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Talking Over Troubled Waters

NEED TO KNOW ASIA [heading4]Talking Over Troubled Waters[/heading4] In addition to sealing business deals worth billions when they met at the White House on Wednesday, Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and President Trump almost certainly discussed the South China Sea. The dispute in the South China Sea...

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A Difficult Goodbye

NEED TO KNOW A Difficult Goodbye After nearly 40 years in power, ailing Angolan President José Eduardo dos Santos has announced that he will finally leave office and hand over the reins of power to his 62-year-old defense minister, João Manuel Gonçalves Lourenço. The decision came shortly...

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Tenacious Temer

NEED TO KNOW Tenacious Temer When Michel Temer became Brazil’s president last year, hopes were high he would restore a measure of calm to the country. After all, over the course of three years, Brazil has been rocked by a vicious recession, the impeachment of ex-President Dilma...

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New World Order

NEED TO KNOW New World Order The world order ended on Sunday. It’s not the first time, of course. Plenty of folks remember when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, paving the way for the Soviet Union to collapse and the conclusion of the Cold War. The ending on...

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Two Presidents

NEED TO KNOW Two Presidents It was a peculiar moment in world politics yesterday as US President Donald Trump and his predecessor, President Barack Obama, nearly crossed paths during their respective trips to Europe. "The contrast between their visits may be a reminder of just how differently the two...

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Changing Direction

NEED TO KNOW Changing Direction The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO, has been a pillar of transatlantic relations in the post-World War Two era. Founded as a bulwark for Western Europe against Soviet aggression in the 1950s, NATO has evolved since the Cold War to tackle...

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May’s Mission

NEED TO KNOW May's Mission With Britain weeks away from a general election, British Prime Minister Theresa May's conservative Tory Party has just one mission in mind: destroy Labor. The terror attack that killed 22 people at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester on Tuesday might have helped...

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No Illusions

NEED TO KNOW No Illusions Earlier this month, global leaders and the international community at large commemorated the twelfth-annual International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia by expressing solidarity with disenfranchised lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender, or LGBT, communities around the world. As the day showed, the modern...

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Good and Evil

NEED TO KNOW Good and Evil US President Donald Trump’s speech in Saudi Arabia on Sunday reinforced the battle lines that have long riven the Middle East in two. "This is a battle between barbaric criminals who seek to obliterate human life and decent people, all in the...

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A League of Its Own

NEED TO KNOW A League of Its Own President Donald Trump will embark on a string of foreign visits Friday that includes Saudi Arabia and Israel before he circles back through Europe. But while the president has high hopes that the trip will "begin to construct a new...

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House of Cards

NEED TO KNOW House of Cards Ordinary Chinese people know that the children of Communist Party leaders amass wealth via familial connections. They encounter bankers seeking bribes in exchange for loans. If they can’t afford the bribes, they go to loan sharks. They understand they can do...

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No to Silence

NEED TO KNOW No to Silence Mexican journalists demonstrated on Tuesday to remember the life and protest the murder of Javier Valdez, a crusading reporter and author who was pulled out of his car and shot 12 times on Monday in Sinaloa. The journalists wrote “No to silence”...

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Loathe Thy Neighbor

NEED TO KNOW Loathe Thy Neighbor In Iraq, military forces are opening new fronts against the Islamic State in Mosul, advancing efforts to free the city from the terrorist group. Meanwhile, peace talks over the Syrian civil war might finally be gathering some steam again. And Iranians are gearing up for a presidential...

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The Iron Mainstream

NEED TO KNOW The Iron Mainstream German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s position as the most powerful leader in Europe appears secure after her party won local elections in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia on Sunday, unseating their Social Democrat rivals. The defeat humiliated Social Democratic leader Martin Schulz,...

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The Long Road

NEED TO KNOW Nepal [heading4]The Long Road[/heading4] Nepal's long struggle toward democracy hit another bump recently when Deputy Prime Minister Bimalendra Nidhi nearly resigned in protest over the impeachment of a judge known as a watchdog against political corruption. Nidhi timed his move to make a statement: For the...

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Risks and Gains

NEED TO KNOW Risks and Rewards Stretching from the Pacific to the Mediterranean, the Silk Road underpinned China’s economic and cultural dominance more than a millennium ago. Now, Chinese President Xi Jinping's modern version of the ancient route, known as "One Belt, One Road" – an almost...

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Clearing the Path

NEED TO KNOW Clearing the Path For decades, world leaders have launched many high-powered development and philanthropic initiatives in Africa. Seven years ago, for example, the European Union kicked off its Millennium Development Goal Initiative to help African nations reach United Nations-adopted development goals like wiping out...

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In Bloom

NEED TO KNOW In Bloom Tech giant Google fired up its first internet servers last week on the formerly isolated island of Cuba. Internet access is shoddy and expensive in Cuba despite President Raul Castro's initiatives to set up Wi-Fi hotspots in tourist destinations on the island....

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Viva la Reprieve

NEED TO KNOW Viva la Reprieve As Emmanuel Macron won the French presidency in a landslide on Sunday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats beat rivals in a state poll in northern Germany that many viewed as boding well for Merkel as she prepares for federal...

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A Loaded Choice

NEED TO KNOW A Loaded Choice The French will go to the polls Sunday to vote for a new president, choosing between the far-right National Front's Marine Le Pen and the centrist independent Emmanuel Macron. As a televised debate held Wednesday night between the two candidates showed, voters...

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