedom of expression without fear of ending up in jail or worse.

European governments are far from united in their approach to U.S. President Donald Trump. Some governments believe their interests are better served by engaging and aligning with the new U.S. administration, while others have taken a more confrontational stance. The differing approaches show the challenges that European leaders face in adapting to Trump, whom they can love or loathe, but cannot ignore.

Animals in a Mosul zoo are the latest casualties of war in Iraq. VOA speaks with a Kurdish animal rescue group that rushed to save a surviving lion and bear, passing through several checkpoints to reach the animals. After taking control of the city in 2014, Islamic State used the zoo to raise money. But as a U.S.-backed offensive to drive IS from the area intensified in recent weeks, the owner of the zoo fled, abandoning the animals.

Kazakhstan is working to quash extremism after several hundred of the country’s citizens joined Islamist militant groups in Syria and Iraq. The central Asian country is reaching out to extremists before they leave the country, as well to those who return home and need help reintegrating into society.

Sometimes there’s nothing like cold, hard cash. At least that’s the way many Zimbabweans seem to view things. Zimbabwe’s central bank is encouraging people in rural area to use credit and bank debit cards in order to help ease cash shortages that have rocked the southern Africa nation for more than a year. But getting people to switch over to ‘plastic money’ hasn’t been easy.