Newsletter Archive

The two million Somalis living overseas send an estimated $1.3 billion back home every year, providing a lifeline for families by enabling them to meet basic everyday expenses. That inflow is vital to the country’s economy, adding up to more than foreign aid and investment combined. However, the way in which the people receive the money threatens to put the welfare of millions of people at risk.

After being shut out for years, Cambodia’s opposition scored big in last summer’s local elections, with the Cambodian National Rescue Party winning control of about 44 percent of the country’s commune seats. In Phnom Penh, VOA learns that victory could be short-lived if the ruling party follows through on a plan to dissolve the CNRP in an ongoing crackdown on opponents ahead of next year’s national election.

Kenya is struggling to finalize what seems like a never-ending presidential election. The country’s supreme court nullified the August presidential results as a decades-long competition between two of Kenya’s top political families continues to simmer. President Uhuru Kenyatta, son of the country’s first president, and opposition leader Raila Odinga, son of the first vice president, are engaged in a rivalry that echoes that of their fathers.

While vacationing on the Greek island of Lesbos, acclaimed artist and activist Ai Weiwei spotted a boat full of refugees approaching and immediately started recording their arrival on his phone. The Chinese dissident went on to make a documentary about the displaced, filming 40 refugee camps in 23 different countries. While Ai is well acquainted with suffering — he was imprisoned and tortured in his native China — he says filming and living with refugees in makeshift camps was unlike anything he had experienced before.

A new Turkish-built military base in Mogadishu was the original target of Saturday’s deadly truck bomb, a senior Somali intelligence official tells VOA Somali. The bombing, the deadliest in the country’s history, killed more than 300 people. The official said Somali Intelligence had prior information that al-Shabab was planning to attack the Turkish military base.

EXPLAINER: When a source tells a journalist something is ‘off the record,’ they’re saying the reporter can’t publish the information. So why bother? Here’s why it can be helpful for journalists to learn things they can’t publish.