Newsletter Archive

Trade agreements and jobs were two big issues on the minds of farmers and manufacturing workers during the 2016 presidential campaign. Two weeks into President Donald Trump’s term, VOA travels to America’s heartland to find out how some Americans who helped Trump win the White House, and some who didn’t, feel about him now.

Silicon Valley is grappling with how to interact with the Trump administration. There’s a debate on social media and among industry insiders over how to influence federal policy. Should the tech industry try to fight from the inside with lobbyists, fight from the outside, or both?

These days, no one is stepping up to the podium at the U.S. State Department, which plans no daily briefings this week. It’s an unprecedented situation that’s been the status quo since the inauguration of President Donald Trump. If no one is at the podium, does that mean America’s voice is absent from important global debates?

It’s an even more exclusive club than you think. U.S. Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch already has something in common with the court’s current members. He went to Harvard Law School, as did four current Supreme Court justices. A fifth justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, attended Harvard, but graduated from Columbia University’s law school. The court’s three other members graduated from Yale Law School. Critics question whether it’s right to limit spots on the high court to graduates of the two elite law schools.

Fair trade? American business leaders in South Korea are urging Seoul to increase market access for U.S. companies before U.S. President Donald Trump decides to enact protectionist policies. During the campaign, candidate Trump threatened to pull out of the U.S.-South Korea bilateral free trade agreement, which he called a job killer. VOA is in Seoul where the American Chamber of Commerce in Korea is out to convince Trump the trade deal is worth saving.

VIDEO: Online advantage. Most companies in Kenya that offer home services for the home, like babysitting  or cleaning, still conduct most of their business over the phone. But change could be coming. VOA connects with two companies in Nairobi that are now finding most of their business online. As one expert told us, the more tech savvy these young entrepreneurs are, the more likely it is that their businesses will grow.

“They were all afraid Daesh would come to their homes and demand to marry their daughters.’ Weddings became all the rage under Islamic State rule, but they weren’t the white-lace, blaring-music affairs common to Iraqi weddings. Instead, the nuptials were subdued, often rushed, events rooted in fear. In Mosul, VOA meets an Iraqi mother of six who worried an Islamic State fighter would demand to marry her 15-year-old daughter, so she tried to protect the teen by marrying her off to a relative in his late-20s.

VIDEO: Pulling the rug out from under them? The recent exodus of Afghan refugees from Pakistan has deprived the local carpet weaving industry of skilled labor. Pakistan is forcing Afghan refugees to return home, leaving the Pakistani city of Quetta, once known as a bustling market for Afghan carpets, with only a handful of weavers. VOA visits Pakistan’s southwestern Baluchistan province to see how the carpet industry is faring.