By Alan Heil On August 3, the Biden administration announced it would begin distributing vaccines to 65 nations, many in Africa. Official global deaths so far have reportedly reached at least 4,255,657, a vast undercount by most estimates. VOA’s Hayde Adams interviewed U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African affairs Akuna Cook about the…
by Alan Heil There’s a seemingly endless crisis in that embattled strategically important South Asian country of nearly forty million people. What should the world be watching for in the critical summer of 2021? The latest turn of events As the Washington Post reports from Kabul on June 23: “A sweeping Taliban offensive across northern…
Most Afghan and Western diplomats agree: they must. Time’s clearly far overdue for a ceasefire and clear path ahead to end one of the deadliest conflicts of the 21st century, Afghanistan’s most recent 20-year-old civil war. The estimated combat death toll of Afghans in the war so far is estimated to be more than 31,000,…
Let’s begin with some personal recollections by this lifelong journalist and former VOA staff reporter and manager over nearly six decades. The Heils’ first overseas post was Beirut, then popularly and rightly known as “the Paris of the Middle East.” We arrived there in early 1965, and have since been gravely saddened during two disastrous…
The appointment of a new acting chief executive for America’s five taxpayer-funded overseas networks and two senior leaders of the Voice of America is a major achievement of the new Biden administration. At 2 p.m. January 20, Michael Pack, the departing CEO, announced his resignation at President Biden’s request barely two hours after Mr. Biden…
Less than a week before the end of President Trump’s term in office January 20, at least 30 VOA journalists and staff members petitioned for the immediate resignation of its new director Robert R. Reilly, and his recently appointed deputy director Elizabeth Robbins. As the Washington Post reported: “Simmering tensions between journalists and managers at…
Linked via ZOOM, two dozen veteran practitioners and scholars of the impact of the nation’s five overseas international broadcasters joined December 16th in discussion of the networks’ future under a Biden administration. Among the expert panelists as lead participants: Amanda Bennett and David Ensor. Former Voice of America Directors Martha Bayles and Peter Pomerantsev, scholars…
“Freedom of information is a fundamental human right, and the touchstone of all the freedoms, as well, to which the United States is consecrated. This is our touchstone as well. We seek a free flow of information with others, across Iron Curtains and stone walls.” — President John F. Kennedy, 1962 “To millions in closed…
President-elect Biden has taken a promising first step to ensure that the five networks uphold that reputation by naming former Under Secretary of State Richard Stengel and Time Magazine columnist as director of a Biden transition team for international broadcasting and other foreign policy assets. America’s five U.S. overseas government multimedia networks face a crucial…
The threat to the five international multimedia U.S. networks, at times, seems unrelenting. These networks are a key public diplomacy aspect of the nation’s outreach to at least 100 countries around the world. Herewith, a summary of the ongoing debate about prospects for their future. In an editorial on October 28, the Washington Post headline…