NEED TO KNOW THAILAND A Big Show of Votes A lot is riding on Thailand’s parliamentary elections on March 24. It will be the first time that voters choose their leaders since a military coup in 2014. “(The elections) are widely seen as an opportunity for a fresh start after...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW BURKINA FASO Steps Forward, Steps Backward BBC reporters recently discovered a sad date scribbled on a school blackboard in Foubé in northern Burkina Faso: December 15, 2018. That’s the last time children attended class in the building. "A lot of schools have been torched. Teachers have been...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW COMOROS An Act of Courage Comoros President Azali Assoumani was recently targeted for assassination as he campaigned ahead of his east African archipelago nation’s March 24 presidential election. “People left explosives at the top of a mountain to cause an avalanche when it exploded,” campaign director...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW SPAIN Living Off Fire The trial of a dozen Catalan separatists has been proceeding for more than a month in Madrid. Separatist leaders who organized Catalonia’s October 2017 independence referendum have testified that their demonstrations ahead of the vote were spontaneous, peaceful and festive, wrote an...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW LIBYA Money, Power and Blood Libyans ousted the late dictator Muammar Gaddafi more than eight years ago with the help of the US and NATO. Today, amid criticism that the West’s intervention was a failure, Libya is still reeling from the chaotic power vacuum that arose...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW SLOVAKIA Banking on Sanity For years, populists have been winning office in Central Europe, often exploiting xenophobia and capitalizing on sluggish economies that have been widening the gap between rich and poor. The trend appears to be changing in Slovakia. Zuzana Caputova, a civil rights and good-government...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW AFGHANISTAN Small Expectations The Americans want to leave in five years. The Taliban want them to go within a year. The gap between the two reflects the US desire not to retreat from Afghanistan, which American-led NATO troops invaded after the September 11 attacks in 2001,...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW PANAMA The Chinese Canal Panama is one of the world’s hippest hot spots this year, Vogue recently exclaimed. The Chinese government agrees. The isthmus country is the exemplar of Chinese investment and influence in Latin America. China operates ports at the Caribbean and Pacific sides of the Panama Canal,...
Read full story →Today we are introducing a new feature we hope will increase your enjoyment of DailyChatter – a daily map to position the country in our lead feature, Need to Know. NEED TO KNOW SUDAN Sudanese Spring Demonstrations have rocked Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, since late last year. In...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW NORTH KOREA [map url="https://gallery.mailchimp.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/9819874a-0911-4a9f-976b-b164a06f3dc2.png"] No Checks, No Balance North Korea held parliamentary elections this past weekend. They weren’t a democratic exercise. The last time voters headed to the polls in 2014, according to the Korea Times, a daily based in Seoul, dictator Kim Jong-un and his allies...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW GUINEA BISSAU The Times Are A Changin' The tiny West African country of Guinea-Bissau has been mired in political crises for years. In 2012, the military seized power in a coup – one of many in the former Portuguese colony’s four decades of independence. In 2014, President...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW IRAN Going Their Own Way American officials are angry with British, French and German leaders who are proceeding with plans that could allow their countries’ businesses to trade with Iran. But the Europeans don’t seem to care. The dispute stems from President Donald Trump’s decision last year...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW NORTHERN IRELAND From Divorce to Marriage Perhaps the greatest fear stemming from Britain’s scheduled exit from the European Union on March 29 is the resumption of violence in Northern Ireland – the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW CHINA What’s the Deal? President Donald Trump recently shelved plans to sharply raise US tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods. That punishment was intended for a host of offenses including stealing American intellectual property and unfair trade practices – namely subsidies for state-owned companies...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW COSTA RICA Green Ambitions Costa Rica is arguably conducting the world’s most ambitious experiment in fighting climate change. Renowned for its pacifism – Costa Rica abolished its military 70 years ago – the Central American republic recently launched a plan to use near-zero carbon by 2050. "Decarbonization...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW SOMALIA Secrets and Truths Secrets abound in Somalia. Nobody knows how American drones target alleged Al-Shabab terrorists or whether generals count innocent people killed in those efforts as terrorists, the Nation reported. On the flip side, the left-wing magazine noted, nobody knows if Somalis who claim that...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW HAITI Desperation, and Bullets Three protesters carrying a massive Haitian flag recently squared off against riot police in front of the National Palace in Port-au-Prince. A CNN photo essay contained that striking image, as well as other photographs of the bloody clashes that have been erupting...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW GUINEA-CONAKRY The Waiting Game They are used to waiting in Guinea. The West African nation often called Guinea-Conakry – to distinguish it from similarly named countries like Guinea-Bissau and Equatorial Guinea – held free and fair elections for the first time only in 2010. People are still...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW VIETNAM You've Come A Long Way, Baby Vietnam is setting the stage for President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s meeting this week. And more than one observer is noting the irony that the Southeastern Asian host country, once a war-torn economic basket...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW ESTONIA Virtual Geography Estonia might be the closest approximation to a tech utopia that exists on planet Earth. “Estonia is often described as a genuinely digital society,” wrote Quartz, describing 24/7 online public services and blockchain technology to protect everyone’s privacy. “There are only a few...
Read full story →