NEED TO KNOW PHILIPPINES A Culture of Violence An assassin riding a motorcycle gunned down Mayor Ferdinand Bote of General Tinio, a town around 50 miles north of Manila, in early July. On the previous day, a sniper murdered Mayor Antonio Halili of Tanauan, a city 40 miles south...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW UNITED KINGDOM Hot Air The 20-foot-long, orange inflated baby is now famous. Sporting President Donald Trump’s signature blonde coif, clutching a smartphone and wearing a diaper, the helium-filled balloon resembling those in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade has been given permission to fly above the Houses...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW NATO You've Got Mail American President Donald Trump normally takes to the Twittersphere when he has choice words for political allies or enemies. But ahead of a summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) starting Wednesday in Brussels, President Trump chose a more traditional means...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW INDIA Deadly Fake News American regulators are investigating how Facebook might have aided and abetted bad actors who allegedly used fake news to influence the 2016 US presidential election. As troubling as those developments might seem, the situation is arguably worse in the world’s largest democracy:...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW MEXICO Magic Man To call it a landslide would be an understatement. After two previous failed presidential bids, leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, popularly known as AMLO, dominated Mexico's July 1 elections, securing 53 percent of the vote, according to the National Electoral Institute which...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW SINGAPORE Cutting the Strings The small yet wealthy city-state of Singapore was in the international spotlight last month for hosting the historic summit between American President Donald Trump and North Korea's Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un. It was the perfect venue for such an event, commented the...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW NORTH AFRICA/EU Passing the Buck After debating the bloc's refugee policies into the wee hours of Friday morning last week, leaders of the European Union reached an initial agreement on asylum reform. The agreement lacks detail. But it calls for voluntary screening centers to be set...
Read full story →A Declaration, Then and Now It's July 4, and to celebrate the founding of our nation, we at DailyChatter spoke to historian and author Emily Conroy-Krutz about early American foreign policy, and how in the past 242 years, it has changed – or not. Although our founding document, the Declaration of Independence, was written centuries ago, its words and...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW UNITED KINGDOM To the Edge Bloomberg recently reported that British diplomats want a quick end to negotiations over the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland after Brexit, the March 2019 deadline when Britain quits the European Union. Three weeks later, the Independent quoted Northern Ireland’s police...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW TOGO A Tiny Revolution For almost a year, protesters in the tiny West African country of Togo have been taking to the streets to demand an end to the harsh rule of the Gnassingbé family. Faure Gnassingbé has been president since 2005. He took over after...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW MEXICO Lofty Visions The ambitious leftist outsider Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, known among his supporters as AMLO, is likely to sweep Mexico's upcoming presidential election on July 1 with his promise of new beginnings for the Mexican Republic. Lopez Obrador is expected to win twice as...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW MIDDLE EAST A Crude Balance One of the many big questions facing the Middle East today is how to balance the price of oil and economic and social reforms. Fueling growth in America and Europe and, later, China and India, countries in the Persian Gulf enjoyed...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW PAKISTAN No Clothes For The Emperors Pakistan has appointed a former Supreme Court justice to lead a caretaker government until the nation's July 25 elections, which will mark only the second peaceful transition of power from one elected government to another in the nation's history. But...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW EUROZONE The Cost of Discord Eurozone leaders recently gave a sop to Grecian taxpayers, giving Greece more time and other concessions to make it easier to pay back the billions it still owes from bailouts in the wake of the economic crisis a decade ago. The...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW MADAGASCAR The Milkman, the DJ, and the Accountant Months of political strife on Madagascar have seemingly come to a close after a court-mandated unity government reflecting the results of the nation's 2013 elections was installed earlier this month. But while Madagascar has managed to avoid all-out...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW INDIA A Buoy, A Flashpoint It's been a long time coming, but India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi arguably cemented India as a regional power earlier this month at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore. Much of the move came down to semantics. The United States has been pushing...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW CANADA The Other Canadian Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau cuts a progressive figure, talking regularly about feminism and diversity. One could be forgiven for thinking the young and handsome Trudeau represents everyone in Canada. But America’s northern neighbor produces other politicians, too. Take Doug Ford, brother of the...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW SLOVENIA Liberals and Illiberals The right-wing, anti-immigrant Slovenian Democratic Party, led by two-time former Prime Minister Janez Jansa, won a 25-percent share of the vote in the nation's parliamentary elections last month, securing the first priority in trying to form a government. But that won't be...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW JORDAN A Little Help From Friends Few believe the $2.5 billion in aid that Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait recently pledged to Jordan will change much in the debt-burdened kingdom. But the country nonetheless needs the funds as Jordanian leaders struggle to fulfill austerity...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW IRAN/EUROPE The Squeeze Iranian President Hassan Rouhani recently told Chinese and Russian leaders that US efforts “to impose its policies on others are expanding as a threat to all,” according to Radio Free Europe. Rouhani referred to US President Donald Trump’s decision last month to pull...
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