Archive

March 15, 2024

Vladimir the Determined

[announcement] NEED TO KNOW Vladimir the Determined RUSSIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/db8acf88-8b4f-4b1c-bf9a-1e71d4eee94b.png"] Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of the late Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, is urging Russians to protest when their country holds its presidential election from March 15 to 17. In a video rebroadcast on the BBC, Navalnaya called for voters to...

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March 14, 2024

Old Wine, New Bottle

NEED TO KNOW Old Wine, New Bottle CAMBODIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/f7961b85-6c8d-4728-b55b-cbaa2e866255.png"] American diplomats recently registered their “serious concerns” about Chinese investments in the Ream Naval Base in southern Cambodia, the South China Morning Post reported. They fear the base could become part of China’s strategic network in the Indo-Pacific, according...

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March 13, 2024

Being There

NEED TO KNOW Being There EUROPEAN UNION [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/597ff6f5-aa2a-4913-81c8-7a38f364a41b.png"] Saxon State Minister for Economic Affairs, Labor, and Transport Martin Dulig recently said that Germany’s new immigration law would attract skilled Indian immigrants who would help Germany plug its labor shortages. As the Hindu reported, Saxony currently needs four million...

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March 12, 2024

The Masterful Player

NEED TO KNOW The Masterful Player ITALY [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/13ef7d88-e231-4aaa-9970-c3480223c0d5.png"] Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has been confronting twin crises. The first is low economic growth. The second involves the nearly 160,000 migrants arriving in the country’s Mediterranean waters last year, a 50 percent increase over 2022. Meanwhile, she has...

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March 11, 2024

The Crows Gather

NEED TO KNOW The Crows Gather DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/ed507180-9c5f-4223-b88c-6f054c876a9f.png"] Rwanda’s incursion into the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has sparked violence, massive displacement and concerns about the possibility of a new war in one of the poorest, most unstable regions in the world. Irredentist Rwandan...

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March 08, 2024

Stinky Politics

[announcement] NEED TO KNOW Stinky Politics PORTUGAL [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/e9920e0b-df86-4240-9933-aed7de687bff.png"] In November, investigators searched the official residence of Portugal’s Socialist Prime Minister António Costa, as well as the environment and infrastructure ministries, looking for evidence of corruption, explained the Guardian. The prime minister then stepped down. Now, these corruption scandals might tip the...

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March 07, 2024

The Language of Families

NEED TO KNOW The Language of Families IRELAND [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/7cea72cc-1559-4005-a6ad-f3350418bc77.png"] Irish voters will cast ballots in a nationwide referendum on March 8 – International Women’s Day – to determine how their country’s constitution depicts families and motherhood. Advocates are seeking to alter the constitution in the largely Catholic, Western European...

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March 06, 2024

On All Sides

NEED TO KNOW On All Sides EGYPT [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/180d3d63-0093-422e-a6d2-b3d9896f0053.png"] Germany’s left-wing Rosa Luxemburg Foundation recently described Egypt as a “regional hegemon in decline,” an important, potentially vital actor in the region that has fewer and increasingly worse tools to succeed. The country is an autocracy whose leader, President Abdel Fattah...

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March 05, 2024

A Place in the World

NEED TO KNOW A Place in the World NORTH KOREA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/081c0373-fb17-4e7d-af63-346faaef42b7.png"] North Korea’s tourism industry shut down during the coronavirus pandemic. Around 100 Russian tourists who recently visited the so-called Hermit Kingdom might help revive it, though. “When you look at North Korea you realize that your grandma and...

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March 04, 2024

Location, Location

NEED TO KNOW Location, Location DJIBOUTI [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/34a9512f-f04f-4b88-af31-1d97b2b3d59a.png"] An Iranian ship named the Behshad was docked off Djibouti near a Chinese military base for weeks, allegedly transmitting commercial shipping information to the Houthis, a Yemeni militant group that has been attacking ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of...

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March 01, 2024

Decisions, Decisions

[announcement] NEED TO KNOW Decisions, Decisions IRAN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/aa73e799-3df4-4d8a-8ec5-35a9feeb2bb4.png"] On March 1, Iranian voters will take part in a legislative election that will be pivotal to the future of their country. On the ballot will be members of the Assembly of Experts, the chamber that will pick a successor to...

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February 29, 2024

The Ghosts of the Sea

NEED TO KNOW The Ghosts of the Sea TRINIDAD & TOBAGO [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/c2a34d96-e7b1-4efc-8d11-9d5fe05a8be2.png"] A bag containing $75,000 worth of cocaine recently washed up on the shore at Cove Estate on Tobago, one of the islands that comprise the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean Sea. Police have...

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February 28, 2024

Kua takoto te Mānuka

NEED TO KNOW Kua takoto te Mānuka NEW ZEALAND [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/35e498e9-3807-40bd-bf6c-8c9506c3b2cf.png"] Courses in the Māori language, te reo, are immensely popular in New Zealand, where people of all stripes want to learn how to speak the language of the indigenous people who occupied the islands before they became a...

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February 27, 2024

Family Feud

NEED TO KNOW Family Feud HUNGARY [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/f77307e3-d12d-4a63-bcb5-407e519df6dc.png"] Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, whom the Barcelona Centre for International Affairs and others have described as illiberal because of his predilection for authoritarianism and admiration for Russia and China, has long portrayed himself as a defender of traditional family values. That...

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February 26, 2024

Swimming With Crocodiles

NEED TO KNOW Swimming With Crocodiles ZIMBABWE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/32d2805e-affb-4474-9ba4-8fc5eae44e98.png"] A Zimbabwean court recently gave opposition leader Job Sikhala a suspended sentence of nine months in prison for making falsehoods on social media. The charges stem from his allegation that a police officer killed a child at a bus stop. Sikhala’s...

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February 23, 2024

Forced Predictability

[announcement] NEED TO KNOW Forced Predictability BELARUS [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/3dffa11e-ac63-436f-a4ed-735a6dabc4a6.png"] Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko recently claimed that his security forces had captured Ukrainian and Belarusian “saboteurs” in a counterterrorism operation on the country’s border with Ukraine. Other than saying these so-called enemies were transferring explosives to use in Belarus and Russia,...

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February 22, 2024

Running Out the Clock

NEED TO KNOW Running Out the Clock UKRAINE/ RUSSIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/1fcd4036-786d-9ce0-309a-14f74105b898.png"] Near the front line in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, Ukrainian soldiers detail how two years of fighting their giant neighbor, Russia, is wearing them down, as they cope with losses, fatigue and shortages. Titushko, 39, explained to the Guardian...

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February 21, 2024

A Popular Resistance

NEED TO KNOW A Popular Resistance MYANMAR [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/9ef34308-9cd1-4a8e-a2b3-e7a7ab6846ed.png"] In Nam Hpat Kar in northern Myanmar, a towering golden Buddha statue stands above the wreckage of civil war. Much of the village is now rubble after the central government fired heavy artillery and launched air strikes against rebels in...

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February 20, 2024

Disaster, in Slow Motion

NEED TO KNOW Disaster, in Slow Motion HAITI [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/49e3c059-ec02-49d2-b8d4-2a7e10c83ff3.png"] Feb. 7 is a treasured day in Haiti. In 1986, it was on this day that Haitians ejected dictator Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier after 15 years. Five years later, on that very day, Haitians witnessed the swearing-in of Jean-Bertrand Aristide,...

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February 19, 2024

Failing Grade

NEED TO KNOW Failing Grade SENEGAL [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/3676cf10-2f23-4295-b085-c86147830390.png"] Senegal is traditionally a “haven of stability and democracy” in West Africa, Agence France-Presse recently wrote. But President Macky Sall’s decision to postpone the West African country’s presidential election that had been slated for Feb. 25 changed all that. Demonstrations, often violent,...

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