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The Summer of Discontent

NEED TO KNOW The Summer of Discontent After years of disastrous economic policies, Zimbabweans' patience with 92-year-old President Robert Mugabe appears to be wearing thin. “The campaign that we are getting into, we are very (sure) that by Aug. 31, Robert Mugabe will be done away with,” Happymore...

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Web of Wolves

NEED TO KNOW Web of Wolves What makes a terrorist? Events over the weekend in Germany -- as well as new revelations about the truck driver who killed 84 people in Nice earlier this month – suggest that radicalization is less straightforward than commonly imagined. The line between...

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Elton John Won’t Beat AIDS

Need to Know Elton John Won’t Beat AIDS Sixteen years after the decision that turned the tide against HIV/AIDS, the once-dreaded disease is easily dismissed as somebody else’s problem. But as delegates again met for the International AIDS Conference in Durban, South Africa – the city where it...

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The More Things Change

Need to know The More Things Change Turkish officials have launched a purge on a scale that evokes a communist dictatorship cracking down on dissidents in the early 20th century rather than a NATO member in the 21st. Turkish leaders estimate that 100,000 people were involved with the...

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No Peace To Keep

Need to know No Peace To Keep The African Union has approved a peacekeeping force for South Sudan. But, in a twist that illustrates the long-suffering country’s dilemma, the troops can’t deploy unless they receive permission from the South Sudanese government. President Salva Kiir doesn’t want the troops. He’s...

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The Same Old Same Old

Need to Know The Same Old Same Old Tens of thousands of people congregated on the Promenade des Anglais Monday to observe a moment of silence in honor of the 84 people killed when an angry young man drove a 19-ton truck through a crowd watching Bastille...

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Shock but Little Awe

Need to Know Shock but Little Awe The failed coup d’etat in Turkey was shocking. But, as the dust from the brief chaos settles, it’s not hard to see that the putsch wasn’t a total surprise given the country’s trajectory in recent months. In the run-up to the...

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An Eye for an Eye

Need to Know An Eye for an Eye “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind,” is one of Mohandas K. Gandhi’s most famous aphorisms. But events in Kashmir this week suggest that the army and police have read the words of the Mahatma like...

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Pottery Barn Rule Redux

Need to Know Pottery Barn Rule Redux As the United States plans to deploy 560 more American soldiers to help the Iraqi government retake Mosul from the Islamic State, some Iraqis are preparing for a humanitarian crisis. As many as one million people, or half the city’s residents,...

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A Running Start

Need to Know A Running Start Theresa May is Britain’s new Iron Lady. And it wasn’t long after Conservative Party members anointed May as their new leader this week that Iron Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany gave the incoming prime minister her marching orders. "The task of the new...

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Troubled Waters

Need to Know Troubled Waters When Wang Zhenzhong looks to the ocean, he sees China. "For thousands of years, fishermen have fished our ancestral sea, the South China Sea,” the 35-year-old resident of Tanmen, a port town in China’s southernmost province of Hainan Island told NPR. Filipino leaders don’t...

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Asia’s Brexit moment

Need to Know Asia’s Brexit moment Japan is on track to deliver another momentous political change to today’s tumultuous geopolitics. On Sunday, Japanese voters gave Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his allies a two-thirds vote in the country’s upper house. With his similar supermajority in the lower house,...

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July 8, 2016

July 8, 2016 NEED TO KNOW Blue Lives Matter The killings just won’t stop. Reeling from a series of mass shootings, the US is again confronting gun violence, racism and the sticky problem of gun rights. Snipers...

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July 7, 2016

July 7, 2016 NEED TO KNOW Tensions, New and Old Leaders of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) are meeting in Warsaw Friday for a two-day summit that’s illustrating the challenges facing – as well as...

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July 6, 2016

July 6, 2016 NEED TO KNOW Hair shirts for spies Medieval penitents used to suffer in itchy hair shirts as a way to atone for their sins. The world’s intelligence agencies could use some discomfort of their...

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July 5, 2016

July 5, 2016 NEED TO KNOW North Korea: How Bad Is It? North Korea appears to have achieved a worrying capability following its recent successful launch of a Musudan medium-range missile after numerous flops. Pyongyang's Musudan traveled...

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July 4, 2016

July 4, 2016 EDITOR'S NOTE Today is Independence Day in America, the 240th anniversary of its birth as a new nation. July 4th is a day of celebration and remembrance and in its honor we...

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July 1, 2016

July 1, 2016 NEED TO KNOW No BoJo Means No With former London Mayor Boris Johnson, aka BoJo, out of the race for prime minister, the odds that the UK will step away from the ledge...

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June 30, 2016

June 30, 2016 NEED TO KNOW The Duterte Show Goes Live Rodrigo Duterte was inaugurated Thursday as president of the Philippines following a landslide May 9 election victory and a campaign that featured misogyny, tough talk...

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June 29, 2016

June 29, 2016 NEED TO KNOW Taking a Step Back? When the North American Free Trade Agreement took effect in 1994, it was heralded as a milestone on the road toward a new era of globalization....

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