NEED TO KNOW CZECH REPUBLIC Velvet Power Czech protesters have been staging the country’s biggest rallies since the fall of the Iron […]

NEED TO KNOW ALBANIA Playing Nice, or Not Pjerin Ndreu doesn’t seem like a very nice person. But then playing nice, apparently, […]

NEED TO KNOW BOLIVIA Magical Realism One has to hand it to Evo Morales, the president of Bolivia for the past 13 […]

NEED TO KNOW WORLD Bretton Woods, Redux An expert at Chatham House, a British think tank, recently called for a new Bretton […]

NEED TO KNOW ARMENIA & AZERBAIJAN Fifty-Move Rule The ex-Soviet republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan signed a cease-fire agreement 25 years ago […]

NEED TO KNOW HONG KONG Promises, Promises Thirty years after the Chinese government’s crackdown in Beijing, is the spirit of Tiananmen Square […]

NEED TO KNOW TURKEY A Dirty Do-Over “Who wins Istanbul, wins Turkey” is a popular saying among Turkish politicos. That’s why Turkish […]

NEED TO KNOW MAURITANIA Of Bondage, Of Shame Voters in the conservative West African state of Mauritania go to the polls to […]

NEED TO KNOW NEPAL Mao’s Doppelgänger Maoist rebels toppled Nepal’s monarchy more than a decade ago and secured a leading role in […]

NEED TO KNOW COLOMBIA A Monumental Act of Mourning Drug lords, death squads and government soldiers used to fight for control of […]

NEED TO KNOW ROMANIA Bribes and Milestones For years, Liviu Dragnea has been the de-facto leader of Romania, running the ruling Social […]

NEED TO KNOW GUATEMALA Dried-out Streams and Broken Dreams Many Americans blame Mexico for the migrant crisis on the southern border. But […]

NEED TO KNOW CHINA Darkness Visible Imagine if an American president put facial recognition security cameras in mosques, banned the traditional Islamic […]

NEED TO KNOW EUROPEAN UNION Headwinds Left-leaning activists in Europe have been throwing milkshakes on populist politicians like Nigel Farage, who led […]

NEED TO KNOW SYRIA Set in Stone New statues of the Assad family are going up around Syria. Rebels tore them down […]

NEED TO KNOW RUSSIA Falling Upwards Russian President Vladimir Putin regularly cultivates a tough guy persona. But last month as he skated […]

NEED TO KNOW KAZAKHSTAN Emperors and Old Clothes Foreigners dumped $24 billion into oil-rich Kazakhstan last year – more than 90 percent […]

NEED TO KNOW BOTSWANA Politics & Pachyderms Approximately 450,000 elephants roam Africa. Poachers kill around 30,000 annually. Do the math. At that […]

NEED TO KNOW DENMARK Fighting for Hyggeligt Some things are truly Danish: Lagkage (layer cake) and Wienerbrød (pastries), a prized feeling of […]

NEED TO KNOW IRAQI KURDISTAN The Kurdish Question Two Turkish soldiers died in northern Iraq recently. They were fighting in Turkey’s “Claw […]

NEED TO KNOW EUROPEAN UNION Green Wave For all the talk of right-wing populism in Europe, the real winners of recent elections […]

NEED TO KNOW MALI Race to the Bottom Gunmen on motorcycles recently shot and killed seven people in the remote Malian town […]

NEED TO KNOW INDONESIA Making Space for Hope Filipinos, Cambodians and other Asians have expressed their confidence in strongmen in recent years. […]

NEED TO KNOW INDIA Toilets, Hoes and Hammer Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been a disruptor in his first five years […]