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Critics say the widespread African tradition of giving cash and gifts to a bride's family before marriage, known as a "bride price," degrades women by putting a required, monetary value on a wife. In Nigeria, the financial pressure in a recent case ended in suicide,…

Israel's attorney general Avichai Mandelblit says Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu can stay on as head of government even after he was indicted last week for alleged corruption. Although Cabinet ministers are required to step down after an indictment, the laws about a prime minister are…

Turkish riot police used force to break up a march by thousands of women calling for what they call an "end to impunity" for men guilty of violence against women. Police stopped more than 2,000 from marching up Istikal Street in Istanbul’s main shopping district.…

A Lebanese-born business tycoon says he is donating Hitler's top hat and other Nazi memorabilia he won at an auction to an Israeli Jewish group to keep the stuff out of the hands of neo-Nazis. Abdallah Chatila, who made his fortune in diamonds and Swiss…

Feature films on slavery have been part of Hollywood since the beginning of the film industry in United States. However, only recently, movies on slavery have been told from the perspective of the slaves, and now, with the film "Harriet" from the perspective of a…

When politicians try to win votes by blaming foreigners for stealing jobs, economists say they ignore technology, which is what is really replacing many of these jobs. However the issue remains that many workers and small businesses do not benefit from foreign trade as much…

Hong Kong pro-democracy forces won a landslide victory in local elections Sunday. Though primarily symbolic, the vote represents a stunning rebuke to Beijing, as VOA’s Bill Gallo reports from Hong Kong. ...

Devin Nunes, the top Republican on the Congressional committee investigating President Donald Trump, refused to answer questions Sunday as to whether he met with a former Ukrainian official to gather information on the son of former vice president Joe Biden. A lawyer representing Lev Parnas,…

Machine gun fire answers rock-throwing protesters. Motorcycle-riding Revolutionary Guard volunteers chase after demonstrators. Plainclothes security forces grab, beat and drag a man off the street to an uncertain fate. As Iran restores the internet after a weeklong government-imposed shutdown, new videos purport to show the…

More than three dozen people are reported dead in a series of security-related incidents in Afghanistan, including a fatal attack on a U.N. vehicle in the capital, Kabul. Several of the dead were civilians. Afghan officials said Sunday that Taliban rebels assaulted a security outpost…

Iraqi security forces fired rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse crowds of protesters Saturday, killing two people in a third day of fierce clashes in central Baghdad, security and hospital officials said.    Two protesters were struck with rubber bullets and died instantly and…

Hong Kongers are voting Sunday in a local election widely seen as a de facto referendum on pro-democracy protests that have recently taken a more aggressive turn.  The territory is on edge following days of intense clashes between police and groups of mostly student protesters,…

President Donald Trump's new national security adviser is criticizing what he says is silence from the rest of the world about China's confinement of more than 1 million Muslims in re-education camps, linking the lack of a global outcry to China's economic clout.    National…

A Hong Kong university campus under siege for more than a week was a deserted wasteland Saturday, with a handful of protesters holed up in hidden refuges across the trashed grounds, as the city’s focus turned to local elections. The siege neared its end as…

U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland has been a key witness in the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump. Sondland was appointed to his post after donating $1 million to Trump's inaugural committee. The practice of awarding ambassador positions to wealthy political supporters…

In late December, it will be one year since Moscow detained U.S. citizen Paul Whelan on espionage charges. During his 11 months in the infamous Lefortovo prison, Whelan has denied the allegations and complained of systematic mistreatment. His family in the U.S. is working to…

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's indictment is expected to sharpen the battle lines in Israel's already deadlocked political system and could test the loyalty of his right-wing allies, Israeli commentators said Friday.                     The serious corruption charges announced Thursday appear to have dashed already slim…

Tens of thousands of people in Pakistan's eastern city of Lahore are at risk of respiratory disease because of poor air quality related to thick smog hanging over the region, an international rights group said Friday.                     Amnesty International called for “urgent action” for…

Pope Francis Friday called on bishops in Thailand to keep their doors open for priests and to spread the faith as their missionary predecessors did. "Be close to your priests, listen to them and seek to accompany them in every situation, especially when you see…

A study of grazing in Yellowstone National Park found that bison essentially mow and fertilize their own food. This allows them to graze in one area for two to three months during the spring and summer while other hoofed mammals must keep migrating to higher…

It wasn’t until she became a high school senior that Kayla Ireland had another black person as a teacher in Waterbury, a former manufacturing hub where the students are mostly minorities and the educators are generally white. The imbalance never troubled her much, except for…

A major Internet outage in Iran aimed at suppressing anti-government protests has extended into a 5th day, with access levels rising slightly as authorities said they reconnected several regions to the web. Real-time technical data corroborate reports in #Iran news media that some connectivity is…

U.S. diplomat Gordon Sondland told the impeachment panel investigating President Donald Trump Wednesday that despite the president's denial, U.S. aid to Ukraine was conditioned on investigations benefiting Trump's personal political interests. Sondland's testimony could mark a pivotal turning point in the impeachment inquiry in the…

Syrian forces shelled a displaced-persons camp in rebel-held Idlib Wednesday, killing at least 15 civilians, anti-government activists said. The missiles set a number of tents on fire; two missiles fell just outside a maternity hospital in the camp in Qah, near the border with Turkey.…

With urban populations surging around the world, cities will struggle to keep residents safe from fast-growing heat risks turbo-charged by climate change, scientists and public health experts warned this week. Heat is already the leading cause of deaths from extreme weather in countries including the…

The United States has imposed new sanctions on individuals and networks for providing financial support to the Islamic State (IS) terror group. The U.S. Treasury Department announced Monday the new round of sanctions targeting four individuals and five companies operating in Syria, Turkey, Afghanistan and…

Contrary to Pyongyang’s belief that nuclear weapons and missile programs safeguard its security and ensure its survival, experts said they make the country less safe because they leave it prone to U.S. military targets. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un “thinks that nuclear weapons are…

In 1990, a bikini-clad Madonna wrapped in a U.S. flag urged MTV viewers to vote in Senate elections as the youth television network partnered with a "Rock the Vote" campaign that mixed pop culture and politics. Thirty years on, with Millennials and Gen Z poised…