NEED TO KNOW TOGO A Tiny Revolution For almost a year, protesters in the tiny West African country of Togo have been […]

NEED TO KNOW MEXICO Lofty Visions The ambitious leftist outsider Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, known among his supporters as AMLO, is likely […]

NEED TO KNOW MIDDLE EAST A Crude Balance One of the many big questions facing the Middle East today is how to […]

NEED TO KNOW PAKISTAN No Clothes For The Emperors Pakistan has appointed a former Supreme Court justice to lead a caretaker government […]

NEED TO KNOW EUROZONE The Cost of Discord Eurozone leaders recently gave a sop to Grecian taxpayers, giving Greece more time and […]

NEED TO KNOW MADAGASCAR The Milkman, the DJ, and the Accountant Months of political strife on Madagascar have seemingly come to a […]

NEED TO KNOW INDIA A Buoy, A Flashpoint It’s been a long time coming, but India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi arguably cemented […]

NEED TO KNOW CANADA The Other Canadian Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau cuts a progressive figure, talking regularly about feminism and diversity. […]

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 […]

NEED TO KNOW JORDAN A Little Help From Friends Few believe the $2.5 billion in aid that Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates […]

NEED TO KNOW IRAN/EUROPE The Squeeze Iranian President Hassan Rouhani recently told Chinese and Russian leaders that US efforts “to impose its […]

NEED TO KNOW WOMEN’S RIGHTS Me, Too Censors delete references to #metoo on social media in China. So people recently started posting […]

NEED TO KNOW TURKEY The Bigger They Are… The former mayor of Istanbul, longtime prime minister and now President Recep Tayyip Erdogan […]

NEED TO KNOW CHINA Boom and Bust Imagine if one of your siblings suddenly announced they could no longer take mom or […]

NEED TO KNOW BURUNDI Wishful Thinking Though he’d just won a referendum allowing him to remain in office for another 14 years, […]

NEED TO KNOW BANGLADESH Role Models Imitation may be the highest form of flattery but when it comes to Bangladesh mimicking the […]

NEED TO KNOW SYRIA The Indispensable Nation Is Russia the indispensable nation in the Middle East? Atlantic Council Senior Fellow Sean McFate […]

NEED TO KNOW ERITREA Bald Men, Combs and Despots Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki delivered a powerful speech last month to mark the […]

NEED TO KNOW CRIMEA From Russia with Love Last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin opened a $4-billon bridge linking mainland Russia with […]

NEED TO KNOW INDONESIA ‘A Truly Horrible Precedent’ Militants in the Islamic State are celebrating their first Ramadan since their terror organization […]

NEED TO KNOW HUNGARY Illiberalism and Endgames In April, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban secured a third consecutive parliamentary supermajority for his […]

NEED TO KNOW CHINA A Test of Faith Residents of Youtong, a village in northern China, face a perilous choice when opting […]

NEED TO KNOW BRAZIL Send in the Clowns Last week, Brazil’s embattled president, Michel Temer, officially dropped out of the nation’s presidential […]

NEED TO KNOW AFGHANISTAN Harvest of Woes An Afghan bomb squad recently tried but failed to defuse an explosive device in a […]