Kane Farabaugh's Kanestergram

The loss of manufacturing jobs in the northeastern U.S. state of New York led to an economic decline in the 1970s. But war in Vietnam, and two decades later in the Balkans, as well as continued strife in Burma and Africa have helped change the face of one central New York community. VOA's Kane Farabaugh visited the town of Utica, which has welcomed an influx of refugees from around the world. Utica's prosperity disappeared two to three decades ago Prosperity left Utica, New York several decades ago. Once-mighty factories are now in ruin, reminders of a faded glory. The hum of industry and people reached its peak in 1960, when the population grew to more than 100,000 people. Peter Vogelaar from the Mowhawk Valley Refugee Resource Center did not live here then. He arrived more than three decades later, when the population stood at little more than 60,000. "It's the rust belt. You know, a lot of light manufacturing. There was a closing of a military base just north of...

The Balkan conflict, the strife in Sudan, and ongoing oppression in Burma are just some of the factors that have forced people to flee their homes and resettle in the northeastern state of New York. But language and cultural barriers make finding work a difficult prospect for some. As VOA's Kane Farabaugh reports, one local furniture plant embraces the refugee community, and now employs a workforce dubbed a "mini-United Nations." When Mehudin Krdzic was a young boy in Bosnia, he says Serbian forces moved his family from their farm into the town center of Srebrenica. He recalls what he saw with horror. "Thousands of people killed. Bodies all over the road on top of each other. Massacre. Bottom line, I saw the massacre." What Marka Bosso knew about hardship before it came to his village in southern Sudan, he says he learned from watching movies. As conflict erupted around them, Bosso and his family fled to Egypt. "The real life is different from the movies....

"Korea is a peninsula divided. Two nations, yet one people separated by history, ideology, and the demilitarized zone. It is within this zone that a fragile armistice endures the test of time and change in a standoff that is neither piece nor war. It is a place where servicemembers and civilians alike have sacrificed their lives to maintain a peace so thousands may live." I wrote that piece as part of a script for a spot promotion on a documentary I helped produce with the American Forces Korea Network (AFKN) in Seoul. It was my first year on the peninsula and my first introduction into the complex division between the Korean people. I was part of a team of reporters stationed in Seoul for AFKN, and each day, out of naivite, we would search the Associated Press wires for news that North Korea had advanced or provoked checkpoints at the worlds most heavily guarded border. None of us really knew the enemy or the enemies motives. We just knew that they existed, and that they wer...

During the Cold War, Greenland was a strategic location for the United States military to track and detect Soviet aircraft and ballistic missiles. The military established radar and tracking sites throughout Greenland's ice sheet. The only way in and out of the remote facilities was by specially equipped aircraft. Since 1975, that mission has belonged to an Air Force unit based in New York state -- the 109th Airlift Wing. As VOA's Kane Farabaugh reports, a unit that began a now obsolete military mission has found new life in Greenland in the pursuit of science. The C-130 airplanes offer the only possible way to deliver heavy equipment and supplies to the remote arctic research stations It is early morning in Kangerlussuaq, Greenland. Airmen from the 109th Airlift Wing from New York state are far from home on this cold morning. It is about an hour from take off for a group of students and scientists heading into the Arctic chill of Greenland's vast ice sheet. For many of th...