NEED TO KNOW Of Presidents, Protests and Rasputin South Korea seems to be succumbing to the same crisis of confidence that is undermining other democracies around the world. On Sunday, Choi Soon-sil, a close friend of South Korean President Park Geun-hye, returned to the country from Europe to...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW Snake Charmers Some years ago, then-US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton issued a rare, candid rebuke to Pakistan, a country that Washington has sought in vain to establish as a reliable democratic ally in South Asia since the 1950s. "You can’t keep snakes in your...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW Tipping Scales African nations were among the most ardent supporters of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague when the institution first opened its doors in 2002. Angry over the unpunished injustices of Apartheid and the Rwandan genocide, the continent welcomed the establishment of...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW Carrot, Meet Stick A few months ago, shortly after he became Israel’s defense minister, Avigdor Lieberman said he would adopt a "carrots and sticks" approach to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and West Bank. We're now seeing what that approach looks like. "We will be the...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW O Wallonia! A region of Belgium with a population of 3.6 million actually can scuttle a trade deal involving almost 550 million people and $70 billion annually. On Monday, Belgium announced that, unlike the other 27 members of the European Union, it could not sign...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW 'The Return of Correct Thinking' It’s a heady time for China's thought leaders. As WikiLeaks – via Russian hackers, allegedly – exposed Hillary Clinton's sidelining of Bernie Sanders from within the Democratic Party and Donald Trump keeps hitting new lows, China is doubling down on...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW Filipino Frenemy First a colony of the United States and then one of America’s most reliable allies in Asia, the Philippines has gone rogue. Having insulted US President Barack Obama and hinted that the Philippines would shift its allegiance from Washington to Beijing, on Thursday...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW Rinse and Repeat Turkish leaders on Wednesday extended a state of emergency declared after an attempted coup that rocked Istanbul and Ankara in July for another three months. “Steps will be taken to do whatever needs to be done to cleanse the state of these...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW A Shaky, Remote Front A sparsely populated country covering a vast stretch of the Sahara Desert, Mauritania doesn’t receive much attention. But it should. “The country's location in the desolate Sahel belies its importance to regional counterterrorism efforts, which could be disrupted by prolonged political instability,”...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW Mosul, and Iraq, in the Balance It has begun. More than two years after Islamic State militants sent the Iraqi army running and conquered Mosul, Iraqi forces launched their offensive to retake their country’s second-largest city. The legitimacy of Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi – and...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW Of Heartbreak and Poodles The go-go bars and sex trade in the Soi Cowboy red-light district of Bangkok were shuttered after last week's death of Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej, the Washington Post reported Sunday. The beloved king, whose image is everywhere in Thailand, was the...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW Known Unknowns To explain the ongoing confusion over the United Kingdom’s plans to exit the European Union – a.k.a. “Brexit” – the BBC's political editor was forced to reach back to the absurd-yet-profound locution of former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. "There are known...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW The Running of Maduro To say that 2016 has been a rocky year for Venezuela would be an understatement. Against a backdrop of falling oil prices – the primary source of the country's revenues – Venezuelans have had to put up with shortages of nearly...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW Cops for Hire Mexico is taking lawlessness to whole new levels. Gangs and drug money suffuse the Mexican police, courts and other government institutions to the point where many victims believe they'll never find justice without help from outside the country. Citing a recent report by...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW Disappointment in Plain Sight Morocco's King Mohammed VI asked Prime Minister Abdelilah Benkirane to form a new government on Monday after Benkirane's Justice and Development Party, or PJD, won the largest share of votes in parliamentary elections last Friday. Benkirane's victory is an opportunity to...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW A Shot in the Arm When US President Barack Obama won the Nobel Prize in 2009 – nine months after he assumed office – it was obvious that the Norwegians were giving the new young president a shot in the arm as he assumed...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW The New Solidarity Poland's fight for freedom may have started with a labor movement. But like many other countries of the former Soviet bloc, it has become steadily more conservative since the Solidarity movement ushered in democracy in 1989. Until now, perhaps. Following a wave of...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW Not Over It Yet Prime Minister of Sri Lanka, Ranil Wickremesinghe, recently delivered a pleasant message to the people of New Zealand. "It's a very, very relaxed atmosphere there, it's a quite open society today and fear is no longer a factor," Wickremesinghe told Radio New...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW Maintaining Distances The vote in Colombia to reject a long-negotiated peace deal was one of a handful of recent referendums throughout the world that, like Brexit, were largely victories for those in favor of maintaining distances between different peoples. Asked if referendums were good ideas,...
Read full story →NEED TO KNOW Back to Square One International donors meeting in Belgium starting Tuesday were preparing to open their checkbooks for the American-backed Afghan government in Kabul before events on Monday likely gave them pause. Taliban fighters surrounded Kunduz on four sides, penetrating the center of the 275,000-population...
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