NEED TO KNOW FRANCE [heading4]Man of the Hour[/heading4] Newly elected French President Emmanuel Macron is set to become one of the most powerful politicians on Earth. He trounced his opponent last month. He faces no potentially debilitating investigations or scandals. No crises, like, say, France withdrawing from the European...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW PHILIPPINES [heading4]A Terrible Question[/heading4] Every day for the past three weeks, the remaining residents of the lakeside southern Philippine town of Marawi watch the Philippine military pound their city with bombs to try and cleanse it of militants. And every day, they wonder, will there be...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW CANADA [heading4]Oh, Canada[/heading4] To Western nations shaken by populist uprisings, Canada – with its robust economy and charismatic, outward-looking prime minister – looks like a beacon of stability and liberalism. But underneath Canada's placid and polite exterior, the US' northern neighbor is grappling with its own...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW SOMALIA [heading4]A Game of Catch-Up[/heading4] It’s usually terror group Boko Haram that captures attention in Africa. But in the Horn, it’s the fight against al-Qaeda's East African affiliate al-Shabaab that is heating up. Over the weekend, the US bombed one of the group’s “nerve centers” in...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW PUERTO RICO [heading4] Number 51[/heading4] In this time of secession, civil wars and bitter disputes between opposing ideological camps around the world, Puerto Rican voters decided Sunday that they wanted their island to become the 51st state of the union. “The time for Puerto Rico's equality...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW UNITED KINGDOM [heading4]A Roll of the Dice[/heading4] "May's big gamble fails,” read front page of the Times of London. "Mayhem," splashed the Sun. "Exit poll shock for May," wrote the Guardian. Those headlines assembled by CNN illustrate the surprise that unfolded in Britain Thursday in what...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW FRANCE [heading4]The Loudest of Backfires[/heading4] As Americans await news of Russia meddling in their electoral politics, it may be instructive to consider the consequences of its meddling in the recent presidential elections in France. Earlier this month, France’s cybersecurity chief declared that Russians did not break...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW INDIA [heading4]Got Beef?[/heading4] Indians are practicing a new form of civil disobedience. They are eating beef. “Eating beef has become a political act,” the Washington Post wrote on Tuesday, referring to residents of the southern city of Kozhikode who hold beef-and-rice feasts as a “convivial form...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW QATAR [heading4]Pretexts for Isolation[/heading4] The most fascinating aspect of the diplomatic crisis surrounding Qatar is that nobody appears to know exactly why Bahrain, Egypt, the Maldives, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen severed ties with the Persian Gulf monarchy on Monday. The New York Times...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW UNITED KINGDOM [heading4]Control Orders[/heading4] Police killed the three Islamic State-affiliated terrorists who staged an attack on London Bridge over the weekend within eight minutes of receiving their first emergency call, said British Prime Minister Theresa May on Sunday, the Guardian reported. Yet seven victims died and...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW TERRORISM [heading4]Good Cop, Bad Cop[/heading4] In the early 1990's, law enforcement throughout the United States adopted community policing with the aim of reinvigorating crime-ridden neighborhoods and breaking up gangs. By putting cops on the beat, seeking the advice of citizens and cracking down on petty crimes,...
Read full story →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...
Read full story →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...
Read full story →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...
Read full story →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...
Read full story →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...
Read full story →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...
Read full story →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...
Read full story →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...
Read full story →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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