Archive

April 12, 2024

Pointillistic Terror

[announcement] NEED TO KNOW Pointillistic Terror WORLD [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/486ddb7e-3777-4543-ab44-3536360a3ce9.png"] Russian officials continue to blame the March 24 terrorist attack on Crocus City Hall in Moscow on Ukraine, PBS News Hour wrote. But American intelligence officials say they told the Russians that the Islamic State terrorist group planned to carry out...

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April 11, 2024

Stuck in Celestial Hades

NEED TO KNOW Stuck in Celestial Hades SYRIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/e4901088-a8f1-4f67-bb93-075f2af0bff8.png"] Residents of the upscale Mazzeh neighborhood in the Syrian capital of Damascus were stunned when an airstrike recently reduced the Iranian consulate to rubble. Thirteen people, including two generals and five others in Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards, perished in...

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April 10, 2024

The Third Wheel

NEED TO KNOW The Third Wheel SOUTH KOREA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/96aac4ab-2540-4b79-8f3f-2a21e22e27fe.png"] Politicians from the ruling People Power Party and the opposition Democratic Party have traditionally held the top offices in South Korea. Currently, the two parties hold 270 out of 300 seats in the legislature, for example. However, only 24 percent of...

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April 09, 2024

Sowing Justice

NEED TO KNOW Sowing Justice LIBERIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/9eb32998-6471-45a3-a560-2a676df24771.png"] A French court recently sentenced Kunti Kamara, a former rebel leader in Liberia, to 30 years in prison for war crimes during the West African country’s first civil war between 1989 and 1997. Kamara, now 49, committed “acts of torture and inhuman...

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April 08, 2024

No Occupancy

NEED TO KNOW No Occupancy PERU [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/7d13971f-19d8-4bc2-ac9e-119d2f349be4.png"] Many Peruvians lost respect for Dina Boluarte when she campaigned as left-wing President Pedro Castillo’s running mate, but became a business-friendly conservative when right-wing Peruvian lawmakers removed Castillo from office in 2022, elevating Vice President Boluarte to the South American country’s...

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April 05, 2024

Walking Sideways

[announcement] NEED TO KNOW Walking Sideways HONDURAS [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/5e2a67ee-c113-425a-b7dc-9cb08a72f95e.png"] A federal court recently convicted former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández of conspiring to traffic cocaine to the US, as well as on two weapons charges. When he is sentenced in late June, he will face 40 years to life in...

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April 04, 2024

Putin-ification

NEED TO KNOW Putin-ification KYRGYZSTAN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/766aa12d-4910-4bb3-a204-adba72f724f9.png"] Between 2005 and 2020, the former Soviet Republic of Kyrgyzstan had five presidential transitions of power. Three occurred due to widespread protests and civil unrest. Two occurred through peaceful and democratic means. Now current Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov, who won 80 percent of...

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April 03, 2024

A Cut of Control

NEED TO KNOW A Cut of Control GAMBIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/89b5a0c0-046d-402b-bc1b-96a8d9ab5730.png"] The Gambia banned female genital mutilation in 2015 because officials said the tradition of partially removing girls’ genitalia violated human rights. It didn’t, however, enforce it until last year. That’s when the trouble began. Now, lawmakers in the tiny West African...

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April 02, 2024

Blazing Furnace

NEED TO KNOW Blazing Furnace VIETNAM [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/3f17a3ec-f2fd-42ee-b8c2-dd23d117cb41.png"] Although the president of Vietnam, Vo Van Thuong, resigned on March 20 for undisclosed reasons, he allegedly ran afoul of corruption laws. He is Vietnam’s second president to leave office early in two years. Former President Nguyen Xuan Phuc resigned from...

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April 01, 2024

Warrior Class

NEED TO KNOW Warrior Class ISRAEL [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/2f7ce1b6-fa2d-e80d-cdee-e2c83f69c720.png"] Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip has stirred controversy worldwide, less so at home. But now, Israelis are arguing over who among them should be fighting. The Israeli Supreme Court last week ordered the Israeli government to cut off funding from ultra-Orthodox...

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March 29, 2024

The Return

[announcement] NEED TO KNOW The Return SPAIN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/9867eeee-5129-4a23-af3d-b9c85aeb55a9.png"] A plan to forgive Catalan separatists in Spain might have seemed like a political masterstroke when it was first conceived, but the future for Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and his minority government in Madrid is still far from certain. The exiled...

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March 28, 2024

Echoes of a Boom

NEED TO KNOW Echoes of a Boom MARSHALL ISLANDS [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/9f508d01-33bf-4d23-9d94-4e9368a01a70.png"] March 1 is Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific Day in the South Pacific. In the Marshall Islands, however, it is Nuclear Survivors’ Day. It is a day of anger, a day of grief. On this day, islanders recall the 67...

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March 27, 2024

Last Stop Before Paradise

NEED TO KNOW Last Stop Before Paradise TUNISIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/1f262cf6-0ed8-4367-aeca-5f0f2b6684d0.png"] Sixteen-year-old Adam migrated with his father and younger brother from Sierra Leone in West Africa to Tunisia on the Mediterranean coast two years ago. Today, after their father was arrested in Algeria, the two brothers live on the street...

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March 26, 2024

Iron Junta

NEED TO KNOW Iron Junta GUINEA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/963d6fc3-90db-4090-ad9a-da882d906f12.png"] The leader of the junta that runs Guinea, Gen. Mamadi Doumbouya, recently sacked the head of the state electricity company and his deputies. Doumbouya, who read the announcement on national television, made the decision after power cuts triggered deadly protests in the...

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March 25, 2024

Refusing to Collapse

NEED TO KNOW Refusing to Collapse VENEZUELA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/f52c66cd-9299-42e6-acd8-f970f62c524b.png"] President Nicolás Maduro seems likely to breeze through Venezuela’s July 28 general election. He recently won the nomination of his political party, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela, with little or no opposition, reported the Associated Press. He also faces no...

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March 22, 2024

Up for Grabs

[announcement] NEED TO KNOW Up for Grabs SLOVAKIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/def5a447-d17d-4b18-8656-a0934b7c83eb.png"] Thousands of Slovaks took to the streets of their capital of Bratislava recently to protest the pro-Russian stance of Prime Minister Robert Fico and his Smer-SD political party. As Reuters reported, Fico has been critical of European military aid to...

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March 21, 2024

Listen to the Children

NEED TO KNOW Listen to the Children SENEGAL [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/3676cf10-2f23-4295-b085-c86147830390.png"] A primary school in Dakar, the capital of Senegal, recently held elections for their student body president. A BBC video crew asked the student candidates what they would do if they were elected president of their West African country. “My...

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March 20, 2024

The Dream

NEED TO KNOW The Dream COLOMBIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/80e582e1-1ef0-4fb5-a86a-699a8cf7cddf.png"] The first-ever leftwing president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, 63, promised to make his country into a more equal society when he won office two years ago. Now the former guerrilla fighter and mayor of the capital of Bogota is struggling to...

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March 19, 2024

Friends With Benefits

NEED TO KNOW Friends With Benefits PHILIPPINES [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/76f74898-7b3b-4fc1-b7d7-88cadfea2fdf.png"] American Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo recently joined executives from GreenFire Energy, Google Asia Pacific, Visa, United Airlines and KKR to announce $1 billion in investments in the Philippines. It was the latest good news between friends. American and Philippine leaders...

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March 18, 2024

The Face of Defiance

NEED TO KNOW The Face of Defiance ISRAEL [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/2f7ce1b6-fa2d-e80d-cdee-e2c83f69c720.png"] Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, the New York Democrat who is the highest-ranking Jewish elected official in the US, recently delivered a speech criticizing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and calling for new elections in Israel, reported CNN. Afterward,...

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