Archive

March 17, 2023

The Democracy Two-Step

[announcement] NEED TO KNOW The Democracy Two-Step KAZAKHSTAN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/d52e63cf-06bb-47d0-b573-377bff5ae37c.png"] Campaign signs festooned the streets of Almaty, the largest city in Kazakhstan, in anticipation of parliamentary elections on March 19. The signs feature candidates pledging to reduce housing density in the Central Asian country’s cities, reduce prices amid worldwide inflation,...

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March 16, 2023

The Proxy Peace

NEED TO KNOW The Proxy Peace YEMEN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/ee4609f2-2073-461b-ae67-50c2f07e3c6e.png"] The civil war in Yemen kept a rusting supertanker off the coast of the Middle Eastern country from delivering one million barrels of oil. Now, in an extraordinary move, wrote Agence France-Presse, the United Nations has purchased a new tanker...

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March 15, 2023

Call Me

NEED TO KNOW Call Me GREECE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/29c83f8b-bf10-474d-8514-5af3443c9a4a.png"] A young man traveling on the train from Athens to the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki on Feb. 28 was having trouble speaking to his mother on the phone. “Mum, there are too many people on the train,” he said, according...

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March 14, 2023

Coming Due

NEED TO KNOW Coming Due GHANA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/7e0e6e88-9163-4694-b6cb-60313006b676.png"] Officials in Ghana’s finance ministry recently said talks to restructure its debt to China were “highly cordial and fruitful” – but, however, not concluded. Ghana owes China almost $2 billion. As Reuters reported, while the West African country technically is in default...

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March 13, 2023

Blazing Furnace

NEED TO KNOW Blazing Furnace VIETNAM [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/3f17a3ec-f2fd-42ee-b8c2-dd23d117cb41.png"] Vietnamese lawmakers elected Vo Van Thuong as the Southeast Asian country’s new president in early March, almost two months after his predecessor, Nguyen Xuan Phuc, was ousted due to a string of corruption scandals stemming from the coronavirus pandemic. Officials allegedly bilked...

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March 10, 2023

He Said, She Said

[announcement] NEED TO KNOW He Said, She Said ARMENIA/ AZERBAIJAN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/30fec2aa-e318-4e1c-a63d-8b70f85eb845.png"] Talks between Azerbaijani officials and the ethnic Armenian community in Nagorno-Karabakh, an enclave that Azerbaijan recently seized from Armenia in a brief war in 2020, are “encouraging news,” the European Union’s special representative for the South Caucasus told...

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March 09, 2023

S.O.S.

NEED TO KNOW S.O.S. HAITI [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/49e3c059-ec02-49d2-b8d4-2a7e10c83ff3.png"] The United Nations has appointed Ecuadoran diplomat Maria Isabel Salvador to help Haiti rebuild after a devastating earthquake in 2010, the dissolution of parliament in 2020, the 2021 assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse, and the subsequent explosion in crime, gang violence...

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March 08, 2023

Second Thoughts

NEED TO KNOW Second Thoughts SUDAN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/224b0e8f-5be6-4e44-b799-a1b865717c98.png"] Sudan’s military junta has been colluding with an affiliate of Russian military contractor the Wagner Group to plunder the strife-torn African nation’s gold, robbing impoverished Sudanese citizens of critical funds while bolstering Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The European Union recently slapped sanctions...

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March 07, 2023

Giving Back Paradise

NEED TO KNOW Giving Back Paradise CHAGOS ISLANDS [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/89d7160a-87be-e679-f5a2-cea2b674235b.png"] In the 1960s, British leaders were in the final stages of dismantling the empire that their forebears had built over the preceding 400 years. Yet, as Africans, Indians, and others were establishing their new nations, Chagossians were losing control...

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March 06, 2023

The Black Sheep and the Family

NEED TO KNOW The Black Sheep and the Family HUNGARY [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/f77307e3-d12d-4a63-bcb5-407e519df6dc.png"] Hungarian objections to Finland and Sweden entering NATO might delay a vote of the allies on accepting the two Nordic countries into the pact. As Reuters reported, Finnish and Swedish leaders appealed to join NATO last year after...

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March 03, 2023

Beyond the Horizon

[announcement] NEED TO KNOW Beyond the Horizon ESTONIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/b7b6acd0-f5d2-4704-9a83-f952a05aa061.png"] Few countries have been more stalwart in their opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine than Estonia. A former Soviet republic and current NATO member with a nearly 200-mile-long border with Russia, Estonia has for years been ringing alarm bells about Russian...

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March 02, 2023

A Dragon in the Shadows

NEED TO KNOW A Dragon in the Shadows PARAGUAY [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/ee550bff-ea25-4704-9d3e-337485aa4528.png"] When voters in Paraguay go to the polls on April 30, they will vote for every high office in the land – president, vice president, all 80 lawmakers in the Chamber of Deputies and all 45 senators, as...

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March 01, 2023

Nintendo and Synagogues

NEED TO KNOW Nintendo and Synagogues PERSIAN GULF [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/2ef43bc6-4aa5-34f4-36a6-10052b2a1cae.png"] The Arab nations of the Persian Gulf are normalizing relations with Israel, loosening some of their harsh Islamic orthodoxies, and gradually transitioning their oil-dependent economies to a post-carbon future. These changes could herald a new era of openness and prosperity....

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February 28, 2023

Don’t Leave a Message

NEED TO KNOW Don’t Leave a Message KENYA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/042c2340-7f46-4be6-b8d2-b99757193837.png"] Move over, quiet quitting. Employees who are sick and tired of bosses calling them after the end of the business day and at weekends are pushing for laws to maintain boundaries between work and non-work time. In Kenya, for example,...

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February 27, 2023

Man and Country

NEED TO KNOW Man and Country INDIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/1ac703d1-8192-40be-95ea-427a8f7ed9ee.png"] Indian billionaire Gautam Adani used to claim that the success of his energy and port facilities conglomerate, the Adani Group, reflected the rising power of his massive country’s economy. Then, in January, the New York-based Hindenburg Research investment firm accused Adani of...

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February 24, 2023

When Spring Comes

[announcement] NEED TO KNOW When Spring Comes RUSSIA/ UKRAINE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/688d90e3-5448-747d-d2c3-d415b6cbbc9b.gif"] As the US and Germany send advanced armored vehicles to help Ukraine’s cause, Russia has lost almost half of its battle tanks, reported the Guardian recently. Half of Russia’s airborne troops have died in the war between the two...

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February 23, 2023

Quite the Handoff

NEED TO KNOW Quite the Handoff NIGERIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/6c258edc-b123-4d47-98e3-f42e226ea64f.png"] Rioters in Nigeria recently attacked banks and blockaded roads to express their anger over the scarcity of cash since the country’s central bank began replacing old banknotes with new, supposedly more secure designs of the local naira currency. A shortage...

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February 22, 2023

A People, Betrayed

NEED TO KNOW A People, Betrayed LEBANON [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/0326e424-e014-0b21-f1eb-761dce1d14a3.png"] After losing their jobs and selling their cars and other assets, parents in Lebanon are giving their children to orphanages because there is nothing left to sell to feed their children. “It was a hard decision,” Hussein Kassar told the Pulitzer...

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February 21, 2023

Winter of Discontent

NEED TO KNOW Winter of Discontent UNITED KINGDOM [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/db250264-45f9-48fa-be6e-ab4d2ef0d6a5.png"] The British press is invoking memories of Margaret Thatcher, the arch-conservative prime minister who fought coal mining unions and other workers’ groups in the 1980s, to describe the current labor unrest that is crippling the United Kingdom. British workers...

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February 20, 2023

Militants-in-Waiting

NEED TO KNOW Militants-in-Waiting PAKISTAN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/eaf17bc7-6468-493e-bfe1-86954ffb120a.png"] In Pakistan late last month, a terrorist disguised as a police officer detonated a bomb in a mosque packed with law enforcement officials in Peshawar, a city in the restive northwestern region of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa bordering Afghanistan, killing more than 100 people...

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