NEED TO KNOW HONDURAS A Suicide Mission When activists in Honduras speak up, it's more than an act of bravery. That's because Honduran society is so corrupt that politicians, industry executives and the criminals lining their pockets have no fear of repercussions when they silence protestors by violent means,...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW TANZANIA A Wolf and a Sheep East African leaders have been making headlines as of late – but not the good kind. In Uganda, lawmakers are at odds over a bill that could place President Yoweri Museveni in power for life. Meanwhile, neighboring Kenya is seriously stumbling...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW LAOS Jumping the Gun One of the world's few remaining communist states, Laos is also one of Asia's poorest. It also holds the grotesque distinction of being the most bombed country in history. From 1964 until 1973 – during the height of the Vietnam War –...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW GEORGIA No Pipe Dream A year ago, the Southern Caucasus country of Georgia held what was likely its freest and fairest election, a culmination of a trajectory to democratic maturity that began in 1991 after independence from the Soviet Union and the 2003 Rose Revolution. This...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW PROTESTANT REFORMATION In Praise of Reform Five hundred years ago on Oct. 31, when the rebellious theologian and monk Martin Luther nailed his famed 95 theses against Catholic corruption on the door of a church in Wittenberg, he kicked off a bloody era that culminated...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW CHINA The Chairman of Everything In addition to serving as president of China, Xi Jinping holds at least 12 other titles at the top of the country’s power structure, including general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee, chairman of the party’s Central Military...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW KENYA A No-win Do-over Kenya is going ahead with its presidential election Thursday. That's the case even though an election official fled the country in fear for her safety – and despite the fact that the incumbent's main challenger has dropped out in protest, and all...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW PHILIPPINES Of Roosters and Corners Once believed to be impervious to the pitfalls of his bombastic rhetoric and controversial policies, Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte's chickens may be coming home to roost. Since taking power just over a year ago, Duterte has lambasted the democratic norms of...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW UGANDA Just a Little Bit Longer Pay attention to what is happening in Uganda as President Yoweri Museveni tries to change his country’s constitution so that he can run for reelection in 2021 – when he will be 78 years old. Authorities have already jailed the...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW LATIN AMERICA Tidewaters Socialists rose to power in Latin America in the 1990s and 2000s as the region's economy took off. The phenomenon was called the “pink tide.” Now, that tide might be ebbing. Growth has sputtered throughout Latin America. That’s put pressure on socialist leaders...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW CZECH REPUBLIC Bohemian Rhapsody The candidate expected to become the next leader of the Czech Republic is a "polarizing," straight-talking media-mogul and billionaire who vows to drain the swamp, kick out Muslims and run the country like a business, according to the Washington Post. Sound familiar? And...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW ARGENTINA One Country, Two Leaders, Two Mysteries When Irish rocker Bono met Argentine President Mauricio Macri recently, the two discussed Santiago Maldonado, an activist who went missing while campaigning against energy companies exploiting land claimed by the indigenous Mapuche people in Patagonia. His disappearance evokes memories...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW JAPAN Meteoric Fizzle When Tokyo governor Yuriko Koike brought her Party of Hope to the national stage in opposition to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's Liberal Democratic Party last month, many saw her as the candidate to dethrone the nationalist, conservative prime minister in the nation's...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW SPAIN Pushing Deadlines Catalonia's President Carles Puigdemont failed to meet a deadline – again. Catalonia proceeded with an illegal independence referendum Oct. 1, in which almost 900 were injured in riots and police crackdowns. The referendum passed with 90 percent favorability, albeit under violent circumstances and...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW TURKEY Losing Friends If Russia or Iran invaded Turkey, the United States would presumably rush to the defense of its NATO ally. But recent diplomatic tensions that resulted in both countries suspending visa services for each other’s citizens have called into question whether Washington and...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW KYRGYZSTAN The Outlier The political climate in the Central Asian state of Kyrgyzstan is little known to even the most well-informed outside the region. But this former-Soviet, predominately Muslim nation of 6 million, far removed from traditional democracies like the United States and those in Europe,...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW AUSTRIA They’re Back Austria’s presidential election last year was a knock-down, drag-out fight between former Green Party leader Alexander Van der Bellen and Norbert Hofer, a rightwing nationalist with alleged Nazi sympathies. Van der Bellen’s victory was ballyhooed as a defeat of the xenophobes and far-right...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW BANGLADESH The Risky Burden More than half a million Rohingya refugees from Myanmar have flooded into neighboring Bangladesh since late August, when the Burmese military began its crackdown on the Rohingya in their native Rakhine State in response to a rebel attack against government forces. With...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW Liberia Personality Politics Liberians take to the polls Tuesday in a historic election that marks the first time in 73 years that a democratically elected leader in this West African nation will peacefully relinquish power to another elected president. President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the African continent's...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW SAUDI ARABIA Dynamic or Desperate? The recent attack by a lone gunman on Saudi Arabian King Salman’s summer palace in Jeddah was a reminder that the desert kingdom is a powder keg even as the king projects an image of rock-solid stability. Royal guards quickly foiled...
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