NEED TO KNOW BHUTAN Ballots, and Shangri-La Bhutan could be the greenest country in the world. The forests that cover 70 percent […]

NEED TO KNOW THE CAUCASUS A New Great Game US National Security Adviser John Bolton is visiting Russia and three Caucasus nations […]

NEED TO KNOW NIGERIA Magic Snakes and Rag Pickers When $100,000 in state exam fees disappeared from a Nigerian government office, the […]

NEED TO KNOW LUXEMBOURG Bread and Circuses The Grand Dutchy of Luxembourg held elections Sunday. Whoop dee doo, right? Wealthy Luxembourg is […]

NEED TO KNOW BAVARIA The Iron Chancellor The Christian Social Union is the Bavarian counterpart of the Christian Democratic Union, the political […]

NEED TO KNOW CHINA Ploughshares, Swords and Chips Vice President Mike Pence delivered what some saw as a rather incendiary speech recently […]

NEED TO KNOW LAKE CHAD Canaries and Bullhorns One of the largest lakes in Africa, Lake Chad is the economic engine of […]

NEED TO KNOW SYRIA Hot Deserts, Cold Wars The fighting in the Syrian civil war has cooled down but it’s far from […]

NEED TO KNOW NICARAGUA Truth, Lies and Death Squads Around 200 killers, thieves and prostitutes holed up in a church in Nicaragua […]

NEED TO KNOW BRAZIL The Murky Years To Come In political campaigns, as in warfare, there’s a lot of posturing, skirmishing and […]

NEED TO KNOW BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA War and Peace Bosnia was one of the most dangerous places in the world in the […]

NEED TO KNOW ROMANIA The Soul of a Nation The Constitutional Court of Romania recently decided that same-sex couples deserved the same […]

NEED TO KNOW MAURITANIA Where Shackles Are the Norm Things are a little mixed up in Mauritania. Rape victims don’t report their […]

NEED TO KNOW GUATEMALA Heads in the Sand New laser maps of Guatemala show a lost, ancient civilization sprawling yet hidden under […]

NEED TO KNOW MACEDONIA Pride and Prejudice Numerous civilizations, religions and ideologies have dominated the Balkan Peninsula over the millennia. Greeks, Slavs, […]

NEED TO KNOW PAKISTAN Watch me! With the recent election of former cricket star Imran Khan as prime minister, many believed that […]

NEED TO KNOW SOUTH SUDAN Same Song, Different Refrain? The government and rebel factions in South Sudan signed an agreement to end […]

NEED TO KNOW JAPAN The Ghost of Moby Dick In 1986, the International Whaling Commission (IWC) put into effect a moratorium on […]

NEED TO KNOW IRAQ Elections, in 3-D In Iraq, all politics is local. Iraqi lawmakers met this month for the first time […]

NEED TO KNOW MALDIVES Paradise Lost The turquoise waters, white sand and glorious flora and fauna of the Maldives – an archipelago […]

NEED TO KNOW GERMANY Past, Present and Future In its post-World War II history, Germany has worked hard to overcome its Nazi […]

NEED TO KNOW BOTSWANA The Other Refugee Crisis The scandal over the discovery this summer of scores of elephant carcasses in Botswana […]

NEED TO KNOW CANADA The Great Complicated North It’s been hard for American and Canadian negotiators to reach a deal on the […]

NEED TO KNOW LIBYA No Way Out It’s a cliché, but it’s accurate to say Libyans are stuck between a rock and […]