Newsletter Archive

If women ‘hold up half the sky’ as Mao Zedong once proclaimed, then the sky is at risk of falling in China. When that country’s Communist Party holds its quinquennial party congress and leadership reshuffle next month, many will be watching to see who Xi Jinping picks to fill top positions, but few expect many women to be among them. The general Chinese lack of trust in women in power is said to go back to the three most powerful women in Chinese history. 

Women worldwide are turning to technology to overcome barriers in education and employment, but getting online remains a challenge for many women in developing countries. And in the US, far fewer women than men find success in technical careers. Next week, Voice of America holds a town hall at the world’s largest gathering of women in technology, as many look for ways to close the digital divides.

‘No’ doesn’t necessarily mean ‘no’ in rape cases, according to a Delhi high court decision that has enraged rights groups in India. The judges set aside the rape conviction of a Bollywood filmmaker, ruling that a ‘feeble no’ could indicate a willingness on the part of the Indian-American victim. Activists say recent court actions in India that blame the victim are a backlash against tougher rape laws in a country where many believe women who wear provocative clothes, drink or stay out late are asking for it.

A transgender woman and second-grader were among the people who came before the judge when VOA recently spent a day in US immigration court. The motions were fast-paced, each one settled in five-to-10 minutes, but the impact of the decisions can sometimes last a lifetime.

On a sweltering day last July, swarms of Cambodians joined the funeral procession for slain activist Kem Leygathere. While nearly all state-controlled media instituted a blackout of the monumental event, the requiem was streamed live on Facebook by US-funded Radio Free Asia, citizen journalists, activist monks and others armed with little more than 3G connections, keen evidence of the power of social media. However, the flip side to the democratic potential of social media is that authoritarian regimes can use it, too.

North Korean overseas workers are going to feel the squeeze as countries move to enforce UN sanctions against their homeland. North Korea has  been accused of using money paid to its overseas workers to finance its weapons programs, but now UN sanctions ban the hiring of additional North Korean workers and bar the renewal of their work contracts when they expire.

Erbil International Airport was mostly quiet except for protesters and people waiting for loved ones on the last flights in from Turkey. International flights to and from the Kurdistan region in Iraq were grounded Friday after Baghdad established a no-fly zone as punishment for a controversial independence vote.