Nearly three years ago, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi won a sweeping national election victory with promises to develop the economy and root out corruption. But with a series of key state elections beginning this weekend, Modi’s popularity — and his surprise currency decree that sparked months of financial uproar — is now being tested. …

Read more “State Elections Test the Popularity of India’s Modi”

Women are underrepresented in high tech industries, and at American universities, they make up only 1 in 6 students of computer science. That’s changing on some campuses, as Mike O’Sullivan reports from Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, near Los Angeles, where more than half of last year’s graduates in computer science were women. …

Quantum computers, once they become available, are likely to help us solve problems too complex for the fastest computers today. So far, several laboratories around the world say they have created small quantum chips as the proof of concept. Scientists in Britain now say they have created the first blueprint for a large-scale quantum computer. …

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A group of professors has urged Iranian President Hassan Rohani to respond to a recent order by U.S. President Donald Trump temporarily barring travel by Iranians to the United States by easing travel restrictions for U.S. citizens visiting their country. …

The White House says President Donald Trump told Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko the United States will work to restore peace along the country’s tense border with Russia. …

They are some of the most exquisite objects ever created and, a century after the last Faberge Egg was created, in 1917, the tiny treasures continue to fascinate for both their beauty and the tragic story that entangled them. …

Opposition groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) under the umbrella group Rassemblement are expecting talks with the government will begin next week, despite the death of the group’s leader, Etienne Tshisekedi. Opposition supporters and civil society organizations expressed concern that Tshisekedi’s demise could imperil the transition agreement recently signed with the government. The …

Read more “Suspended DRC Talks to Resume Next Week”

Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine say one of their top commanders was killed when his car exploded early on February 4. …

But if he looks like President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, the person who’s been hitting the campaign trail in the last week or so doesn’t much act like Berdymukhammedov.(The views expressed in this blog post do not necessarily reflect the views of RFE/RL.) …

Iran is holding a military exercise Saturday to test its missile and radar systems, a day after U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration imposed sanctions on Tehran for a recent ballistic missile test. The United States sanctioned 13 individuals and 12 entities related to Iran’s missile program, and Trump’s national security adviser Michael Flynn said the …

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Many U.S. presidents have placed their financial holdings in a blind trust that is managed by a trustee without any input from the president. This arrangement is believed to help the president avoid any conflicts of interest between his finances and issues that come across his desk. U.S. President Donald Trump, however, has avoided calls …

Read more “Report: Trump Assets in Revocable, Not Blind, Trust”

As Ukraine’s relationship with Moscow continues to suffer as Kyiv battles Russia-backed separatists in its east, theaters are preparing to screen a new film focusing on the Holodomor, the Stalin-era famine that left millions dead in Soviet Ukraine. …

A top aide to President Donald Trump said Friday she misspoke when she cited a 2011 “massacre” in Kentucky that never happened. A day earlier, during an interview with MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, Kellyanne Conway defended Trump’s temporary ban on immigration from seven Muslim-majority nations by saying that former President Barack Obama instituted a similar policy …

Read more “AP Fact Check: Conway Says She Misspoke on ‘Massacre’”

Moldova’s pro-Russia President Igor Dodon has proposed a new flag for his country that would eliminate similarities the current banner has with the flag and coat of arms of neighboring Romania. …

Wracked by civil war and Islamic State occupation, Syrians living in areas under Kurdish or rebel control are suffering from a major shortage of heating fuel in an unusually harsh winter. People in the Kurdish region of northern Syria say they have been running low on heating supplies for more than a week. Many households …

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The Correspondents is VOA’s weekly discussion of the world’s top stories, as seen through the eyes of our dedicated reporters in the US and around the globe. Hosted by Mil Arcega, our panel of journalists goes beyond the headlines to give listeners and viewer real context and understanding of what’s driving the story. …