NEED TO KNOW WORLD Huffing and Puffing Solar power might someday make polluting fossil fuels unnecessary, but only if pollution from these […]

NEED TO KNOW ARMENIA A Hopeful Revolution A revolution was hopefully cemented in Armenia recently. On Dec. 9, voters in the small […]

NEED TO KNOW CANADA Civility, Overrated Most Americans think of French-speaking Canadians as exclusive to the province of Quebec. But, in reality, […]

NEED TO KNOW CHINA Great Empires, Small Neighbors Chinese leaders are learning from the great powers that came before them. Sometimes the […]

NEED TO KNOW TAIWAN In the Strait, All Politics is Local Who won elections in Taiwan last month? China, said business news […]

NEED TO KNOW CAMEROON Radical Possibilities Civil rights activists in Cameroon recently rejected the authority of a military court as they faced […]

NEED TO KNOW MAURITANIA The Master and the Mother Slavery is alive and well in Mauritania. Unfortunately, there is a very personal […]

NEED TO KNOW CHINA Pacts and Proxies One might compare the recent détente in the trade war between the United States and […]

NEED TO KNOW MEXICO Holding Up the Sky Andrés Manuel López Obrador became president of Mexico on Dec. 1. He is a […]

NEED TO KNOW FRANCE Marianne’s Fury Imagine if the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street teamed up against the American ruling class. […]

NEED TO KNOW UNITED KINGDOM What Now? Nearly everyone in the United Kingdom seems disappointed with Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit deal […]

NEED TO KNOW PERU A Swamp to Drain Corruption scandals linked to the Brazilian construction and engineering firm Odebrecht have caught up […]

NEED TO KNOW CAMBODIA Foxes and Free Birds Pol Pot died before he could face justice for the deaths of 1.7 million […]

NEED TO KNOW YEMEN Fighting for Peace Fighting broke out in the Yemeni port city of Hodeidah recently, even as both sides […]

NEED TO KNOW BENIN The Wild, Wild West Nigeria and Benin recently opened a nearly $21 million border crossing to deal with […]

NEED TO KNOW CZECH REPUBLIC The Angry Street Twenty-nine years ago, Czechs overturned their communist government, inaugurating the Velvet Revolution. Last week, […]

NEED TO KNOW BAHRAIN A Kingdom for a Megaphone Members of Congress recently sought to block American arms shipments to Bahrain, which […]

NEED TO KNOW TAIWAN For Better Or Worse The United States Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in 2015 as a right under […]

NEED TO KNOW IRAN Fingers in Ears The United States reimposed sanctions on Iranian oil and shipping in early November. The sanctions […]

NEED TO KNOW BRAZIL Brace, Brace Jair Bolsonaro, the populist president-elect of Brazil, has been repeatedly compared to US President Donald Trump. […]

NEED TO KNOW WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION Snores, Conspiracies and Reform Mention the World Trade Organization and most Americans will either start snoring […]

NEED TO KNOW CUBA Cuba Libre, on Ice Originating in Cuba in the early 20th century, the Cuba Libre (Rum and Coke) […]

NEED TO KNOW KOREAS Kimchi Diplomacy Around 17,000 schoolchildren in North Korea recently held a gymnastics show called “Glorious Country.” The show […]