Newsletter Archive

VOA visits the site of the alleged worst chemical attack in Mosul, where suspected victims of mustard gas are still waiting for clean-up crews to arrive. There’s a coating of what looks like yellow sulfur powder on the ground, the smell is still rancid, and neighbors complain of watering eyes and skin problems.

US college applications from foreign students are down for the next school year. The number of undergraduate applications from countries in the Middle East alone fell by 39 percent. One university saw a 37 percent reduction in applications from India for the new school year. A new report shows 40 percent of US colleges have reported a drop in international student applicants.

Weapons of health destruction? When Native Americans were driven from their land and onto reservations, they lost control of healthful and complex food systems that had sustained them for tens of thousands of years. Today, at least one-third of Native Americans live on reservations and depend on government-issued commodities and inexpensive packaged food that’s high in fat, salt and chemicals. 

About 80 percent of Somaliland’s livestock is dead due to a crippling drought. VOA travels to the town of Las-Anod where people from remote villages have set up makeshift camps, and desperate herders count their losses and despair about the future.

Could the next technological leap be the ‘Internet of Skills?’ Digital helps us communicate, network and negotiate via email and social media platforms like LinkedIn, but what if we could virtualize skills, too?  As technology continues to catch up with what the brain can imagine, the ‘Internet of Skills’ just might democratize labor.

Riga’s Russian Theater is a testament to the endurance of Russian culture in Latvia. Like Ukraine, many of the ethnic Russian minority in the Baltics are immigrants from when they were all part of the Soviet Union. VOA visited the Latvian capital, where residents still feel the lingering effects of the region’s Soviet past.

VIDEO: The world’s oldest operational steam engine is back on track after being restored in India. Built in 1855, the steam engine is listed in the ‘Guinness Book of World Records.’ In New Dehli, VOA rides the rails on the 162-year-old Fairy Queen.