Harvard University on Friday withdrew a fellowship invitation to Chelsea Manning, the transgender U.S. Army soldier who was convicted of leaking classified data, after two top intelligence experts distanced themselves from the school over the invite. Manning, 29, was released in May from a U.S. military prison in Kansas where she had been serving time…
read moreThe violence that has caused nearly 380,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee western Myanmar is prompting the United States to reconsider its relationship with the country’s military-dominated government. The humanitarian crisis is also affecting Washington’s close relationship with Myanmar’s longtime democracy icon, Aung San Suu Kyi, as VOA’s Bill Gallo reports. …
read moreU.S. President Donald Trump made it clear Thursday no deal has been reached with Democrats regarding the program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which protects undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children. The administration’s plan to end the temporary measure has caused outrage. After a meeting with congressional Democratic…
read morePresident Donald Trump says he and Democratic congressional leaders are fairly close to a deal to extend protections for immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children. Trump spoke the day after he hosted a White House dinner for Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, in what appears to be a strategic shift to…
read moreOne of China’s biggest bitcoin exchanges says it will end trading after news reports that regulators have ordered all Chinese exchanges to close caused the price of the digital currency to plunge. BTC China said on its website it will “stop all trading business” Sept. 30. The exchange said it was acting in the…
read moreA phalanx of police and a campus on virtual lockdown Thursday accomplished the University of California, Berkeley administration’s goal of allowing a conservative to speak at the famously liberal university, which has become known more recently for its violent demonstrations between those with opposing viewpoints. Outside, hundreds of protesters were allowed to voice their…
read morePresident Donald Trump will take his “America First” message to the United Nations next week and seek support for tough measures against North Korea despite his skepticism about the value of international groups like the 193-member body. Nearly eight months in office, Trump will stress his belief in the importance of national sovereignty and the…
read moreRadio Free Asia has joined the ranks of media outlets shuttered under the now almost blanket smothering of an independent press in Cambodia, as U.S. and European diplomatic efforts have failed, so far, to halt the county’s descent into authoritarianism ahead of elections next year. The closure of the U.S.-funded outlet, due to what it…
read moreYour afternoon chocolate bar may be fueling climate change, destroying protected forests and threatening elephants, chimpanzees and hippos in West Africa, research suggests. Well-known brands, such as Mars and Nestle, are buying through global traders cocoa that is grown illegally in dwindling national parks and reserves in Ivory Coast and Ghana, environmental group Mighty Earth…
read moreU.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said on Thursday that the United States was seeking to add a five-year sunset provision to the North American Free Trade Agreement to provide a regular, “systematic re-examination” of the trade pact. Ross told a forum hosted by Politico that both he and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer had agreed…
read moreInformal mining in Brazil is seen by many as a scourge polluting the Amazon rainforest, poisoning indigenous tribes and robbing the nation of its wealth. For others it is a way of life. Brazilian garimpos, or wildcat mines, are operated by small crews of men, often caked in red-brown mud and working with rudimentary pans,…
read moreU.S. President Donald Trump said Thursday he did not make a deal with the House and Senate Democratic leaders regarding the undocumented immigrants who came to the country as children and were protected from deportation by an Obama-era program Trump canceled last week. House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer had…
read moreVietnamese police have widened their investigation into alleged graft and mismanagement connected with the state-owned oil and gas giant PetroVietnam that caused $69 million in losses. Three PetroVietnam subsidiaries are being investigated for alleged abuse of power in appropriating $5.3 million, the Ministry of Public Security said in a statement late Wednesday. The case…
read moreAn environmental group is highlighting discrepancies in Cambodian government data on exports of silica sand to Taiwan, in what the group’s founder suggests may be a case of tax avoidance and economic fraud. Exports of another type of sand to Singapore were investigated after the same group exposed similar discrepancies in trade figures with that…
read moreA new analysis by the Harvard Business School outlines why U.S. voters are so frustrated with their political leaders — there is a lack of genuine competition between Republicans and Democrats to deliver actual results on major policies such as education, health care, taxes and infrastructure. The two major U.S. political parties have distorted the rules…
read moreU.S. human rights groups are suing the federal government over warrantless searches of phones and computers at the U.S. border. The American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation announced Wednesday that they have filed a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security on behalf of 10 American citizens and one U.S. permanent resident…
read morePresident Donald Trump has blocked the acquisition of a U.S. computer chip manufacturer by a Chinese company, calling it a threat to national security. The Chinese-owned Canyon Bridge Fund has sought to take over Oregon-based Lattice Semiconductor Corp. The U.S. Treasury Department, acting under Trump’s orders, said Wednesday it is prohibiting the deal. It says…
read moreThe top Democrat on the U.S. House of Representatives Intelligence Committee said Wednesday that representatives of Facebook and Twitter should appear before the panel to discuss Russian activity during the 2016 election campaign. “We do, I think, need the representatives of social media companies to come before our committee either in open or closed session,”…
read moreAs Congress looks into ways to fix the immigration system, often with the goal of safeguarding job opportunities for U.S. workers, at least one immigration organization argues that current federal regulations fail to protect foreign visa holders from job misrepresentation, recruitment fees, exploitation, fraud and discrimination. Four women who came to the U.S. on temporary…
read moreTanzania’s government has been cracking down on irregularities in the mining sector, most recently confiscating diamonds worth $15 million from British company Petra Diamonds, accusing it of devaluing exports. And in July, the government demanded gold miner Acacia pay $190 billion in what it asserted were unpaid taxes, saying the company had underreported its exports.…
read moreAmazon.com Inc. is preparing to open a 1 million square-foot warehouse near Mexico City, sources familiar with the project said, part of an effort to boost its presence in Mexico’s nascent e-commerce industry. The new warehouse is slated to be built in the Tepotzotlan municipality about 25 miles (40 km) north of the Mexican capital,…
read moreApple Inc’s highly anticipated iPhone X features a slew of innovations but delayed availability could hurt holiday-quarter sales. The much-hyped event on Tuesday unveiled three new phones, an advanced watch that can take calls and a new Apple TV, but die-hard fans will not be able to get their hands on the iPhone X until…
read more
