Newsletter Archive

QUICK TAKE VIDEO: Most family members of Islamic State have left Iraq, according to Kurdish officials. Those who haven’t, could end up in the Qorato refugee camp in Kirkuk. VOA visited the camp, which hosts family members of slain IS fighters, and keeps them away from victims of the terror group.

Thousands of people are fleeing Mosul every day, many of them as the walls of their homes collapse. VOA is in the embattled city, where bombs, airstrikes and helicopter attacks are raining down on crowded city neighborhoods, and Islamic State militants open fire at families who try to run away.

A high-level North Korean defector tells VOA that Pyongyang is inching closer to regime collapse as it attempts increasingly powerful nuclear tests. North Korea’s former deputy ambassador in London says a botched nuclear test, or the growth of a market economy within North Korea, could lead to Kim Jong Un’s downfall.

Cambodia’s LGBT community is coming out. Although Cambodians traditionally view LGBT practices as being against nature and a threat to rebuilding the social order after 30 years of war, there are signs of change. In Phnom Penh, VOA checks out the LGBT-friendly bars and coffee shops that are opening around town, alongside a fledgling gay media and entertainment industry.

‘They live in fear.’ These are tough times for the children of undocumented immigrants who worry they might come home from school one day to find their parents have been deported. The experts tells us witnessing the arrest and deportation of loved ones can have significant mental health effects on children.

A new rebel group is gaining high-level supporters in war-torn South Sudan. A general just resigned his post with the main rebel group, the ruling SPLM-IO, to join the National Salvation Front. And senior rebel leaders in the diaspora have also defected to the National Salvation Front. So what’s the attraction?

Hidden treasure. The biggest construction project in Europe has unearthed a trove of archaeological finds. The largely subterranean Crossrail route linking Heathrow airport to London’s eastern financial district and beyond, is providing a fascinating window on 8,000 years of the city’s history.

VIDEO EXPLAINER: Eavesdropping on electronic communication is illegal in the United States. The US Constitution protects against government intrusion into private communication, but there’s a way for the feds to get around that.