NEED TO KNOW KOSOVO [map url="https://gallery.mailchimp.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/32cfa942-fe95-4d5a-b641-225fb469688b.png"] Getting the House in Order Voters in Kosovo are preparing to elect a new parliament for the fifth time in 12 years. The Oct. 6 vote illustrates the political instability that has prevented the tiny country – the newest in Europe and the second...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW PORTUGAL [map url="https://gallery.mailchimp.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/8bd2b27e-63d6-421e-a05b-e4e77532349c.png"] Sunshine, and Rainy Days Voters on the tiny Portuguese island of Madeira recently handed a victory to their prime minister on the mainland, António Costa. They tripled the number of lawmakers from Costa’s Socialist Party in the island’s regional parliament, traditionally a stronghold of...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW ISRAEL [map url="https://gallery.mailchimp.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/4eb1114d-3a8f-4e5d-a79b-a29d71e260fc.png"] Counterclockwise Carousels It seemed like Benjamin Netanyahu was in trouble. The results of the Sept. 17 election in Israel had been inconclusive. Neither the conservative prime minister nor his centrist main rival, ex-army leader Benny Gantz, garnered enough votes to form a government outright...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW CHECHNYA [map url="https://gallery.mailchimp.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/b3c122de-c755-4f08-ae2e-3c016f6d2ed2.png"] A Warrior Culture On a recent visit to Chechnya, a region of southwestern Russia in the Caucasus Mountains, a writer repeatedly overheard a macho refrain: “The man must take care of and protect his family, otherwise he would not be a man.” Writing in...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW JAPAN [map url="https://gallery.mailchimp.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/b51a2c6c-6c79-4bdd-a5f7-9da486138719.png"] The Half-Life of Fear International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach wants to reassure athletes that radiation won’t taint their food when they compete in the Summer Games in Tokyo next year. Bach’s recent comments at the United Nations came after South Korean officials announced they...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW AFGHANISTAN [map url="https://gallery.mailchimp.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/63dbd3ab-8c9f-403c-b1d4-f10b4c9a44c2.png"] We the People A Taliban suicide bomber recently killed at least 26 people at a presidential campaign rally in Afghanistan. Less than an hour later, a second suicide bombing claimed at least 22 lives in Kabul, the capital, the Washington Post reported. The blasts...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW AUSTRIA [map url="https://gallery.mailchimp.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/f496d445-2136-496b-b90b-cd25f777326b.png"] Return of Realpolitik Austrian hoteliers recently sued a former guest who complained in online reviews about the photograph of their uncle that hung in their lobby. The uncle was dressed in a Nazi army uniform, the Telegraph reported. The hotel owners protested that the...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW THE AMAZON [map url="https://gallery.mailchimp.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/ef81c211-c0fb-4e21-a904-be4d939e55c6.png"] Burning Down the House This summer, a lot of people feared the Amazon rainforest might burn to the ground, destroying an oxygen-generating ecological treasure sometimes called the “lungs of the world.” Fears about the massive forest fires in Brazil turned out to be...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW ARGENTINA [map url="https://gallery.mailchimp.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/0fa8b6fd-0f1b-4593-a49c-c234f14a68af.png"] The Bad Old Days Argentine President Mauricio Macri recently visited the Shrine of Our Lord and Our Lady of the Miracle in the country’s north. Perhaps the pro-business conservative was hoping for divine intervention in late October when he seeks re-election, quipped Crux, an...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW BANGLADESH [map url="https://gallery.mailchimp.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/5a28d85d-66cb-4ec2-95b9-62a1affd362e.png"] Dropped Calls Around one million Rohingya refugees live in camps in Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh. They fled their homes in neighboring Myanmar, formerly Burma, a largely Buddhist country where officials in recent years have perpetrated a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the minority Muslim...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW RUSSIA [map url="https://gallery.mailchimp.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/590fa22c-cb98-46d1-92e0-b6539b2a1173.png"] Over a Shoulder, Over a Barrel Funny thing happened after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s allies lost a third of their seats on the Moscow city council earlier this month. Members of Putin’s United Russia political party still retained a slim majority on the capital...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW INDIA [map url="https://gallery.mailchimp.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/6c1e91bd-d64f-473f-b468-ad3e35a0f829.png"] Papers, Please Imagine being declared a foreigner in the country of your birth. That’s what happened to seven-year-old Afsana, who is one of 1.9 million people who lost their citizenship under a new drive to identify undocumented immigrants in the northeastern, tea-producing state of...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW AFGHANISTAN [map url="https://gallery.mailchimp.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/63dbd3ab-8c9f-403c-b1d4-f10b4c9a44c2.png"] The Forever War Services in memory of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks in the US might have included the announcement of a peace accord in Afghanistan. Instead, a few days before the anniversary of the attacks, which still take their toll today, President...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW ZIMBABWE [map url="https://gallery.mailchimp.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/b64e0c19-eefc-4daa-92c7-139646417589.png"] Dancehall Dreams Winky D is a hero among some in Zimbabwe. The popular singer performs Zimdancehall music, a reggae-descended genre that gives voice to the “veiled discontent” and “disillusionment” that’s widespread in the southern African country, wrote the New York Times. The target of Winky...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW ISRAEL [map url="https://gallery.mailchimp.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/4eb1114d-3a8f-4e5d-a79b-a29d71e260fc.png"] A Messy Do-Over Israeli President Reuven Rivlin delivered a rare rebuke of Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu in the runup to the country’s parliamentary elections on Tuesday. Netanyahu has been pushing for legislation that would allow political parties to videotape polling stations, ostensibly to...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW TUNISIA [map url="https://gallery.mailchimp.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/9fcb8edf-e081-4318-ab32-04abb3d5c1e6.png"] The Art of Listening The Tunisian presidential election is heating up. That’s important because voters are deciding more than who will lead the Mediterranean country when they go to the polls on Sunday, Al Jazeera wrote. The future of democracy in the Arab world is...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW LEBANON [map url="https://gallery.mailchimp.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/094ac9b0-45f5-497b-ac34-cf0c28046926.png"] Where to Start? The Daily Star, an English-language newspaper in Lebanon, recently ran an edition that contained no news. Instead, editors printed a single phrase on each page each highlighting one challenge that the Middle Eastern country is facing. Bankruptcies, currency instability, high pollution...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW GERMANY [map url="https://gallery.mailchimp.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/18ca6ce9-4a8f-46d8-b0b3-84a7601584cd.png"] Riding the Tailwinds The Alternative for Germany (AfD) has been racking up electoral gains lately, and many expect more to come. The political party – founded in 2013 amid the Eurozone financial crisis and on the cusp of Europe’s foreign migrant crisis – scored...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO [map url="https://gallery.mailchimp.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/1d45ef22-7937-40b7-9d50-cd2eef360d5f.png"] Scourge Act II The Ebola outbreak in West Africa killed more than 11,300 people between 2014 and 2016. As of late August, more than 2,000 people have perished in the yearlong outbreak of the fatal virus in the Democratic Republic...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW IRAQ & SYRIA [map url="https://gallery.mailchimp.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/41901c3f-ab12-4410-9a9f-713dd06e0683.png"] Exponential Radicalization Thousands of displaced wives and children of the vanquished Islamic State now live in the sprawling al-Hawl refugee camp in northeastern Syria. They lived through a horrific period of Middle Eastern history that Reuters described as dating back to the...
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