Taiwan attracting Southeast Asian tech students

05/05/2024

Taiwan is looking to Southeast Asia as a pipeline to fill its shortage of high-tech talent. The numbers of foreign students coming to the island has been growing, especially from Vietnam and Indonesia. VOA Mandarin's Peh Hong Lim reports from Hsinchu, Taiwan. Adrianna Zhang contributed. LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY — Twenty horses stampeding t [Read more]

Blinken: US delivering for Pacific islands despite China's reach...

05/05/2024

Washington — The United States, boosted by allies and the private sector, is delivering for Pacific islands even if Washington alone cannot match China's growing footprint, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said late Friday. Blinken spoke after lawmakers in the Solomon Islands, whose warming security relationship with China has spa [Read more]

Group of Republicans unite to defend legitimacy of US elections...

05/05/2024

ATLANTA, GEORGIA — It was Election Day last November, and one of Georgia's top election officials saw that reports of a voting machine problem in an eastern Pennsylvania county were gaining traction online. So Gabriel Sterling, a Republican who had defended the 2020 election in Georgia amid an onslaught of threats, posted a message t [Read more]

Houston braces for flooding to worsen in wake of storms...

05/05/2024

HOUSTON, TEXAS — High waters flooded neighborhoods around Houston on Saturday following heavy rains that have already resulted in crews rescuing hundreds of people from homes, rooftops and roads engulfed in murky water. A flood watch remained in effect through Sunday afternoon as forecasters predicted additional rainfall Saturday nig [Read more]

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Voa news - Health

What could a woman president in Mexico mean for abortion rights? ...

05/05/2024

MEXICO CITY — If a woman wins Mexico's presidency on June 2, would she rule with gender in mind? The question has been raised by academics, humans rights organizations and activists ahead of the voting that will likely elect Mexico's first female president for the term 2024-30. Out of three candidates, the frontrunner is Claudia S [Read more]

Tropical cyclone threatens to worsen humanitarian crisis in flooded East Africa...

05/05/2024

GENEVA — The World Meteorological Organization warns that Tropical Cyclone Hidaya, which is projected to make landfall in Tanzania and Kenya this weekend, threatens to worsen the humanitarian crisis triggered by torrential rains in these and other heavily flooded countries in East Africa. “Hidaya is the first documented system to h [Read more]

Pakistan records its wettest April since 1961 with above average rainfall...

05/05/2024

ISLAMABAD — Pakistan has recorded its wettest April since 1961, with more than double the usual rainfall for the month, the national weather center said. The country experienced days of extreme weather in April that killed scores of people and destroyed property and farmland. Experts said Pakistan witnessed heavier rains because of c [Read more]

Iraq rainstorm flooding kills hikers, officials say...

05/05/2024

Sulaimaniyah, Iraq — Floods caused by torrential rainstorms have killed four hikers in the Sulaimaniyah region of northern Iraq, local officials told AFP. "Four members of a hiking team drowned because of heavy rains and flooding in Awaspi village" in the Qaradah district, local official Rouf Kamal said. Civil defense spokesper [Read more]

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Voa news - Politics

Trump's possible return reignites South Korea nuclear debate...

05/05/2024

Seoul, South Korea — South Korean calls to acquire nuclear weapons, which were subdued for the past year following steps to strengthen the U.S.-South Korea alliance, are once again bubbling to the surface ahead of the possible return of former U.S. President Donald Trump. Trump, who appears locked in a tight race with President Joe B [Read more]

Democratic US congressman indicted over ties to Azerbaijan ...

05/05/2024

WASHINGTON — Democratic U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas and his wife were indicted on conspiracy and bribery charges and taken into custody Friday in connection with a U.S. Department of Justice probe into the couple's ties to the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan. From 2014 to 2021, Cuellar, 68, and his wife allegedly accepted [Read more]

Yellen says threats to democracy risk US economic growth...

05/05/2024

WASHINGTON — Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen argues that a fractured democracy can have destructive effects on the economy — an indirect jab at Donald Trump. Yellen delivered an address Friday in Arizona, using economic data to paint a picture of how disregard for America's democratic processes and institutions can cause economic [Read more]

Group of Republicans unite to defend legitimacy of US elections...

05/05/2024

ATLANTA, GEORGIA — It was Election Day last November, and one of Georgia's top election officials saw that reports of a voting machine problem in an eastern Pennsylvania county were gaining traction online. So Gabriel Sterling, a Republican who had defended the 2020 election in Georgia amid an onslaught of threats, posted a message t [Read more]

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Voa news - Tech

Is social media access a human right? Norway's Supreme Court to decide...

05/05/2024

STAVANGER, Norway — A convicted sex offender is asking the Norwegian Supreme Court to declare social media access is a human right. The case before the court Thursday involves a man who molested a minor and used the Snapchat messaging app to connect with young boys. The unnamed offender was sentenced last year to 13 months in priso [Read more]

Ukraine unveils AI-generated foreign ministry spokesperson ...

05/05/2024

Kyiv, Ukraine — Ukraine has an AI-generated spokesperson called Victoria who will make official statements on behalf of its foreign ministry. The ministry said on Wednesday that it would "for the first time in history" use a digital spokesperson to read its statements, which will still be written by humans. Dressed in a dark suit, [Read more]

China carries Pakistan into space...

05/05/2024

islamabad — Pakistan on Friday witnessed the launch of its first lunar satellite aboard China's historic mission to retrieve samples from the little explored far side of the moon in a technologically collaborative mission that signals deepening ties between the countries. China's largest rocket, a Long March-5, blasted off from the W [Read more]

Holocaust survivors take on denial and hate in new digital campaign ...

05/05/2024

DUESSELDORF, Germany — Herbert Rubinstein was 5 years old when he and his mother were taken from the Jewish ghetto of Chernivtsi and put on a cramped cattle wagon waiting to take them to their deaths. It was 1941, and Romanians collaborating with Germany's Nazis were rounding up tens of thousands of Jews from his hometown in what is no [Read more]

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Voa news - Finance

Climate change set to cut average income by 19%, report warns...

05/05/2024

The average income of people around the world will be cut by one-fifth because of climate change by the middle of the century, according to a new report by Germany's Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, published in the journal Nature. Henry Ridgwell has more. [Read more]

US employers add 175,000 jobs in April...

05/05/2024

WASHINGTON — The nation's employers pulled back on their hiring in April but still added a decent 175,000 jobs in a sign that persistently high interest rates may be starting to slow the robust U.S. job market. Friday's government report showed that last month's hiring gain was down sharply from the blockbuster increase of 315,000 [Read more]

Analysts: Tesla-China EV market race still tough, despite self-driving win...

05/05/2024

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Sanctions, hobbled economy hit Iran's traditional carpet weavers hard ...

05/05/2024

KASHAN, Iran — The historic Kashan bazaar in central Iran once sat on a major caravan route, its silk carpets known the world over. But for the weavers trying to sell their rugs under its ancient arches, their world has only unraveled since the collapse of Iran's nuclear deal with world powers and wider tensions with the West. Rug ex [Read more]

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