Newsletter Archive

It’s nearly impossible for the majority of people to get cash in Zimbabwe. Hyperinflation prompted the southern African nation to abandon its own currency in 2009, and Zimbabweans have relied on foreign currency since then. VOA spoke to dozens of people on the streets of Harare shortly after President Robert Mugabe’s resignation, and every one of them said their biggest, most urgent concern is getting cash.

After a nearly century-long wait, Hollywood is finally getting a movie museum. The $388 million Academy Museum of Motion Pictures is scheduled to open in 2019. It comes just as Hollywood enters a new phase in creating entertainment, one that extends Tinseltown’s reach beyond movie theaters.

‘Powerful and severe’ is how a North Korean defector assesses the Trump administration’s sanctions against Pyongyang. While past sanctions mostly targeted specific individuals, companies and banks, the new strictures target all of North Korea’s possible sources of revenue. That’s a measure, according to the former North Korean economic official, that could cripple the country’s economy.

VIDEO: “I planned my funeral twice. I picked out my grave.’ Yet 17 years later, Tony Burns is still alive. The Washington, DC, man is one 36.7 million people around the world living with HIV/AIDS. Almost two decades after Burns’s diagnosis, the landscape has changed dramatically for people who once viewed an HIV/AIDS diagnosis as a death sentence.

VIDEO EXPLAINER: What happens when an elected official leaves the post before their term expires? Whether they’re in Congress, state or local office, that empty seat is often filled in a special election.

An invitation they can’t refuse in Cambodia? At least 50 local commune officials, who lost their positions when the ruling party dissolved the opposition party, are now in hiding. Prime Minister Hun Sen invited the thousands of opposition members serving in local authorities to join his Cambodian People’s Party, but most declined. That’s led to a climate of fear of reprisals that led dozens of the former local officials to go off the grid.