Newsletter Archive

She was on the verge of fulfilling her lifelong goal of becoming a doctor, but Maryan Abdullahi Gedi’s dream was cut short when she became one of more than 300 people killed in last weekend’s massive Mogadishu bomb blast. Now, instead of going to Gedi’s graduation, family and friends attended the funeral for the young woman known as ‘the loved one.’ 

Cyber wars. South Korea’s defense intranet was hacked for the first time about a year ago, and the military accused North Korea of infecting hundreds, possibly thousands of computers with malware. Security experts suggest North Korea might have received help from Russia or China, who want to go beyond testing the traditional US military to assessing its cyberwar capability.

Right wing populism, after being checked in France and Germany, is showing its strength in Austria, where the conservative People’s Party scored a clear victory Sunday. Sebastian Kurz, 31, is set to become Europe’s youngest leader after riding to victory on a mostly anti-migrant platform, demonstrating that the populist playbook is still a political force in Europe.

What a difference a day makes in Kirkuk. On Monday evening, VOA journalist Heather Murdock was on the ground reporting on what looked like the dawning of a civil war between Arabs and Kurds. Mortars were landing kilometers beyond the city and armed civilians were flocking to the fight. But by the following morning, the city was open and Arab soldiers were joking with Kurdish journalists.

The dream of independence may be over for Iraq’s Kurds now that Iraqi forces have seized disputed Kirkuk — a city Kurdish Peshmerga forces took over to protect the city from Islamic State — and its surrounding oilfields. So what happens next?

Egyptian-American Hatem El-Gamasy used to be a fixture on Egyptian news talk shows. The New York deli owner would slip into his re-purposed back room, where the self-assured TV analyst, who specializes in US foreign policy and Middle Eastern affairs, would be skyped into Egyptian homes. But then the ‘The New York Times’ did a feature on El-Gamasy and the phones stopped ringing.