NEED TO KNOW BORNEO Got a Light? A video of an orangutan smoking a cigarette in an Indonesian zoo went viral recently. […]

NEED TO KNOW DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO Emperors and Old Clothes Nawa Punyo joined a rally recently with other Roman Catholics in […]

NEED TO KNOW NETHERLANDS The Inconvenient Voice Hopeful in their aspirations but fearful of humankind’s darkest instincts, America’s founding fathers were suspicious […]

NEED TO KNOW RUSSIA No Nail-Biting Here In a shockingly close vote, Russian President Vladimir Putin narrowly won reelection on Sunday, suggesting […]

NEED TO KNOW SLOVAKIA Deadly Revelations The shocking killing of a young Slovakian journalist investigating ties between an Italian organized crime network […]

NEED TO KNOW LIBYA The Curse of Black Gold Earlier this month, Libya’s massive El Sharara oil field, which supplies about a […]

NEED TO KNOW BOLIVIA The Shoe is on the Other Foot In what could be the first case of its kind, a […]

NEED TO KNOW CHINA For Better or For Worse After seven decades of strained relations, the Vatican and China are nearing a […]

NEED TO KNOW SIERRA LEONE After the Plague A few years ago, Sierra Leone was in the headlines as a terrifying outbreak […]

NEED TO KNOW SOUTH KOREA Us Too The global reaction to #MeToo has been mixed. The French have been decidedly skeptical of […]

NEED TO KNOW MACEDONIA What’s in a Name Since Macedonia declared independence from Yugoslavia in the early 1990s, the tiny Balkan country […]

NEED TO KNOW NATO Smoke, Mirrors, Bombs The German Press Agency recently ran a story with a headline that translates as “The […]

NEED TO KNOW SINAI Secrets and Lies In early February, the New York Times reported that a secret alliance between Egypt and […]

NEED TO KNOW AFGHANISTAN Open Letters and Bloodshed Barnett Rubin, a former American diplomat and veteran scholar of Afghanistan, recently wrote an open […]

NEED TO KNOW ITALY A Tattered Playbook When Italians go to the polls March 4, the elections are not going to be […]

NEED TO KNOW SYRIA High-Stakes Game Islamic State may be all but eradicated from its strongholds in Syria, but that doesn’t mean […]

NEED TO KNOW INDIA Riding Coattails India recently released its 2018 Economic Survey outlining the success of the economic liberalization strategies that […]

NEED TO KNOW BRAZIL He’s Back The Brazilian army has taken over security in the crime-ridden favelas of Rio de Janeiro. “Police […]

NEED TO KNOW KENYA Chain Reaction It’s been a tough few weeks for Miguna Miguna – and for Kenya. The 55-year-old Kenyan […]

NEED TO KNOW PHILIPPINES The Corner Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte is no stranger to incendiary language or controversial policies. Since taking office […]

NEED TO KNOW ISRAEL/PALESTINE Couscous and Quagmires An argument recently erupted on social media after Virgin Airlines offered a “Palestinian couscous salad” […]

NEED TO KNOW PERU The Odebrecht Web Construction projects have ground to a halt in Peru, where a scandal involving the Brazilian […]

NEED TO KNOW POLAND Airbrushing History Soviet censors famously erased people out of photos to suit the political winds of the day […]

NEED TO KNOW ETHIOPIA The Road Less Traveled Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn resigned out of the blue last week in an […]