Whois & Analysis for voanews.com

Voice of America (VOA) is a United States government-funded multimedia news source and the official external broadcasting institution of the United States.

VOA provides programming for broadcast on radio, television, and the Internet outside of the U.S., in English and some foreign languages.

The VOA charter—signed into law in 1976 by President Gerald Ford—requires VOA to "serve as a consistently reliable and authoritative source of news" and "be accurate, objective and comprehensive".

The Russian Empire (also known as Russia') was a state that existed from 1721 until it was overthrown by the short-lived February Revolution in 1917.

One of the largest empires in world history, stretching over three continents, the Russian Empire was surpassed in landmass only by the British and Mongol empires.

The rise of the Russian Empire happened in association with the decline of neighboring rival powers: the Swedish Empire, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Persia and the Ottoman Empire.

It played a major role in 1812–14 in defeating Napoleon's ambitions to control Europe, and expanded to the west and south.

Central Asia or Middle Asia is the core region of the Asian continent and stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to China in the east and from Afghanistan in the south to Russia in the north.

It is also colloquially referred to as "the 'stans" (as the five countries generally considered to be within the region all have names ending with the Persian suffix "-stan", meaning "land of") and is within the scope of the wider Eurasian continent.

The Caucasus or Caucasia is a region at the border of Europe and Asia, situated between the Black and the Caspian seas.

The Middle East is a transcontinental region centered on Western Asia and Egypt.

The corresponding adjective is Middle-Eastern and the derived noun is Middle-Easterner.

The term has come into wider usage as a replacement of the term Near East (as opposed to Far East) beginning in the early 20th century.