Newsletter Archive

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Harrowing search: When the war came to his Mosul neighborhood two weeks ago, 17-year-old Dhyab grabbed his young cousin and tried to make a run for it. But he didn’t survive the Islamic State sniper who took aim at him and other fleeing civilians. Dhyab’s family members waited on the edge of the war zone for days before finally being cleared into the area to search for his body. VOA was there when, surrounded by personal effects of other civilians who were gunned down, his uncles found the teen’s remains slumped against a wall.

Lisa Calan’s legs are buried in a cemetery next to her father, and she sometimes tells people that she’s already ‘partly in the grave.’ But what happened to the 29-year-old Kurdish woman is no laughing matter. She lost both legs after Islamic State bombed a political rally she attended. Now the budding filmmaker plans to make a documentary about IS attacks in the country, including the one that stole her legs.

A suspected Russian spy outpost in Serbia could threaten the lasting peace the United States and European Union have spent years working to bring to the Balkans. Officially, the facility is a disaster relief center, but some analysts view it as a subtly disguised military base set up by the Kremlin to spy on US interests in the Balkans.

Sounds of the Mandarin language can be heard in some Pakistan classrooms as China widens its footprint in the country. Beijing has invested about $60 billion there as part of its massive Belt and Road trade initiative. That collaboration is expected to bring around 20,000 Chinese to Pakistan. VOA visits an Islamabad classroom where the local children learning the visitors’ native language will be ready for them.

Praying and playing. During Ramadan, Islam’s holy month, able-bodied Muslims are expected to abstain from all food and drink from sunrise to sunset, which poses unique challenges for professional athletes like DC United’s star goalkeeper. But American-born Bilal ‘Bill’ Hamid finds a way to balance his Muslim faith with his professional life.

VIDEO: Fasting can last up to 16 hours a day when Ramadan falls in the summer. Those long hours inspired a psychiatrist in Philadelphia to create a food supplement that helps curb hunger. It’s a chocolate protein Ramadan snack bar.

Imagine trying to preserve an ancient language that isn’t written down anywhere. That’s exactly what a French scholar is trying to do in his adopted country of Cambodia. Sylvain Vogel became intrigued by the unwritten language and folklore of the Bunong ethnic group, which is passed orally from generation to generation. But as more and more Bunong children attend Khmer schools, this rich tradition is in danger of being lost.