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...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW WOMEN'S RIGHTS Me, Too Censors delete references to #metoo on social media in China. So people recently started posting emojis of a rice bowl and a rabbit. “If you translate the English words ‘rice’ and ‘bunny’ into Chinese, you get something that kind of sounds like...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW TURKEY The Bigger They Are… The former mayor of Istanbul, longtime prime minister and now President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey faces his first real electoral test since elements of his military launched a failed coup against him in 2016. And when voters go the polls...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW CHINA Boom and Bust Imagine if one of your siblings suddenly announced they could no longer take mom or dad to their medical appointments. Now multiply that by millions of people. That will be China in 50 years. And while nearly every developed country faces serious aging...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW BURUNDI Wishful Thinking Though he'd just won a referendum allowing him to remain in office for another 14 years, Burundi's President Pierre Nkurunziza did a startling thing for an African dictator: He announced last week that he will not seek re-election in 2020. "I swear and...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW BANGLADESH Role Models Imitation may be the highest form of flattery but when it comes to Bangladesh mimicking the Philippines' deadly war on drugs, there's not much to be admired. Since Bangladesh's Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina announced a crackdown on drug use last month, an estimated...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW INDONESIA ‘A Truly Horrible Precedent’ Militants in the Islamic State are celebrating their first Ramadan since their terror organization lost control of most of the territory they seized in Iraq and Syria in recent years. It’s not a coincidence that the group’s chapters in Indonesia have...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW HUNGARY Illiberalism and Endgames In April, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban secured a third consecutive parliamentary supermajority for his right-wing Fidesz party. Now, just two months later, he's making good on the anti-immigration promises that delivered him a win in the first place – and challenging...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW CHINA A Test of Faith Residents of Youtong, a village in northern China, face a perilous choice when opting for a Catholic church. Half of Youtong’s 5,000 residents are Roman Catholics, a faith that has an estimated 12 million members in China. Villagers can worship at the...
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