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June 07, 2024

The Misery of Zugzwang

[announcement] NEED TO KNOW The Misery of Zugzwang ARMENIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/291ba8a2-3105-41e3-a793-e28cc6a9282e.png"] Since the end of the Cold War, Russia has protected the former Soviet republic of Armenia from Azerbaijan, Turkey and other regional powers. Now, however, as Russian President Vladimir Putin pours more resources into the war in Ukraine, his...

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June 06, 2024

Rightward Ho

NEED TO KNOW Rightward Ho EUROPEAN UNION [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/597ff6f5-aa2a-4913-81c8-7a38f364a41b.png"] Expect right-wing parties to win big when 400 million voters in 27 countries elect new members of the European Parliament from June 6 through June 9, the Guardian said. After a tough five years since the last election thanks to Brexit,...

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June 05, 2024

Irreconcilable Differences

NEED TO KNOW Irreconcilable Differences BELGIUM [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/46999ca2-dabf-15d8-3505-820844e95828.png"] A few years ago, Belgium famously had no elected government for more than 600 days, as politicians negotiated a coalition agreement. Now, reflecting that history of instability, Belgians are seriously discussing splitting the country into Dutch-speaking Flanders in the north and French-speaking...

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June 04, 2024

Hands Off

NEED TO KNOW Hands Off SWITZERLAND [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/2b943183-27c5-4545-a4cd-06237a4dff08.png"] Around 60 years ago, when rabies was widespread in Europe’s fox population, Switzerland invented an innovative way to stop the disease. Officials in the wealthy Central European country stuffed chicken heads with vaccines and dropped them from helicopters. The vulpine scavengers gobbled...

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June 03, 2024

The Inheritance

NEED TO KNOW The Inheritance NAMIBIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/b8d2c7ac-0ac4-4b14-8265-2f9660928132.png"] The southwest African country of Namibia has long been isolated geographically and politically. A former German colony that came under a White-minority government under South African control after World War I, Namibia only gained its independence in 1990. Now, however, things here...

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May 31, 2024

Into the Fire

[announcement] NEED TO KNOW Into the Fire MEXICO [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/fcd100e2-d1bb-4cd7-b9f4-53a07a70e41c.png"] At least nine people died and around 50 more were injured when a stage collapsed in northern Mexico while presidential candidate Jorge Álvarez Máynez was addressing supporters. Máynez of the center-left Citizen Movement was uninjured, the BBC reported. But the...

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May 30, 2024

An Open Race

NEED TO KNOW An Open Race ICELAND [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/05c4ecf9-d048-43ef-9046-22a7f3c10f03.png"] A 700,000-year-old glacier called Snæfellsjökull almost appeared on Iceland’s presidential ballot for June 1. “It’s time to challenge the status quo and elect a candidate that symbolizes endurance, resilience, and global interconnectedness,” said campaigners who collected signatures for the glacier, which...

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May 29, 2024

A Long Way to Fall

NEED TO KNOW A Long Way to Fall SOUTH AFRICA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/5516b8d6-0af4-46a7-8454-a3339ff1009f.png"] Since the racist apartheid regime in South Africa ended 30 years ago, the African National Congress party, whose crusaders brought down white minority rule, has won every election, with support in the high double digits. That track...

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May 28, 2024

Stopping the Hopping

NEED TO KNOW Stopping the Hopping VANUATU [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/360359d3-41f6-4567-9b66-a35c60254187.png"] Voters in Vanuatu, an archipelago in the South Pacific, will decide on May 29 whether to approve two constitutional amendments that would compel their lawmakers to choose – and stick with – a single political party rather than switch in...

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May 27, 2024

Tears and Cheers

NEED TO KNOW Tears and Cheers IRAN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/aa73e799-3df4-4d8a-8ec5-35a9feeb2bb4.png"] The funeral for Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, who died along with the Iranian foreign minister and other officials on May 19 in a helicopter crash near Azerbaijan, was muted compared with the procession for Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani, killed...

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May 24, 2024

Bills Coming Due

[announcement] NEED TO KNOW Bills Coming Due WORLD [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/486ddb7e-3777-4543-ab44-3536360a3ce9.png"] Ghana is pressing the African Union (AU) to leverage the worldwide African diaspora to bolster the case for reparations for the trans-Atlantic trade in slaves, reported Yen, a Ghanaian news outlet. It is “important for the self-worth and self-confidence of...

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May 23, 2024

Hearing the People

NEED TO KNOW Hearing the People CHILE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/baed026e-8c02-42fc-8c27-383b8bf87a6c.png"] Chilean truckers staged protests in the mining region near the capital of Santiago recently. The drivers demanded that the government of leftist President Gabriel Boric take action to reduce violent crime in the country. Murder rates decreased slightly last year, but...

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May 22, 2024

Shuffling the Deck

NEED TO KNOW Shuffling the Deck MIDDLE EAST [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/7000f0bb-c02b-4438-87c6-002be2c0dfc6.png"] Leaders meeting at the 33rd Arab Summit in Bahrain recently denounced “Israel's obstruction of ceasefire efforts in the Gaza Strip and … the occupation forces’ persistence in expanding their aggression against the Palestinian city of Rafah, despite international warnings...

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May 21, 2024

The Fertility of Chaos

NEED TO KNOW The Fertility of Chaos SUDAN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/224b0e8f-5be6-4e44-b799-a1b865717c98.png"] On June 15, 2023, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and its Arab allied militias attacked a convoy of locals as it proceeded through El Geneina in West Darfur, killing civilians as they ran through the streets, trying to...

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May 20, 2024

Mixed Messages

NEED TO KNOW Mixed Messages SRI LANKA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/d469a690-58fa-4bcb-9cd4-16e56a24386f.png"] Sri Lanka has been grappling with political and economic instability since the end of its 26-year-long civil war 15 years ago. After the pandemic, miles-long lines began appearing for fuel. Power cuts were the daily norm. And even dal (lentils) and...

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May 17, 2024

An Eye on the Fence

[announcement] NEED TO KNOW An Eye on the Fence DOMINICAN REPUBLIC [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/ae32d602-c1f9-4efc-a9cc-527c8df8f863.png"] When President Luis Abinader of the Dominican Republic assumed office in 2020, the Caribbean country’s economy had contracted 7 percent amid the coronavirus pandemic. In the succeeding three years, a tourism wave propelled economic growth increases of...

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May 16, 2024

Fronts and Faults

NEED TO KNOW Fronts and Faults MOLDOVA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/a19755da-0385-95db-b607-df0d274fdb27.png"] A few months ago, photos surfaced of Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko standing next to a map depicting battles that had occurred in Ukraine, battles that had yet to occur in Ukraine and, curiously, another former Soviet republic: Moldova. Specifically, reported the...

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May 15, 2024

Silencing the Music

NEED TO KNOW Silencing the Music HONG KONG [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/ed89ce6f-df7c-493b-809a-681d51fa4904.png"] The chairwoman of Hong Kong’s weightlifting and powerlifting association mistakenly referred to “13 countries” in her sport’s Asian conference recently. That conference includes Hong Kong, a former British colony where Chinese officials have been expanding their control, and Taiwan,...

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May 14, 2024

Naming and Shaming

NEED TO KNOW Naming and Shaming UGANDA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/eae01c28-7782-4a11-9e2b-886217499c6a.png"] Barred from staging street protests, Ugandans are leveraging social media to shine a light on the misdeeds of their corrupt and incompetent leaders. The latest online protest, or “exhibition,” is trending under #UgandaParliamentExhibition on X (formerly Twitter), and it details...

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May 13, 2024

Drawing in Pencil

NEED TO KNOW Drawing in Pencil ISRAEL/ GAZA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/a7853464-ef94-4b48-96b9-d7badbef5e55.png"] Rebuilding Gaza after Israel’s devastating military operations in the Palestinian territory since Oct. 7 could cost $50 billion. “We have not seen anything like this since 1945,” said United Nations development program director Abdallah Al Dardari, according to Al Jazeera....

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