Newsletter Archive

President Trump’s Asia trip will take him to Beijing, where trade and North  Korea are on the agenda. President Xi Jinping, the most powerful Chinese leader since Mao, will be looking for a positive meeting to show he’s a successful world leader. On the streets of Beijing, VOA finds out what Chinese people think of North Korea and Mr. Trump’s upcoming visit.

Facebook is under fire in Cambodia after changes to its news feed that could have radical consequences in a country in the midst of a political crackdown on independent media ahead of national elections. VOA reports from Phnom Penh, where the changes essentially banish content posted by official pages — including media outlets and NGOs — from users’ news feeds unless the page owners pay to have their content put back. Whether the Facebook changes will continue into next year’s election campaign remains a mystery.

An increasing number of ethnic Uzbeks are involved in ‘lone wolf’ terror strikes, including Sayfullo Saipov, the man accused of carrying out Tuesday’s deadly bike path attack in New York. Islamic State’s reliance on the Uzbek language to convey its propaganda may have caught the Western intelligence community off guard.

By shutting down an infamous hotel where prostitution was rumored to occur, the governor of Jakarta, Indonesia, made good on a major campaign promise. VOA is in Jakarta as the Alexis Hotel and massage parlor remain closed after the hotel’s operation license was not renewed. Governor Anies Baswedan told reporters Jakarta shouldn’t be a city that allows prostitution but some critics contend the move against the Alexis is purely political.

The world’s largest marathon happens this weekend in the Big Apple and an Ethiopian-born New York woman hopes to take home the title. More than 50,000 runners and an estimated 1 million spectators will take to the streets Sunday for the TCS New York City Marathon. No female New York City resident has ever won the event, but Buzunesh Deba, the fastest female New Yorker in history, is making a run for it.

Kept in isolation. Exposed to contagious ailments. Venezuelan protesters are demanding that the government improve the inhumane conditions they say dissidents and other detainees are kept in. VOA is in Caracas, where President Nicolás Maduro’s socialist government has 380 political prisoners in custody, many are whom are thought to be held by secret police. The detainees reportedly include mostly students as well as political leaders, social activists, police and military.

Four North Korean defectors have advice for President Trump as he heads to Asia. The five-nation tour is expected to focus on tensions over North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles at a time when polls show Americans consider North Korea to be the most immediate threat to the United States.