Newsletter Archive

It takes more than a red suit and a white beard to be a good Santa Claus. That’s an important lesson taught at the longest continuously running Santa Claus school in the world in Michigan.  Students looking to stand in for St. Nick in schools and shopping malls learn facts about reindeer and get up to speed on the latest toy trends.

Tech-savvy Cambodian activists are losing their most powerful weapon to train and organize as the Cambodian government steps up efforts to curtail online freedom of expression and political opposition.

Mohammed Gaber was beaten and tortured in his native Egypt for having a relationship with a transgender woman.  He fled to the U.S. – despite the Trump administration’s plans to tighten standards in the U.S. for asylum seekers – because he believes life in a U.S. jail would be better than whatever fate awaited him in Egypt.

Internet freedom is deteriorating, with governments taking down mobile Internet services, restricting live video, and employing digital armies of pro-government commentators to sway public opinion, according to a report released today by Freedom House.  A Freedom House leader tells VOA that authoritarian countries like China and Russia are actually exporting techniques, contributing to a rapid rise in disinformation.

The plight of the thousands of Rohingya Muslims who fled Myanmar was hardly a footnote, let alone a major issue when  President Trump mingled with Southeast Asian leaders in the Philippines this week.  Human rights activist don’t expect that will be the case when Secretary of State Rex Tillerson visits Myanmar on Wednesday.

Apache leader Geronimo, fed up after the U.S. government repeatedly moved his Native American community from reservation to reservation, spent 10 years leading a group of followers as they evaded efforts to capture them.  After he surrendered in 1886, he spent the next 23 years as a prisoner and sometimes tourist attraction – put on display, taking part in parades, and selling autographs and photos of himself – before he died in 1909.