NEED TO KNOW Of Princes and Pilgrims Millions of people from across the globe are currently making their way to the holy city of Mecca– it’s a miraculous sight. The Hajj is one of the five pillars of Islam: The world's 1.6 billion Muslims are supposed to make...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW I’ll Do It My Way British Prime Minister Theresa May keeps saying, “Brexit means Brexit.” But it turns out almost nobody really knows what that means. May has created a new Department for Exiting the EU to figure it out. So far they haven’t made...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW Once More, With Fairness Europe is calling for a recount in Gabon's recent presidential election. It's the latest escalation in a largely overlooked conflict, on a largely overshadowed continent, that unfortunately grapples with such issues far too often. European Union election observers noted "anomalies" in the...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW The Lasting Pivot US President Barack Obama’s last big trip to Asia ended this week with his visit to Laos following the Group of 20 meeting in China. It's message, the same over the past eight years, "we care," was overshadowed by a brouhaha...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW A Democracy Grows in China World leaders were in China Monday for a Group of 20 summit that reminded everyone yet again of the expanding geopolitical power of the world’s most populous country. But Nathan Law and Hong Kong voters had a different message in...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW Two Twilights As US President Barack Obama manages the end of his tenure in office, he's also arguably presiding over the twilight of the United States' status as the world's indispensable superpower. Or so some pundits say. Over the weekend, on the eve of the G20...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW Wars, Civil and Proxy Russia’s military excursions in Syria have not only tipped the balance of power in the country’s civil war toward Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, they’ve also put Moscow ahead of the United States in the proxy war that is now raging...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW From Oil to Starbucks While countries in North Africa and the Levant have seen much turmoil since the Arab Spring kicked off in 2011, Saudi Arabia has been a regional exception, seemingly impervious to the internal strains that have ripped apart the societies of...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW The Hemorrhage of Souls One year into Europe's refugee crisis, the continent has come to grips with this immense challenge, right? Wrong. Refugees are still flooding into the continent. What's more, those who are arriving often join others stuck in tent cities where they've been channeled...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW The Kingdom of Crackdowns The tiny island kingdom of Bahrain has remained relatively stable in a region upended by turmoil, especially since the so-called "Arab Spring" five years ago. Even so, widespread riots rocked the country in 2011 when activists and Bahrain's Shiite majority took...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW A Dishonorable Practice Drugged and murdered by her brother for behavior her killer claimed was dishonoring the family and un-Islamic, 26-year-old Qandeel Baloch was yet one more victim of a so-called "honor killing" in Pakistan – the brutal practice in which a woman is...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW A Sense of Gloom Once a regional power, Egypt is now a shell of its former self. "A sense of gloom hangs over the country," the New York Times recently intoned. "Traditionally a leader of the Arab world, politically and culturally, and home to a...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW Of Swimsuits and Terror Want to prevent terrorism? Ban the burkini swimsuit. Or so goes the prevailing wisdom in France these days, a country still reeling from three major terror attacks since January 2015. In fact, no other European country has been so rattled by terror...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW Gunboat Justice Relations between the United States and Latin America have been rocky for years. Lately, however, they've taken a legalistic turn that while nonviolent, has continued the centuries-old trend of Americans prevailing against their neighbors to the south with an unsurprising backlash as a...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW The Vision Thing British voters' decision to leave the European Union in June didn’t technically trigger the formal process to leave the world's biggest commercial bloc – London must first invoke the now-infamous Article 50. But signs of economic damage wrought by the move are...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW The Saddest Microcosm For the past five months, the Yemeni capital of Sana'a has been mostly quiet. Quiet for Sana'a, that is. Fighter jets laden with bombs weren't flying over the dwellings resembling gingerbread houses. Shots ringing out weren't the norm at night for a...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW Venezuela’s Oil Troubles Oil prices may finally be set to rise. But desperate Venezuela won’t gain much from the potential lifeline, despite holding the world’s largest crude reserves. Shortly after Venezuela opened its border with Colombia for the first time in over a year last...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW Israel’s African Handshake Egypt’s Islam El Shehaby was escorted from the mat by loud boos in Rio de Janeiro last week, after the judo player refused to bow or shake hands with Israel’s Or Sasson – who had defeated him handily. But in the political...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW Terror Bogey Russian President Vladimir Putin’s negotiating style bears some similarity to the old American cliché “Shoot first and ask questions later.” That’s why observers are cocking their eyebrows at Moscow’s claims to have foiled a series of Ukrainian attacks in Crimea last week. On one...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW Desert Quicksand Since the ouster and later killing of former dictator Muammar al-Qaddafi in 2011, Libya has been reeling in chaos. A “shattered, hollowed-out country” due to the dictator’s long history of mismanagement and a lack of international follow-up after his ouster, Libya had fractured...
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