Archive

August 11, 2023

Opaque Waters

[announcement] NEED TO KNOW Opaque Waters JAPAN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/ab764327-df98-4918-badd-17c2c79d5685.png"] Chef Kazuyuki Tanioka owns a sushi restaurant called Toya in the Chinese capital of Beijing. Life hasn’t been easy for him in the past few years. China’s coronavirus restrictions nearly ruined him. Now he’s worried about another existential threat to his...

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August 10, 2023

On the Side of Life

NEED TO KNOW On the Side of Life COLOMBIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/80e582e1-1ef0-4fb5-a86a-699a8cf7cddf.png"] Pablo Beltran recently visited Bogota, the capital of his native country Colombia, for the first time in 31 years. Beltran is a leader in the National Liberation Army – known by its Spanish acronym ELN – a Marxist...

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August 09, 2023

There, and Back Again

NEED TO KNOW There, and Back Again EUROPEAN UNION [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/597ff6f5-aa2a-4913-81c8-7a38f364a41b.png"] Tunisia recovered more than 900 bodies of migrants who drowned in the Mediterranean Sea from the beginning of the year through July 20, according to Interior Minister Kamel Feki. The North African country this year has been handling a...

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August 08, 2023

Wobbly Stools

NEED TO KNOW Wobbly Stools WEST BANK & GAZA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/c7446631-e728-4689-8f2d-ebddc1f4962c.png"] Late last month, globetrotting New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman announced that American officials were considering a new security pact with Saudi Arabia. The pact would function like a three-legged stool: The US would give iron-clad security guarantees to...

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August 07, 2023

Watch Your Step

NEED TO KNOW Watch Your Step UKRAINE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/02995f03-84bd-afba-0f89-00fc09873ecb.png"] Some say the Ukrainian counteroffensive against Russia appears to be failing. “I think that the Ukrainians expected the counteroffensive to gather sufficient momentum to allow them to continue to push south at a much faster rate,” military intelligence expert Konrad Muzyka...

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August 04, 2023

An Antiquated Model

[announcement] NEED TO KNOW An Antiquated Model BOLIVIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/8ed01a1e-5cea-4b63-b4c0-c3727f7de51c.png"] China has invested more than a billion dollars in lithium and other mines in Bolivia. Former President Evo Morales and current President Luis Arce – both of the leftwing Movement for Socialism political party – actively cultivated this capital for...

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August 03, 2023

Dimming Star

NEED TO KNOW Dimming Star BANGLADESH [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/46a3120a-34a1-40f2-8221-240a899a0fd0.png"] The foreign minister of Bangladesh recently called ambassadors from the United States, Britain, France, and 10 other Western countries together in Dhaka to complain about their condemnation of an attack on a political candidate running against the country’s ruling Awami League...

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August 02, 2023

Palace Intrigue

NEED TO KNOW Palace Intrigue NIGER [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/770c49e5-a303-44c1-86fc-05e51df3933a.png"] Two years ago, the president of Niger, Mohamed Bazoum, was elected in the West African country’s first peaceful, democratic change of government since independence from France in 1960. He almost didn’t make it – a coup was attempted to thwart him from...

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August 01, 2023

To Be Reasonable

NEED TO KNOW To Be Reasonable ISRAEL [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/2f7ce1b6-fa2d-e80d-cdee-e2c83f69c720.png"] Left and right in Israel are split over the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu curtailing the country’s high court from citing the “reasonableness doctrine” in its decisions. As the Atlantic magazine explained, the doctrine is a British common law tool...

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July 31, 2023

Going A-Courting

NEED TO KNOW Going A-Courting RUSSIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/db8acf88-8b4f-4b1c-bf9a-1e71d4eee94b.png"] Russian President Vladimir Putin was on a charm offensive at the recent Russia–Africa Summit in St. Petersburg. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – or the “special military operation”, as it’s called in Moscow – was likely a hot topic of conversation at...

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July 28, 2023

The Hired Hands

[announcement] NEED TO KNOW The Hired Hands CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/c7e5325a-3ac2-4df5-8925-90bdfbdaf0d9.png"] Mercenaries from Russia’s Wagner Group arrived in the Central African Republic (CAR) around two weeks before a July 30 referendum that would allow President Faustin-Archange Touadéra to run for a third term – which the current law forbids...

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July 27, 2023

A Worrying Popularity

NEED TO KNOW A Worrying Popularity THAILAND [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/9aed0fb0-f5eb-4eda-ae64-69e423143eb5.png"] When Thai voters cast their ballots for a new parliament in May, they roundly rejected allies of the military that had ruled the Southeast Asian country for nine years, opting instead for the progressive Move Forward and populist Pheu Thai...

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July 26, 2023

Declaring War

NEED TO KNOW Declaring War BRAZIL [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/f7cee1e0-dcb8-68eb-6ed9-13e370771cbb.png"] Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is leading the charge to protect the Amazonian rainforest. Following Lula’s example, leaders of eight South American countries are now pledging to end illegal deforestation in the massive region that has been called the lungs...

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July 25, 2023

Boilergeddon

NEED TO KNOW Boilergeddon GERMANY [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/96d66e57-2644-40b9-aed7-fc66370c3077.png"] Many environmentalists, including the eco-minded politicians in the Green Party in Germany, believe heat pumps will save the world. As National Public Radio explained, heat pumps draw heat from the outside to warm homes. Powered by electricity, they are around a third cheaper...

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July 24, 2023

The Peace Dividend

NEED TO KNOW The Peace Dividend UKRAINE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/02995f03-84bd-afba-0f89-00fc09873ecb.png"] Former American President Donald Trump recently said that, if he resided in the White House again, he could negotiate a peace plan between Russia and Ukraine in a day, the Kyiv Independent noted. Hyperbole or not, Trump is just the latest...

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July 21, 2023

Null and Void

[announcement] NEED TO KNOW Null and Void CAMBODIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/f7961b85-6c8d-4728-b55b-cbaa2e866255.png"] Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen’s chances of winning reelection on July 23 are very good. It’s not a stretch, in fact, to say he is essentially running unopposed. Hun Sen’s government banned the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) in 2017...

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July 20, 2023

Winning Minds, Losing Hearts

NEED TO KNOW Winning Minds, Losing Hearts SPAIN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/9867eeee-5129-4a23-af3d-b9c85aeb55a9.png"] “Sanchismo” might be the wedge issue in Spain’s general election on July 23. That’s because the center-right Partido Popular leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo and other conservative leaders are expected to defeat Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez of the Spanish Socialist Workers...

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July 19, 2023

Moving On

NEED TO KNOW Moving On ETHIOPIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/bf55b5d2-7db8-404a-b87b-c88a42597d29.png"] Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed claims that he is remaining neutral in the civil war now raging in neighboring Sudan, according to Deutsche Welle. Ahmed has said that, even though Sudan occupied the Al-Fashaga border region between the two countries when...

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July 18, 2023

Past and Present

NEED TO KNOW Past and Present URUGUAY [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/ca7fb39c-8156-49ef-9ea8-c114f0eb8b34.png"] The Admiral Graf Spee was a German warship scuttled in 1939 in Montevideo Bay in Uruguay after the Battle of the River Plate, the first major naval battle of World War II. In 2006, treasure hunters searching the bay discovered...

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July 17, 2023

The Autocrat, the Lapdog

NEED TO KNOW The Autocrat, the Lapdog BELARUS [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/3dffa11e-ac63-436f-a4ed-735a6dabc4a6.png"] Belarussian artist and political dissident Ales Pushkin, 57, recently died in prison from an undisclosed cause. His crime: painting a picture. Prosecutors said, incredibly, that his work glorified Nazism. As the Moscow Times reported, however, the timing of his arrest...

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