Archive

April 14, 2023

On the Precipice

[announcement] NEED TO KNOW On the Precipice SURINAME [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/c997c02f-c706-4078-b30b-520ec1649e07.png"] Suriname’s gross domestic product (GDP) plunged by 16 percent during the coronavirus pandemic – the second worst dip in South America after the economic basket case of Venezuela. The country defaulted on its debt three times, leading the International Monetary...

Read full story →

April 13, 2023

Allies, Enemies and Other Horrors

NEED TO KNOW Allies, Enemies and Other Horrors KOSOVO [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/0999f062-2356-43ad-b3b8-f915c7878425.png"] The former president of Kosovo, Hashim Thaci, and other prominent politicians who were leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) are now on trial at a special court in the Hague for war crimes and crimes against humanity. As...

Read full story →

April 12, 2023

New Kids on the Block

NEED TO KNOW New Kids on the Block WEST BANK/ GAZA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/c7446631-e728-4689-8f2d-ebddc1f4962c.png"] For years, Fatah and Hamas have vied for control of Palestine. The largest faction in the late Yasser Arafat’s renowned Palestinian Liberation Organization, Fatah controls the occupied territories of the West Bank, where Palestinian officials uneasily cooperate...

Read full story →

April 11, 2023

The Spiral

NEED TO KNOW The Spiral BURKINA FASO [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/0c0197a8-9ef4-4935-9656-24fbfbb32b2e.png"] Security forces in Burkina Faso recently murdered a 16-year-old boy and others in Ouahigouya, a regional capital of the landlocked West African country. In a chilling report, the Associated Press detailed the teenage boy’s gruesome murder in the street, citing...

Read full story →

April 10, 2023

The Cheerleaders

NEED TO KNOW The Cheerleaders RUSSIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/db8acf88-8b4f-4b1c-bf9a-1e71d4eee94b.png"] Russian blogger Vladlen Tatarsky, 40, had been a cheerleader for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. As Reuters reported, he could be scathing of what he saw as Russia’s incompetent military establishment. But he called for Russia to assassinate Ukrainian...

Read full story →

April 07, 2023

Taking Out the Trash

[announcement] NEED TO KNOW Taking Out the Trash NICARAGUA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/b1f74445-4296-4463-949d-e92d66c3e3b1.png"] Nicaraguan officials recently aired a prison interview with Catholic Bishop Rolando Álvarez, who in February was sentenced to more than 36 years in prison on charges of treason. Critics said the interview was staged to deflate criticism of the...

Read full story →

April 06, 2023

The Hero and the Strongman

NEED TO KNOW The Hero and the Strongman RWANDA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/ae24d297-b902-4996-a757-c6a84ab9a136.png"] When ethnic Hutu militants committed genocide against members of the minority ethnic Tutsi community in Rwanda in the mid-1990s, hotelier Paul Rusesabagina sought to give refuge to more than 1,000 people. His life story inspired the 2004 film...

Read full story →

April 05, 2023

The Revolution Playbook

NEED TO KNOW The Revolution Playbook FRANCE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/d78d9fd2-f0df-4e59-9bd4-334bffdc4974.png"] French authorities last week closed the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre and other popular tourist sites as more than 740,000 workers staged strikes and demonstrations over President Emmanuel Macron’s plan to raise the legal retirement age by two years to 64...

Read full story →

April 04, 2023

Israeli Spring

NEED TO KNOW Israeli Spring ISRAEL [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/2f7ce1b6-fa2d-e80d-cdee-e2c83f69c720.png"] Civil unrest in Israel has prompted many observers to wonder if the same pro-democracy impulses that motivated Arab Spring activists more than a decade ago are now emerging in the Jewish state on the Mediterranean. The protests recently forced Prime Minister...

Read full story →

April 03, 2023

Waterfront Property

NEED TO KNOW Waterfront Property MONTENEGRO [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/4b30f1e1-b1f1-4c0b-8877-a8d9773d57e4.png"] The presidential race in tiny Montenegro, a NATO member with close ties to Russian-ally Serbia, became a proxy political contest between the West and East as tensions in southeast Europe ratchet up amid the war in Ukraine. You could say the West...

Read full story →

March 31, 2023

Joyful Warriors

[announcement] NEED TO KNOW Joyful Warriors FINLAND [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/91b0da4b-efc6-40c2-a405-00e958404c77.png"] For the fifth time in a row, Finns are the happiest people in the world. According to the United Nations’ World Happiness Report, citizens of Finland demonstrate high levels of “eudaimonia,” a term the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle coined to describe “overall...

Read full story →

March 30, 2023

Banking On It

NEED TO KNOW Banking On It WORLD [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/486ddb7e-3777-4543-ab44-3536360a3ce9.png"] Christine Lagarde, the president of the European Central Bank (ECB) recently told European Union leaders that the banking sector on the continent was strong, reported Bloomberg. Yet on the same day Lagarde spoke, shares of Deutsche Bank plunged as traders worried...

Read full story →

March 29, 2023

Books, Traffic and Trauma

NEED TO KNOW Books, Traffic and Trauma IRAQ [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/7f5678d9-eac3-49b9-9755-dcad8927e883.png"] Twenty years after the American invasion of Iraq, the booksellers of Mutanabbi Street are back again, reviving the popular Arabic saying, “Cairo writes, Beirut publishes, and Baghdad reads.” Fighting in the streets kept the customers away from this otherwise...

Read full story →

March 28, 2023

The Forever Search

NEED TO KNOW The Forever Search MEXICO [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/fcd100e2-d1bb-4cd7-b9f4-53a07a70e41c.png"] In what the BBC called a “twisted moral code,” Mexican mobsters affiliated with the Scorpions Group, a faction of the drug-running Gulf Cartel crime syndicate, recently forced five of their members to turn themselves in to police for murdering two...

Read full story →

March 27, 2023

Legion of Doom

NEED TO KNOW Legion of Doom RUSSIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/db8acf88-8b4f-4b1c-bf9a-1e71d4eee94b.png"] The prime minister of Poland, Mateusz Morawiecki, is worried. He didn’t like the implications of Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s recent three-day visit with Russian President Vladimir Putin. “The Chinese president’s visit to Moscow makes us anxious,” Morawiecki said during a...

Read full story →

March 24, 2023

When Hate Comes To Town

[announcement] NEED TO KNOW When Hate Comes To Town TUNISIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/1f262cf6-0ed8-4367-aeca-5f0f2b6684d0.png"] Tunisian President Kais Saied has recently been claiming that migrants originating from sub-Saharan Africa were coming to his North African country as part of a conspiracy to alter its largely Arab-Muslim culture. His comments came as part of...

Read full story →

March 23, 2023

Voting With Feet

NEED TO KNOW Voting With Feet CUBA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/934b8716-56c1-487d-ba72-11a855fa10c6.png"] Almost 23 years ago, heavily armed federal agents wearing body armor seized five-year-old Elián González from his relatives’ home in Miami and returned him to his father, ultimately to be taken back to Cuba. The photo of the incident was a...

Read full story →

March 22, 2023

Rubber Duck Politics

NEED TO KNOW Rubber Duck Politics THAILAND [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/9aed0fb0-f5eb-4eda-ae64-69e423143eb5.png"] Thai authorities sentenced a man to jail for two years for peddling calendars featuring rubber ducks in monarchic regalia because insulting the Thai king is illegal in the southeast Asian country. As the BBC noted, the rubber duck happens to...

Read full story →

March 21, 2023

A Hatchet in the Ground

NEED TO KNOW A Hatchet in the Ground SAUDI ARABIA/ IRAN/ CHINA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/613e746f-14cd-b434-50ae-61a59c1972d5.png"] It’s hard to say which is more remarkable about the recent peace deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran – the reconciliation between Sunni and Shiite Muslim powers who have been at odds over the future...

Read full story →

March 20, 2023

Lessons, Please

NEED TO KNOW Lessons, Please WORLD [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/486ddb7e-3777-4543-ab44-3536360a3ce9.png"] Three years ago, people around the world began lockdowns that shuttered businesses, schools, government offices, and other institutions that had been the hallmarks of everyone’s lives. Now, after Covid vaccines and other measures have reduced – but not eliminated – fears...

Read full story →