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It's now been 60 years since the US imposed a trade embargo on Cuba. To mark the anniversary, the National Security Archive has posted a selection of previously declassified documents that show that the initial goal of the embargo was to create “hardship” and “disenchantment” among the Cuban population and the overthrow of the government of Fidel Castro. They also show that by the early 1980s, the...

More than 100,000 Russian troops remain stationed near the borders of Ukraine, signaling a possible invasion in the coming weeks. It’s a brewing conflict that has drawn the eyes of the world, as well as its military hardware. Ukraine’s arsenal is small, but growing: anti-tank missiles from the US and Britain, Stinger missiles from the Baltics and armed drones from Turkey. Turkey’s president visite...

US President Joe Biden announced today that US Commandos have killed the leader of ISIS in a risky pre-dawn attack in Syria. Aaron Zelin, senior fellow at the Washington Institute, tells host Marco Werman that the death of ISIS leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, like that of his predecessor Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, is not likely to affect the plans of the ideologically driven ISIS.

Hong Kong's relationship with China has been framed as "one country, two systems." But Beijing has been testing that idea in recent years. Mark Clifford lived in Hong Kong from 1992 to 2021, and is currently president of the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong. He's also the author of a new book, "Today Hong Kong, Tomorrow The World: What China's Crackdown Reveals About its Plans to End Freedom Eve...

As waves of COVID have hit India, lockdowns have resulted in waves of canceled weddings. Chhavi Sachdev reports from Mumbai on the toll that's taken on industries and workers who support the $70 billion wedding industry.

Israel punished three soldiers with dismissals and reprimands this week over the death of Palestinian American elder, Omar Asaad, in January. The case caused an uproar and brought calls for an investigation by the US State Department and US lawmakers. The World's Marco Werman spoke with Avner Gvaryahu, an ex-Israeli soldier and co-director of “Breaking the Silence,” about the case and what it reve...

It's been one year now since the army in Myanmar seized power in a coup d'etat. Today, the economy is in a state of collapse. Hundreds of anti-military protesters have been killed and tens of thousands of civilians imprisoned. In the second part of our two-part series on Myanmar's opposition, The World's Patrick Winn co-reported this story with Maung Mo. It's about a soldier who is faced with the...

Following a deadly attack Sunday by militants in Burkina Faso, officials in neighboring Ghana have put their own country on high alert. Host Marco Werman speaks with reporter Ridwan Karin Dini-Osman in the Ghanaian capital Accra, about security concerns there.

Trying to recover from one crisis may have contributed to a second one in Tonga. The government there announced a lockdown after finding infections of the coronavirus in two port workers. They were helping distribute aid arriving to the Pacific nation in the wake of the massive volcanic eruption and tsunami that almost three weeks ago that killed three people, covered the islands in ash, and damag...

The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT) is a secure bank messaging technology provider from Belgium, whose services are used across the international financial system. In 2019, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said that pushing Russia out of SWIFT and banning them from using it would, "in fact be a declaration of war." Marco Werman talks to Brian O'Toole, an...

Since 2014, Ukraine has been in armed conflict with Russia. Over these eight years, tens of thousands of Ukrainians have enlisted in the military and have seen combat. Now that the threat level for a larger conflict with Russia is up, many of these veterans are ready to go back to the front lines. The World's Daniel Ofman reports from Kyiv, Ukraine. 

A St. Louis woman recently discovered that her mom had a secret past as a rock star in Vietnam. Their family fled Saigon almost 50 years ago, and, for decades, her mother never spoke of her recordings and intense following. But now, a new album has been released with the recordings that have been dug up from the 1960s and 1970s. As Emily Woodbury reports from St. Louis, discovering her mother's pa...

Millions of Indians planning to have a large, traditional wedding in 2020 or 2021 had to drastically scale back their plans, reschedule or travel. Chhavi Sachdev reports on the pandemic's toll on couples trying to tie the knot in India.

One of the mantras of this pandemic is that COVID-19 will eventually become an endemic disease that we’ll live with. As immunity increases across the population through vaccines and natural infection, the virus' ability to transmit will weaken. But scientists are warning that “endemic” is really a technical term and COVID-19's impact on a population can still be devastating whether it's endemic or...

The 2022 Winter Olympics kick off this week in Beijing. In the midst of the pandemic, the lead-up to the competition has been unlike any in Winter Olympics history. The World's Bianca Hillier reports on how athletes are doing as they fly to China.

India's government announced its plan to introduce a digital currency or digital rupee. The government is also introducing a 30% tax on income generated from digital assets as cryptocurrencies' popularity takes off in India. The World's Marco Werman spoke with Faisal Khan, an independent crypto researcher, about how this will work and the implications of this for India's economy. 

An oil pipeline broke in Ecuador's Amazon region over the weekend, spilling thousands of barrels of oil into the jungle. Footage shows the oil has already poured into the Coca and Napo rivers, which feed into the Amazon. More than 20,000 people are likely to be impacted. This is the largest oil disaster in Ecuador since 2020 when another set of pipelines broke in the Amazon, spilling 16,000 barrel...

Host Marco Werman tells of two species of animals in the news. The snowy owl from Canada, flying south in big numbers this winter, and the Mexican gray wolf in the US Southwest, one of whom got stuck at the US border wall.

On Feb. 1, 2021, Myanmar’s military staged a brutal coup d’etat. Soldiers locked up elected officials including Aung San Suu Kyi, the nation’s leading politician. And when people protested, troops gunned them down in the streets, killing 1,500 unarmed civilians. But one year later, many people in Myanmar are fed up with nonviolent resistance. This is a civil war. People are taking on the army with...

In late December 2021, a series of tweets landed a Ugandan satirist, Kakwenza Rukirabashaija, in detention. His lawyer says he was tortured there. His crime: referring to the son of the Ugandan president as "obese.” Ugandan activist, poet and academic Stella Nyanzi spent time in a Ugandan prison on similar charges, for similar kinds of insults. The World's Carol Hills speaks to Nyanzi, who is now...

Last August, as Afghanistan fell to the Taliban, the world witnessed desperate scenes at Kabul airport as people scrambled to get onto evacuation flights. Among the countries willing to temporarily host the evacuees was the small Balkan nation of Albania. More than 2,000 are currently there, awaiting visa processing for the US and Canada.  But this isn’t like most refugee camps — these refugees ar...

As tensions around a Russian military threat increase in Europe, President Vladimir Putin's allies have expressed their support. Hungary's leader Viktor Orbán is traveling to Moscow tomorrow to meet with Putin. To discuss Putin's sphere of influence and how it's impacting the current conflict, The World's Marco Werman is joined by Alina Polyakova, president and CEO for the Center for European Poli...

Shortly after scientists identified SARS-CoV-2 in 2020, the race was on to come up with a vaccine. It was unprecedented. So was a global initiative called COVAX, with the aim to make these vaccines equitable to low- and middle-income countries. In the nearly two years since it was created, and exactly one year since delivering its first vaccine shipments, COVAX has faced massive challenges in livi...

The "partygate" political scandal unfolds in the UK after stories surfaced of booze-fueled parties at Downing Street, the seat of the UK executive. As the parties went on, the UK public was enduring strict public health protocols meant to slow the spread of COVID-19. Today, a report produced from an inquiry into the parties was published on the UK government's website. Marco Werman interviews Jill...

Pyongyang has started the new year by launching a series of test launches. On Sunday, it fired an intermediate-range ballistic missile capable of reaching the US territory of Guam. Jeffrey Lewis, a professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies tells The World Marco Werman Sunday’s launch is a prelude to what’s likely to be an even bigger provocation.