Archive

June 16, 2023

Pride and Pressure

[announcement] NEED TO KNOW Pride and Pressure KYRGYZSTAN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/766aa12d-4910-4bb3-a204-adba72f724f9.png"] D Billions is a quartet of Kyrgyz singers whose performances for kids on YouTube have received 31 billion viewings, more than pop star Taylor Swift or South Korean sensation, BTS. As Global Voices explained, D Billions could be Kyrgyzstan’s biggest...

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June 15, 2023

Intrigue in the Palace

NEED TO KNOW Intrigue in the Palace COLOMBIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/80e582e1-1ef0-4fb5-a86a-699a8cf7cddf.png"] Leftist leaders from around the globe recently issued an open letter to the Colombian public, saying that the opponents of Colombian President Gustavo Petro, who assumed office a year ago, were planning a “soft coup” to oust him from...

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June 14, 2023

When the Levee Breaks

NEED TO KNOW When the Levee Breaks RUSSIA/ UKRAINE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/1fcd4036-786d-9ce0-309a-14f74105b898.png"] Theories abound about the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam in Russian-occupied southern Ukraine. As CNN reported, Russian officials said the Ukrainians destroyed the dam in order to starve the Crimean Peninsula of water. The region is a former...

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June 13, 2023

Direction: Hopelessness

NEED TO KNOW Direction: Hopelessness CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/c7e5325a-3ac2-4df5-8925-90bdfbdaf0d9.png"] Fighting in the civil war in Sudan has prompted 14,000 refugees to flee across the border to their neighbor to the southwest, the Central African Republic (CAR). As Africa News wrote, however, the CAR is not a safe haven. The...

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June 12, 2023

Settlement of Evil

NEED TO KNOW Settlement of Evil POLAND [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/31d830f6-377a-4afc-861b-7fbf94dce490.png"] A mile-long mass of hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets of Warsaw, the capital of Poland, recently. The demonstration wasn’t only to mark the 34th anniversary of the country’s first democratic election after the fall of communism...

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June 09, 2023

Mission Wealth

[announcement] NEED TO KNOW Mission Wealth LAOS [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/2c88ac81-3523-4a3b-b94d-88479d0a30a0.png"] Anousa “Jack” Luangsuphom is a prominent activist and critic of the authoritarian, communist government of Laos. He ran a Facebook page where members could share their grievances about corruption and air their dissent about the government’s failure to respect freedom of...

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June 08, 2023

Far North Face Off

NEED TO KNOW Far North Face Off NORWAY [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/65102137-137a-414d-a10e-0cd0d00c7aa4.png"] Norwegian officials recently warned their citizens to avoid Hvaldimir, a beluga whale that swims around the coast wearing a harness that can mount cameras. As CNN explained, the officials suspect that the Russian military trained the cute white cetacean...

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June 07, 2023

Musical Chairs

NEED TO KNOW Musical Chairs SOUTH AFRICA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/5516b8d6-0af4-46a7-8454-a3339ff1009f.png"] Apartheid, or legal segregation based on race, ended in South Africa almost 30 years ago. Yet anyone walking around Johannesburg could be forgiven for believing the hateful policy was still in place, according to Catalyst, a free-market-oriented news publication. The...

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June 06, 2023

‘Cool’ Crimefighting

NEED TO KNOW ‘Cool’ Crimefighting EL SALVADOR [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/9d16e98f-6fe6-4329-b9c8-47184d56b2ce.png"] A judge in El Salvador recently sentenced the former president of the country, Mauricio Funes, to 14 years in prison for negotiating with gangs when he was in office between 2009 and 2014, a period when the country suffered some...

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June 05, 2023

Enmity, Long and Deep

NEED TO KNOW Enmity, Long and Deep KOSOVO [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/0999f062-2356-43ad-b3b8-f915c7878425.png"] Kosovo declared independence in 2008, around a decade after NATO bombed Serbian forces who were brutalizing the ethnic Albanian communities in the formerly Serb region. It’s one of the final chapters of the tragic, bloody breakup of communist Yugoslavia...

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June 02, 2023

Seed to Stem

[announcement] NEED TO KNOW Seed to Stem GUINEA-BISSAU [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/c68ca5ff-fb6a-431d-be96-939a6f3c5eae.png"] Farmers in the West African nation of Guinea-Bissau are planting their maize, millet, and sorghum in anticipation of the June rainy season. Among them are the women known as “seed keepers” in the Bijagos archipelago of islands on the country’s Atlantic...

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June 01, 2023

Balkan Malaise

NEED TO KNOW Balkan Malaise ALBANIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/0b3746d6-a585-4423-a6b9-37ef4ae614bb.png"] Men from remote mountain regions have been among the majority of the more than 12,000 Albanians who have migrated to Britain in the past year. They ventured from their homes in the Balkans to the West European country due to “a...

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May 31, 2023

Villains

NEED TO KNOW Villains CAMBODIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/f7961b85-6c8d-4728-b55b-cbaa2e866255.png"] In a final decision, Cambodia’s Constitutional Council recently rejected the claims of opposition politicians with the Candlelight Party who said they should be allowed to stand for election in July. They had been disqualified because of incorrectly submitted registration papers, officials said. The council’s...

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May 30, 2023

The Meanest of Streets

NEED TO KNOW The Meanest of Streets HAITI [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/49e3c059-ec02-49d2-b8d4-2a7e10c83ff3.png"] Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva recently called for the richest countries in the world to help Haiti, the violence-wracked, impoverished, politically unstable nation in the Caribbean. “In Haiti, we need to act quickly to alleviate the suffering of...

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May 29, 2023

Russian Reveille

NEED TO KNOW Russian Reveille RUSSIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/db8acf88-8b4f-4b1c-bf9a-1e71d4eee94b.png"] Twenty-three years ago, respected Russian-American journalist Masha Gessen penned an op-ed in the New York Times describing the remilitarization of Russian life. She described rules and regulations to funnel boys into the service, the boosting of military spending by 50 percent,...

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May 26, 2023

Swinging Politics

[announcement] NEED TO KNOW Swinging Politics SPAIN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/9867eeee-5129-4a23-af3d-b9c85aeb55a9.png"] Aficionados of Spanish history will likely know that the fascists won the country’s civil war in the 1930s. Socialists took over in the 1980s and 90s, from 2004 until 2011, and again in 2018 when Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez of the...

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May 25, 2023

Inch By Inch

NEED TO KNOW Inch By Inch MAURITANIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/18cc7578-f1a7-4a18-81da-f90716e211fd.png"] Voters in Mauritania cast ballots in parliamentary and local government elections on May 13 and will do so again on May 27. The two rounds of voting are the first since President Mohamed Ould Ghazouani assumed power four years ago....

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May 24, 2023

Terrorist Vs. Terrorist

NEED TO KNOW Terrorist Vs. Terrorist AFGHANISTAN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/2beac6fe-a680-4765-a2ff-d329629a897c.png"] Since the US exited Afghanistan nearly two years ago, the leader of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, Hibatullah Akhundzada, has embraced the titles of “commander of the faithful” and “scholar of the Quran and the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad.”...

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May 23, 2023

Full Court Press

NEED TO KNOW Full Court Press CHINA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/198e41ed-dcee-4398-8f9e-af928160f105.png"] American and Chinese officials held more than eight hours of “candid” and “constructive” talks in Vienna two weeks ago. Among the breakthroughs, the Associated Press reported, was when White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told senior Chinese foreign policy...

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May 22, 2023

Comforting the Afflicters

NEED TO KNOW Comforting the Afflicters MALI [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/1f6bfc52-cbc4-4acf-9a51-d98604de3d93.png"] Government troops and foreign fighters – allegedly soldiers affiliated with the Wagner Group, the Russian military contractor – massacred at least 500 people in the town of Moura in Mali in late March last year, according to the United Nations...

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