NEED TO KNOW The Fifth Estate SOUTH KOREA More than 90 percent of smartphone users in South Korea use the Kakao suite […]

NEED TO KNOW R-E-S-P-E-C-T CENTRAL ASIA/ RUSSIA Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are clashing on their border. Kazakhstan is poised for a “color revolution”. […]

NEED TO KNOW Pushing and Pulling NORTH KOREA North Korea recently fired an intercontinental ballistic missile over Japan, one of five such […]

NEED TO KNOW A Good Day CHINA While Russian President Vladimir Putin suffers international condemnation and internal dissent, US President Joe Biden […]

NEED TO KNOW Treading Water PAKISTAN Record floods have turned lowland farms in Pakistan into lakes, highlighting the fragility of an unstable […]

NEED TO KNOW Choosing Forgiveness INDONESIA Indonesian officials are considering granting early release to Hisyam bin Alizein, also known as Umar Patek, […]

NEED TO KNOW Door Fees SINGAPORE In the 2013 novel (and 2018 hit film) “Crazy Rich Asians,” the ingénue travels to Singapore […]

NEED TO KNOW Two Diamonds INDIA/ PAKISTAN India and Pakistan had the rare experience of separating from one another at the same […]

NEED TO KNOW Terror, Redux AFGHANISTAN On Monday, the Taliban marked the first anniversary of their takeover of Afghanistan with a national […]

NEED TO KNOW The Girls Next Door BANGLADESH Indian investigators recently busted an alleged human trafficking ring that was smuggling ethnic Rohingya […]

NEED TO KNOW The Bidding War CHINA American and Chinese ships and planes are more frequently encountering each other in the western […]

NEED TO KNOW Huffing and Puffing THAILAND Thailand recently decriminalized marijuana, becoming the first country in Asia to embrace a new attitude […]

NEED TO KNOW The Trains To Nowhere LAOS When Sri Lanka defaulted on its debt in May, as the BBC reported, the […]

NEED TO KNOW The Widening Sinkhole SRI LANKA Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa was once a war hero, known for crushing the […]

NEED TO KNOW Crimes, Public and Domestic PAPUA NEW GUINEA Police in Papua New Guinea recently detained the son of the country’s […]

NEED TO KNOW The To-Do List JAPAN On Friday, a gunman murdered former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe, a towering figure in […]

NEED TO KNOW The New Opium INDIA Does India have a problem with Muslims? Many say yes, after a recent political firestorm […]

NEED TO KNOW Crackdown, Meet Backlash MYANMAR The military junta that controls Myanmar recently put deposed civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi […]

NEED TO KNOW Drawing in Pencil KASHMIR Three years ago, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi unilaterally abolished the limited autonomy that India’s […]

NEED TO KNOW Going, Going, Gone KAZAKHSTAN Kazakhs overwhelmingly voted in favor of decentralizing government, reducing the power of the president, rescinding […]

NEED TO KNOW The War on Grain INDIA India and other nations are banning exports of wheat as the price of the […]

NEED TO KNOW The Jig is Up NORTH KOREA For more than two years, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un insisted that […]

NEED TO KNOW The New Guard AUSTRALIA Australia is experiencing its most raucous federal elections in years as outsiders seemed poised to […]

NEED TO KNOW Home Alone CHINA A 13-year-old Chinese boy was home alone for 66 days in Kunshan in eastern China while […]